Voya Retire Reviews

VoyaRetire is fine and that’s the only things going for it. Voya as an investment company is awful. Here’s why, per a rep If I took a loan on my 457 (max being 50k) I have to setup a repayment plan. That’s fine, however I can’t pay back anything else unless I do a full payment, with a cashiers check. So if I had like 500$ I could use to pay my loan, nope, sorry we’re still making money off the interest.
So let’s talk about investment options. Do you get a wide variety of choices? Kinda, if you’re happy with them playing around with your money, taking a cut off the top and giving you a few dollars for your troubles. Can you invest in some individual stocks? Nope. Make your own portfolio? Nope. How about a self directed account? Sure they offer that but there’s a catch. You can only do a percentage of YOUR money to open a TD ameritrade account. Sure you can do whatever in it but you can’t take money out of it and you have to liquidate it so the money goes back to voya and you can use it for retirement.
There exists right now a wide range of other brokerages and their apps that are light years better than Voya. Go educate yourself about your money and investing. It’s a new age and Voya is in the past. Canceling my business with them as soon as I can.

When you log in with FaceID, after your face is scanned, VoyaRetire seems to be frozen. In other words, there is nothing being displayed on the screen to let you know VoyaRetire is trying to log you in. The user name is pre-filled (not shown) and the password field is empty. If while you wait for VoyaRetire to log you in (post face scan) on what appears to be a frozen screen and click the Log In button (again the password field is empty) the log in will fail. That in itself is not a problem if you can close VoyaRetire and try to log in again. The problem is that, you are locked out of VoyaRetire for days afterwards. A message saying System Unavailable is displayed every time you subsequently try to log in for the next few days. The popup message says: “Your account is not available. It should be available again shortly. We apologize for the inconvenience. “

I am using iPhone 10XS Max running IOS 14.4.2. Similar issue was noticed with another Voya app running on an iPhone 7S running IOS 14.5.

In 2020 I’ve watch my profile sink like a rock for weeks before I could get through to a customer service specialist to correct the free fall they watched happen. I pay for the premium service where they monitor and manage your investment Profiles, in February they watched the market as a whole sink (with my dream of retirement) they didn’t make any changes, till after March and a full blow crash. I couldn’t get through to them, the company would only do call backs. It was weeks later when I heard from them. I feel horrible for the people who trust this company till retirement. I out grossed my 5 years investment with this company in 1 year (2020). I’ve never invested on my own till 2020, nobody is going to watch your money like you, take the time to invest in yourself, build your knowledge of the stock market, be patient and do it yourself. You really couldn’t do any worse then Voya.

I was struggling to log into my account, and has tried using my pin and SSN to log in. Via VoyaRetire , there wasn’t a place to reset my password so I called in. The representative i spoke with was condenscedning and said, “So you’re frustrated with VoyaRetire because you put in the wrong password?” when I was trying to tell him I was frustrated with the system. Ultimately I just said thank you very much and went on with my day because he was not helpful or even understanding about how my experience with it was. This should be improved if Voya cares about their customers experience because at least listening to frustrations will make customers feel heard and improve their systems. It isn’t hard to be a little compassionate and then focus on solutions because people who call in are calling for help at the end of the day, not for rudeness and condescension.

This software does not work very well even when it is functioning as intended. But it’s also not reliable. Right now, it works on my iPad, but the iPhone version says, “System Unavailable. We apologize . . . Please try again later.”
It has done this for a few weeks now.
Since I’m logged in when this happens, Voya should be aware that they’ve got a problem.
Regarding the general usability of VoyaRetire and the Voya website, I’d suggest that somebody spend a few days trying different trading platforms, and contrast the differences between checking balances on, say, Fidelity and Voya. Try out the trading function. Review past transactions. Do these things, and it won’t be hard to see the areas in which Voya can improve.

VoyaRetire is just horrible. Compared to the seamless Fidelity app, this is a major step down. Too bad my employer had switched to Voya as administrator of 401k. Retirement projections are impossible to simulate: It says to move the slider or input contribution value, but there are no sliders or input table anywhere. Once you click on a performance graph, you have for it VoyaRetire because there is no “back” button. Fund performance sheets are from 6/30 as of 11/18. Fund performance sheets do not show any dividends (even through there are dividends). You cannot access statements from VoyaRetire. You cannot access current fund performance or yesterday’s fund price. Need I go on? We are all lobbying our employer to switch back to Fidelity.

Love the squirrels, and the data investors are presented with, but that’s where it ends.

Unfortunately, this is what I’m stuck with. The State of Delaware changed brokerage firms some time ago from Fidelity, etc. then to Voya. So it was either enjoy the benefit of payroll deduction through the state’s plan or wade through the times with Voya. BTY, the plan isn’t so portable for me, because it’s in a 457(b) plan.

Throughout the the years I stated my complaints to Voya and never received a reply. Matter of fact, I even challenged them a few times to show me they cared by reaching out to me - nothing.

On top of that, they aren’t happy with collecting fund fees from the thousands of employees that invest with them. You either have an account with an advisor or they take a monthly fee from you account.

Every time I log into my Voya account I mumble.”I hate Voya.” Can’t wait until the state changes it’s brokerage firm again!

My employer just switched to Voya & it feels like I stepped back to 2010 with VoyaRetire. The navigation makes zero sense. Why is the tab bar controller not the root of the UI? Instead, you have to tap on your account before it pushes a new tab bar controller on top of the existing navigation stack. Then the home tab pops you to the root of the navigation stack? Why isn’t the home view just the first tab of the tab bar controller? In addition to actual app quality, the technical service behind it seems poor. For some reason, account balances don’t update for what appears to be at least 24 hours. It makes me question whether I should trust Voya & it makes me want to investigate alternative investments.

I wouldn’t be using this if I didn’t need to.

VoyaRetire feels like it was made overnight, useless, it doesn’t show investment performance history past ytd, and even that is shown by a pathetically simple graph, no way to search performance(actual numbers, prices,past or present) of any investments, basic isn’t the word, absolutely horrible, VoyaRetire looks and acts like it was written by a child with basic coding experience and zero investment knowledge. Already looking at other firms to move my accounts, because if this is an example of their companies dedication to details, don’t exactly feel safe with them handling my future.

I sent question to voya about this and no response in a week. The contribution history is two cumulative numbers; company total and my total contributions. It does not show me my monthly contribution to see if what is taken from my paycheck lands here. Horrible.
Click the button for “investments” and taken to a web link that fails seven time so far.
There should be a extremely clear to read “investment products” button on main menu so we can look at investment options.
I can’t find a button to read all investment options unless I want to rebalance.

Did not think it possible for VoyaRetire to get worse, but the new upgrade version has managed to achieve. Several useful functions have been eliminated including ability to view transactions. You can’t see the daily transactions anymore in VoyaRetire . Want to see your contributions? All you can do now is see YTD. Voya keeps screwing their users and the dummy companies who use them to administrate their 401k. Voya must be a the industry low cost provider because there is zero excuse for this level of service and functionality. Spouse Vanguard App is 100% better in every single way.

Well by golly, then done gone did it... welcome to 2017, and a notch-compatible app! Despite the new polish, this doesn’t change the fact that VoyaRetire is still a piece of s*%t. Sorry devs, maybe try a bit harder next time. I mean, Voya is ripping us a new one with all the fees they collect from us. It’s not like they don’t have some extra cash to spend on a better app.

PREVIOUS REVIEW:
VoyaRetire is a total piece of garbage. Voya should be ashamed to have this out there. They’d be better off just pulling it at this point. As all others have commented, the sign-in process is broken... no Touch ID/Face ID. Even though the password is stored in my iCloud Keychain, I have to maunaully fill it every time I want to login. Voya - PLEASE UPDATE YOUR APP or pull this from VoyaRetire Store!!

I would love to be able to filter each fund and look at the +/- over a selected period of time; day, week, month year etc. currently this is not an option. VoyaRetire also does not show all accounts that the online site does show. VoyaRetire also doesn’t feel update or fluid. All in all I get most of the info I want or need, these are just suggestions and hope to see improvements.

Better layout and information delivery needed. Fund lookup is antiquated and information is definitely lacking. Match funds against peers and up to date Quarterly outlook in a more user friendly easily gleaned format. My account is limited to like 30 funds and info in these funds should be better presented. These are your funds and you should sell them / portray them in a more immersive way so customer can look at these funds in a more 3D fashion.
Thank you

I am happy that VOYA does so much for security with VoyaRetire. However I would like to get an email notice when VoyaRetire will be down for updates. I realize that these are almost always during weekends, but I won’t be notified if I’m not on VoyaRetire the day before the site will be down. I would much prefer a text or email on that Friday in case I’m unable to check on my account the day before. Even if the notice by text or email was at the exact time it goes down so that I will know things are okay and when it’s going back online, and the site has not been just hacked.

VoyaRetire use too many screens to get to specific information. Also VoyaRetire Cumulative lacks a cumulative overall combined summary for all combined accounts. Other applications such as Mint, Personal Capital, etc. provide cumulative summaries on a single page when first opening their apps.

If would be awesome if VoyaRetire also included a cumulative summary of shares, cost per share and cumulative time summaries on a single page for all finds the user owns. Some users do not mind a little extra scrolling.

I understand that the idea is to simplify things for people who do not understand investing and the fundamentals. Please add a feature or link within VoyaRetire to direct those users to a simple resource that provides some key fundamentals for those users. However, for those who desire to see advanced information only pertinent to our existing holding add advanced features and functionality. Not just links to prospectuses.

VoyaRetire does and shows everything you could want except one fundamental need; what are the performances of each individual fund... not just YTD but like the last 6 mos, and last 12 mos. Not the rate with your contributions, just the fund return rates. VOYA includes this in their paper statements but if it’s available in VoyaRetire , I can’t find it. Historical performance by fund is what an investor wants to see to evaluate different options against other funds.

VoyaRetire has various cool features and help tools. You can manage your contribution levels and modify your retirement goals in one place.

The downside is dependability. Although the company is making frequent updates to VoyaRetire , it appears to have service interruptions about 1/3 of the time. Quite frequently when you log in, VoyaRetire will not respond and hangs up at the login screen. This wouldn’t be as bad an issue, except that it happens pretty frequently.

Once they fix the dependability issues, it will be a strong management tool.

VoyaRetire is pretty straight forward. Well organized. I haven’t experienced any crashes (unlike other financial apps that I’ve tried). VoyaRetire allows you to see your current balance, you can see your allocations, it allows you to adjust your contributions, and more than I care to go into. Best part, it didn’t cost me anything, and when it comes to upgrades, VoyaRetire doesn’t require me to rehash my password.

I’ve been using VoyaRetire since couple of years now but since past two months, application takes my Face ID or credentials which are correct but doesn’t logs in. It just remains on login screen. Something iOS 14.1 has changed their behavior??? Please correct this issue.

Whatever the most recent upgrade, my login and password are frequently deemed incorrect. They have been reset several times. Voya customer service is worse than VoyaRetire . When I first got through to someone on the phone, the analyst was friendly but that’s about it; she told me that someone would get back to me in 5 to 10 working days to access my account. Are you kidding? When I finally got in not quite two weeks later someone called me on a Saturday and asked if I had ever been helped. I’m not sure how they got their “most ethical” rating.

I like VoyaRetire for my workplace 401k (although I have no choice). It will show you your YTD rate of return, however I wish it would show you your daily/ytd rate of returns on each position you are invested in. Almost every other investment app does this. YTD is useful but I like seeing multiple other time frame rates of return too.

Dear developer
I have two investments 457 and 401K with Voya. I can see individual total of each investment. But I’m looking for grand total. Can you add the grand total in VoyaRetire ? If possible? I think that would be easy for you guys to do that. Thanks for developing great and excellent app. Please keep updating a new items for exciting and adventure for us. Excellent work! You can add Grand Total of an investment next to the customer’s name on the top.