A New Jersey woman is accusing a Sprint store employee of stealing over $1,000 from her using her Venmo account.
The woman, who did not wish to be identified, tells News 12 New Jersey that she brought her cellphone to a Sprint store in Newark because it stopped working. She says that a worker gave her a new phone and took the old iPhone to be wiped clean of personal information.
She says that she started to get notifications that money was being transferred out of her bank using the mobile banking app Venmo.
“I was completely in shock. I couldn't believe it,” she says. “I knew she was in the break room transferring money out of my phone.”
The victim says that the worker allegedly transferred $1,600 using the app. Bank of America flagged the transactions and refunded the money by Wednesday.
A spokesperson for the Newark Police Department tells News 12 that an investigation is underway, but did not say if any arrests have been made.
Management at the Sprint store declined to comment.
“You feel just violated at a very personal level and I'm sure there's a lot of us that understand how valuable the data we have on our phone is to us,” the victim says.
She says that her Venmo account is still frozen because the worker allegedly changed the email connected to it.