Was donating to a charitable cause in Niger and was able to use the word "Niger" in late April ("sadaqah" = charity in Arabic): https://imgur.com/a/yq1tWCq<p>I no longer can. Two examples with the word "Niger" in it: https://imgur.com/a/pDunMej<p>Reproduced on someone else's phone as well.<p>I suspect it's because 1) of recent USA events and 2) "Niger" is one letter away from being the n-word. Contacted customer support but they didn't seem to understand I was trying to file a bug report. My goal isn't to get a customer service rep in trouble, so I won't bother posting the transcript unless people think it would be helpful.<p>Ideas on how to inform Venmo of this? Wanted to create an Ask HN, but couldn't figure out a short enough question for the title character limit.
This demonstrates why censorship via automation is so difficult. You basically need to understand a lot of the context around the use-case, in order to determine if the word should be allowed/disallowed.<p>Even if you succeed, people evade these systems by developing slang and substituting special characters...<p>Preventing hate speech from users is a very hard problem, with automation alone.
Hit up their public accounts such as Twitter/facebook etc. They will probably respond more promptly there. Be nice about it and let them know the issue in a clear and coherent way.
Stop using venmo & probably paypal. They uniquely block transactions based on stupid keyword basis. Also happens with 'persian food'.<p>On top of that, venmo really wants to make your transactions public, while ones like square cash do not. I also don't think they do the stupid keyword thing too.
It's sad when a whole country becomes a racial slur in some other country. But I guess for every person who has a valid reason to use the word, there are a thousand trolls trying to use the country name as a loophole. So I'm not surprised if customer service thinks you're filing a troll bug report.
1 is actually the likely answer and IIRC has to do with regulations beyond Venmo (experienced something similar with a different country). They likely won't be able to help beyond suggesting not mentioning it in your description.
Venmo only allows payments to <i>individuals</i> (unless it's an approved venmo merchant), and only <i>within the USA</i>.<p>You're violating their terms of service six ways to Sunday, donating to a charity in Niger.<p>In your case, Venmo is The Wrong Tool for the Job.