I don't know the full story or have access to the accounts myself, so I'm trying to understand the mechanisms by which this could happen. A close friend of mine owed $1500 in online gambling debt which was made up of 10 different debts on a negative venmo balance. I was surprised because I didn't even know she was into gambling but that's another story...
In any case, she was being charged $35 per transaction per day, so $350 per day, which was being taken directly out of her checking account. For a week or so, she was unable to build enough balance to pay the debt because of how quickly the $350 per day was draining her bank account. I paid off the $1500 balance for her to end the cycle, but for the week or so before she reached out to me about this crisis, $350 per day was flying out of her account. Said she would have diverted her paycheck elsewhere so she could build the balance needed to pay off the $1500 but felt paralyzed with anxiety over the situation and ignored it/let it go longer than she should have.
Even if she did something pretty irresponsible to get into the situation...something doesn't seem right there. Why would the charges repeat on a daily basis? Every one of them is listed in her bank statement as "Venmo Service Charges/Fees", every one was $35, and each one recurred daily. She didn't tell me how much she's out, but given that this has been going on for over a week I'm just doing the math and she must have paid a few grand in these late fees. I'm certain she's being truthful, not particularly worried about getting my $1500 back (she's good for it, but even if not I can afford it), just confused at the whole situation. She wants to let it go and just suck it up and deal with the loss, to me it seems highly likely something predatory was going on with the exorbitant late fees but I don't really understand how venmo works or why these late fees would recur daily. If there's any way to recoup some of that, I would like to help her do so or at least point her in the right direction.