Simple - Mobile Banking Reviews

by Nursepeaches

Ive had this app for almost 2 yrs now and loved it. The alerts when you spend, photo deposits, and Simple were all great...until I moved. I relocated and was staying in corporate paid hotel for about a week and called to alert this app of an unauthorized hold for literally $1. They immediately cut off my card without even contacting me back.
They then refused to send my card to the new address and the rep said there should be someone at my old address that could give me the card. When I explained I live alone with two children and there wasnt I received a series of emails on how this app shouldn't be my only bank and the hotel should be able to give me something saying Im staying there even if they are paying for it. A week later and after sending in multiple photos, documents, messaged and calls I still cant get a new card because the photo of me in front of my new address isn't clear enough...I have an iphone 7. I even sent in an email to show where I was having service connected at the new apt Im moving to in my name. Still not enough. this app has some great features, just know if you ever loose your card and happen to be out of town or recently relocated just know you may be treated like you’re trying to steal your own money. You'll have to wait for emails to be responded and the approval is at the whim of whoever happens to get the email.

by Djjazzynick

Oh man I had high hopes but not high expectations. I read the reviews (many negative ones) but really liked what they were offering, and still do. So I thought I’d give them a try with the mind set that there might be bumps in the road but with patience and good communication most problems can be fixed.
Well, that’s usually the case but both parties have to have the mindset to have things workout.
The issue I experienced was my external account was permanently stuck on “verifying”. I went through the process of providing the required documents, twice infact, but to no avail. They even admitted it was an issue on their end, which is fine because I expected some issues. The problem is that they aren't really a bank. More like a third party administrator. So the customer service is slow, and a wide variety of knowledge between the employees. Haveing to reexplain your situation is tiresome, it became abundantly clear that the power they had was extremely limited. One of the people that was "trying" to help said she isn't even using this app for her personal use.
Anyway, I really tried to make it work for 3 months I just kept getting "our team is working on it". Any the only communication was what I would initiate went checking in. I hope they get it together, their features sound nice, but it'll never work if they don't have more control on the banking end.

by Ender69

Customers service is some of the worst I have seen. If you get someone who doesn’t know what to do or what they are doing, then you are stuck with that person. They cannot transfer you to a manager or anyone else for that matter. I have called them three time since opening the account and two of those times the person didn’t know what to do and just started making stuff up. Sentence that started with “I think it might be something” or “It’s probably something in Simple ” or “Maybe our system is missing up” or “I think we are having problems with the” are the normal stuff I have gotten. It is obviously an outside call center that hires anyone. There is no actual banking employees to talk to. These people don’t know anything about banking. There are other options for banks just like this. Pick one of those. Charles Schwab bank is great. All ATMs in the world are free. My friend uses one called Chime bank that is a better version of the this online bank. Think about a different bank. Plus they hold checks for over two weeks. And transfers from my other bank for three. They said they think it’s a federal thing when I asked them why my money is not in the account. Worst customer service.

P.S. NEVER WRITE YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER ON YOUR CHECK! That is a good way to have your account stolen. My other bank tells me not to do this. LOL

by Rich Bee-yotch

Simple will give you the false impression that a transfer has successfully gone through when in fact it has not. This happened to me multiple times when I was attempting to fund my goals and withdraw funds from my goal account. The support people said to just wait a few days and try again. I’m not sure how this is even acceptable for a bank in this day and age.
—update—
It’s even worse than I feared. My money is locked in their so-called “Protected” account and I have no way to access those funds despite multiple attempts to move the money out of there using Simple . Same story— I submit the transfer request, app gives me a success message, but the money is still stuck there. This is a serious issue.
—update2—
After a week of support folks trying to figure this out (nice folks btw), my funds are still trapped in the protected goals. I cannot trust this bank. A bank’s fundamental responsibility to its customers is to give them access to their money when they need it. What if this was needed for an emergency? Now I’ll probably have to go through the hassle of launching a complaint through BBB or taking some more serious action to get my money released.

by Bugbucket

Like you (probably) I was very excited about the prospect of a this app, easy to use online banking service with great graphic design and a fluid app. I made an account, got approved, and expected the card to arrive in about a week. It didn’t. I started doing some digging - I called in to their help line. Ten minutes of hold music and no one picked up, at 2pm on a weekday. I thought maybe it was a busy time, I tried again 7am the next day. Twenty minutes and still no one.

Looked online and found dozens upon dozens of disgruntled reviews stating that this app was hard to get ahold of, terse and unaccommodating when someone actually picked up, prone to locking accounts whenever suspicious activity happened and locking your money away with no way to transfer out, not to mention long transfer times and a bill paying system that apparently can and will delay payments without notification.

I’m throwing the card in the garbage once it actually arrives and going with a competitor - I’ve heard great things about Chime, and PocketGuard is a free app that does exactly the same “in your pocket” budgeting that this app does, but connected directly to your NORMAL bank account. Have fun!!

by Itsjewlian

Love the idea of this app but the execution is disappointing. They really, really need to work on fixing Expenses. Money isn’t set aside when you get paid for Expenses, and expenses only truly work with automated monthly bills (Netflix and payments that you have auto-pay set up with). You can’t send check payments via an expense which is the reason I can’t stick with this app for the time being. Also, 2% interest only works on “protected goals” and you can only create a single protected goal (emergency fund) and one is created for you (savings goal). I use this app to create multiple goals for vacation, Xmas gifts, etc so all that money that is put aside for these goals is accruing basically 0% interest. Once expenses are fixed and worked on and once they allow unlimited (for at least ~20) protected goals, I’ll be sticking with discover.

Update: had to change my review to 1 star unfortunately, due to the fact that they’re removing bill pay (having this app send a check on your behalf) and opting instead for physical, paper checks for the customer. Not sure why both couldn’t have been an option, but this is a huge negative for me :/

by Fun Shot

Apps have glitches, that’s expected. But when you have a purely app based banking system, then you need better customer service to offset tech issues. this app does not plan for this.
An issue with usability and malfunctioning in their app caused me to pause setting up a savings account. I did not click a submit/confirm/setup button. The screen was stalled on setup referring to daily transfers, which I did not want. I also refreshed to confirm that no savings goal showed as being set up, nor transfers appeared in scheduled.
After the weekend, this app tried to withdraw the amount from my linked bank account anyway. The new goal now appeared under savings goals, where it did not previously appear. And usability? Transfers still did not show this activity, because they don’t show all activity under the account or optional comprehensive view.
Their customer service team was completely unhelpful and offered no solutions or support.
Luckily I have a good customer support system at my other bank, which will now be earning my whole families business instead of the “this app” accounts we set up for our kids.

by Kyle Richard

I love my bank, but this review is specifically about Simple . There used to be a bar along the bottom that allowed you to quickly tap between your activity, expenses, and goals. Now all of that is hidden in a hamburger menu. I don't understand how they continue to push this UI in later updates despite a) the hamburger being a very outdated mobile UX concept and b) most other financial apps using a context switcher that stays fixed at the bottom of the screen. It wasn't broke but they changed it anyway and shipped garbage to their customers. Now after several updates with the new UI, I'm not seeing any improvements — in fact, more performance issues plague the platform. At one point things like transferring to goals and expenses happened instantly in Simple . Now all of these things take multiple seconds of staring at a loading spinner that covers the entire screen, making Simple unusable when it's performing an operation of any kind. I switched to this bank from Chase because of the better user experience, now I am getting so fed up with Simple and the bank as a whole that I'm considering ditching it altogether. Get your act together or you will lose customers!

by Schultzypoo

this app keeps adding important features (protected savings, shared accounts), which is great, but in an apparent effort to stay "this app" new features are hard to access and key features are missing or incomplete. this app is complex and obtuse, it is an opaque veneer on a convoluted half-implemented bank account. Why can't I print my own arbitrary transaction history? I had to contact support multiple times for this while buying a house. Why can't I see balance totals with every transaction? I've had money disappear (data trust issue) and then reappear in my account, apparently because of a pending transaction which I couldn't see. I couldn't show when it went missing because there is no running total next to each transaction. Why is it so hard to find transactions for my protected account? Why do I have to have individual accounts in addition to my shared account? Why can't I make a wire transfer from this app? Why can't automatic goal transfers be deposited twice a month? And why, why, why is there no iPad app??? I've used this app for a long time and I really want it to be good, but it's more frustrating than this app.

by Missee21

I’ve had an account with this app for about 3-4 years now. For the most part I haven’t had serious issues with them, perhaps because I have a back up account with a physical bank and my this app account was one that I used sporadically. this app isn’t the most convenient, but if you don’t need a physical branch it seems like a decent option, especially because there are no fees.
My trouble began when I lost my wallet and my rarely used this app card happened to not be in it, which made it into the only card I had. I asked my husband to write me a check so I could have money on my account while traveling. this app put my check on hold for a period of 5 days, which turned into 9, without anyone being able to give me an accurate answer about when my money would be available. I have never deposited a check that bounced or over-drafted my account. There was no reason for the hold in the first place, especially because all of my prior checks (personal and business) were made available the following day. I was left frustrated and inconvenienced.
I will be closing my this app account. You can find a better bank with less hassle.

by Al4now

Been using for almost a year and can’t see how I did without it. Was using a traditional bank for almost 20 years and it really was hard to switch. This was recommended by our financial planner and has been a lifesaver. The budgeting tool definitely took a little getting used to but is what has helped us so much. I’m a big believer of set it and forget it and this app makes this so easy. I’ve even been able to set up a couple of small savings accounts for travel and Christmas.

The only two issues I have is the lack of a brick and mortar store and an inconsistent amount of money coming out for budget. I still get paid sometimes in cash and trying to go through the process of depositing cash can be a real hassle. The external transfer tool would not recognize our regions account and the only help we get from this app is try again later. We did and it still doesn’t work. The second issue is I get paid every two weeks and the variance of what comes out for my budget can be as high as $400 each two weeks. I wish the budgeting tool could try and keep that consistent. Other than that I really love this app.

by Scdundas

I have been using this app for about three years now. I haven’t had any major issues during that time. I once woke up to find I had some fraudulent charges on my account , I blocked my card and sent a message and and got a response super quick, that asked if I had access to funds until my new card came and had me call when I was at an atm so they could briefly unblock my card long enough for me to withdraw cash. This was a weekend so it took until Monday to get my new card. I love that when I sent a message I can attach the transactions in question to speed up the response, within 4 hours they had returned the money to my account, I have never had such a fast resolution to these kinds of issues with any other bank. this app has also added features that are super helpful, the new budgeting feature works much better than the goals for regular bills. It automatically sets money aside for my bills (insurance, rent, phone etc.) and when those come due it spends from those budgeting categories. I always know how much money I have available to spend but rarely look at my full account balance but I always know that the important things are already covered without me having to think about it.
I love this app and I tell people about it all the time. A lot of people have a hard time giving up a traditional bank, but they don’t know what they’re missing.

by Sxklass

I read alot of the comments and I don't really write reviews about apps but after reading the comments I felt I needed to write one, for the next set of bankers looking at a online banking account. I love this app I have had little to no trouble with the customer service team, the bank experience and Simple itself. this app is one of my most go to bank. I get some of my paycheck deposit into the account and it works just like and somethings better than your regular bank. I do think this app bank is probably the best online banking out there. If I have a problem I just send a message through Simple to the customer service team and they would get back to me within 24hours. 99% of the time they will solve the Issue and I am happy. I never had any troubles using the bank card anywhere or using it with my Apple Pay. Of course with online banking you give up the freedom to just deposit cold hard cash into the account but once your pass that, this app is easily the best. Plus the saving tools are a great use.

by Turbo-Dash

I usually don’t leave reviews however I would like to share my experience with this app. It was great the entire time until I wasn’t able to get any help with my account. Kira from this app was amazing and without her help i would still be having trouble with my account due to another department having to review my account, however after speaking with Kira she owned the problem and made it her duty to help me get my account situated. She went above and beyond by reaching out to that department all through the day to make sure someone from the other department reached out to me and resolved my issue which has been going on for over 3 weeks and until today I was not able to get any help and it’s just amazing that when an employee decides to go above and beyond for you it reminds you that good people who care about other people’s lives are still out there! Kira you’re Amazing and I thank you again for you all you’ve done!!!

P.S.
Promote Kira and have her train and share her skills with the rest of the this app team!!!

by R.R.D.

I’ve considered myself a fairly competent adult when it comes to basic money matters. I think I was overestimating myself. After switching to this app checking/debit from Bank of America, I’ve managed to save $20,000 over the course of a year! I clearly wasn’t being very disciplined when it came to saving. this app made this so easy for me. I seriously have no stress about money anymore. Yay.

Keep in mind you will need a separate savings account to put your extra money into every once in a while. this app is not your only banking solution! It’s not easy to quickly get large sums of money out of a this app account, so be an adult and open a savings account at another bank. (You’re not going to accrue very much interest on a checking account anyway, so don’t turn down that extra money.)

I do wish that there were more ATMs in he this app network. I moved to a new neighborhood in Seattle and there are no affiliated ATMs here. That said, who gets cash at an ATM anymore?