I was still in the hazy just-past-newborn phase with my son when someone sent me $500. Between diaper changes and endless bounce sessions on the yoga ball, I got a push notification on my phone.
"Anna sent you $500.00 - Antique table - You now have $500.00 in your Venmo account."
Free money! Like most new parents, I had plenty of ideas for how to budget an unexpected $500. (Venmo, a digital wallet app owned by Paypal, took a seller transaction fee of 1.9% plus another 10 cents, so my $500 was actually $490.40.) But I had neither possessed nor sold an antique table. I was running on minimal sleep, but my scam sense was tingling. Anna had sent me the money by accident — or had she? Wouldn't you double-check someone's phone number before sending them that much money?
