PayPal sent private Venmo transaction data to outside companies, a new class action alleges

On Sept. 1, 2026, four California residents filed a class action lawsuit against PayPal Inc., the company that owns and operates Venmo, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The complaint alleges PayPal embedded third-party tracking software into Venmo and routed users' names, contact details and payment records, including transactions users marked private, to two outside data companies.

Venmo's alleged privacy promises

Every Venmo payment logs who paid whom, how much and why, and the note describing the payment's purpose is mandatory once a user sets an account to private, the complaint says.

The Venmo privacy statement says the platform "does not disclose your personal information with third parties for their promotional or marketing purposes," and Venmo's help center says a payment marked private will not appear "anywhere other than in your personal transactions feed under the Me tab and with the other participant."

The tracking claims

PayPal deliberately built tracking technology from mParticle Inc. and Kochava Inc. into Venmo, the lawsuit claims. Neither company is a defendant.

The data reportedly included:

  • The sender's full name, email address and telephone number
  • The sender's Android Advertising ID, mParticle ID and Kochava ID
  • The recipient's identity, the amount paid and the transaction note

The complaint contends the trackers did not anonymize or aggregate the data they sent and the transmissions happened no matter which privacy setting a user picked. The filing describes mParticle as a customer data platform that builds persistent profiles for advertising partners and Kochava as a mobile attribution company that also works as a data broker. The Federal Trade Commission sued Kochava over its sale of sensitive consumer data, and the company settled in May 2026, the complaint notes.

Plaintiff Remi Rundzio of Westminster wrote his daughter's name and information about a class she took into a payment note, the lawsuit alleges. Those details reportedly reached mParticle and Kochava

Venmo's reported new arbitration terms

The class action also challenges a user agreement PayPal put into effect on Aug. 24, 2026, roughly a week before the filing. The plaintiffs call its arbitration provisions unconscionable and ask the court to strike them.

The terms reportedly require a handwritten signature on any dispute notice, stretch the informal resolution period from 45 to 60 days and cap how many similar claims can move forward at once, allowing only 50 total when 25 or more coordinated disputes exist. The lawsuit claims PayPal also dropped its earlier promise to cover arbitration fees on claims of $10,000 or less. Existing users can only reject the changes by closing their accounts, according to the proposed class action.

The legal claims

The lawsuit brings 10 claims:

  • Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which bars unauthorized interception of electronic communications
  • California Invasion of Privacy Act, Sections 631 and 632, which are state wiretapping provisions covering interception and recording
  • Intrusion upon seclusion and Article I, Section 1 of the California Constitution, which are privacy claims reaching highly offensive intrusions
  • California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, which bars unauthorized access to a person's device
  • Unfair Competition Law and unjust enrichment, which covers unlawful business practices and profits a company should not keep
  • Two negligence claims, which are built on the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the California Financial Information Privacy Act

The plaintiffs seek damages, restitution, disgorgement, an injunction and attorneys' fees.

What this means for Venmo users

The proposed nationwide class and California subclass cover Venmo users who set their accounts or payments to private, whose information still reached mParticle or Kochava and who have not already filed an arbitration demand against PayPal.

PayPal has not responded to the complaint or admitted wrongdoing. There is no settlement and no claims process as of filing.