Remember when P2P app Venmo added an instant transfer, but then said it would charge a $0.25 flat fee for it? Well, now Venmo users will be charged a 1% fee, which could mean more than its flat fee in a lot of cases. It will in fact always be as much or more, since $0.25 is now the minimum charge.

PayPal-owned Venmo, introduced the “instant transfer,” option in February. Perhaps, bank-backed P2P app Zelle’s instant money transfer provided the impetus for Venmo’s decision to add this option. But the transfer on Zelle is free, on Venmo it is not. And now, users might be annoyed that will likely have to pay more than the flat rate.

But Venmo’s loss might be Zelle’s gain:

Instant transfer cost gets pegged at 1% by #Venmo. Should drive some users to #Zellehttps://t.co/xhlB4ni5R9

via @GoogleNews

— Patti Hewitt (@PaymentGal) October 14, 2018

Others defended the move — consumers are getting used to paying for instant transfer.

What is not fair about this? The standard option is free and Venmo is incurring costs for the transfers themselves..

— lito coen (@litocoen) October 15, 2018

In typical Venmo style, instead of using its blog to inform users of any changes, the service sent users an email today stating that from November 6th onwards it would change its “instant transfer,” to a 1% fee, with the minimum transfer fee being $0.25. 

Of course, this is not the first time Venmo changed things unexpectedly. In June, it announced it was phasing out the payment functionality on its website. “Over time you may see less functionality on the website – this is just the start….venmo.com website may be limited,” the June notice read, and now this: