A Financial Service for People Fed Up With Banks

I think a lot of people are missing the core of Simple. It's the "Safe to Spend" Idea. I've used simple for the past 8 months and it's helped me get into an even better mindset about saving/allotting money. I used to bank with PNC and use their budgeting tools but the safe to spend idea is just that; money you are free to use.

EDIT: For added perspective I'm an early twenties recent college grad.

Just the other day I realized that I had a credit card payment due and it was slightly higher than I expected (Holiday Spending) and I went into a minor panic as I was a little frazzled in paying it. I logged into simple and that's when I realized that I created a goal that was my credit card limit. This meant over the past month I had already slowly been paying down the bill without even realizing it. Everyday a small portion of my safe to spend was put into that goal. I made the payment without even "rebudgeting". That was a great feeling. I'm living well within my means but I feel like I have more money than ever. Simple makes it easy to keep yourself in check. I have a few items I plan on purchasing in the near future and I just created a few goals so that when the time comes I'll already have paid for it.

Lastly, the at a glance view of your finances without much ado is GREAT. I have an automatically generated daily average income/spending for the day/week/month/year averaged over various periods. I have graphs that show me how my funds have fluctuated and I'm starting to see some patterns in my spending habits. I've haven't banked like this before and I'm excited to see where else they can help.

I tried signing up for Simple, and the entire experience was pretty terrible. I realize that they're a new company trying to tackle a big problem so I wanted to cut them some slack, but the ways in which they messed up are hard to forgive.

Last July, I got my invitation to use Simple.com, which I'd been really excited about for over a year. I start signing up, and instantly I'm surprised by how their signup form is both the most visually attractive form I'd ever used on a website, and how it barely worked. I ran into three different bugs just with the initial signup form.

One of the bugs was that it asks what type of smartphone I have. When I selected Android, it said to submit the form, but that they don't have an Android app yet. No problem, I don't care about a mobile app. The problem is that when you selected Android, the form broke and there was no way to submit it. I'd already spent several minutes filling out the form (including giving them info on my other bank account to transfer money into Simple) and I didn't want to lose all my info, so I just said that I had an iPhone so I could continue signing up.

Then I get to the next screen where it says that the only way to continue the signup process is to install the iPhone app. Of course I couldn't do this, so I emailed their support explaining that I'd mistakenly said I have an iPhone because of a bug with their signup form. I get a response back saying that if I don't have an iPhone, there's no way to use Simple, so I'd have to be added to the Android waiting list.

One problem: they'd already taken the money out of my other bank account. I assumed that they hadn't done this because I'd never actually signed up or agreed to their terms or anything like that (you agree to the terms via their app). I actually only know that they transferred money out of my account because a different support person emailed me in November asking why in the world I wasn't using my Simple account. I responded saying that I'd already talked to them about this, and I didn't have an iPhone. That person told me that I didn't need an iPhone and that I could use the service by logging in online. I forwarded her the email from a different Simple support person contradicting what she said, and she just dismissed it (basically saying, "yeah, that's not true") without apologizing or offering an explanation.

So I tried resetting my password online so I could log in, only to run into yet another bug with their software. The password reset feature was completely broken. So I emailed the support person saying that their password reset feature didn't work. She ignored the issue (no apology, no explanation, nothing) and just told me that I don't need an iPhone without explaining how to actually get into the software, or why I was given incorrect information earlier.

That's where we are now. I've been run in circles by their customer service, I've encountered a half dozen different bugs, and that's without even being able to log in! My next step is to call their 800 number, but I'm already completely fed up with the experience and I won't be a customer of theirs regardless of the resolution at this point. I've been frustrated by every bank I've ever dealt with, but none of them have been as bad as Simple so far.

I seriously hope they get these kinks worked out so that other potential customers don't have the experience I've had.

The online website of most banks is confusing for mostly technical reasons, not because they are trying to screw you by opening the wrong account. Stop by a branch and your local banker will help you find the right account for you, free of charge.

USAA membership is. You can get a USAA bank account without being a USAA member, but you don't get all the same privileges.

It figures that the guy who started this is Australian. Australia has some of the worst banks in the world in terms of customer service. Last week I was in a bank (Commonwealth Bank of Australia) with my wife attempting to negotiate a better deal in terms of her account fees, which I believe are exorbitant at approx $10 per month for a basic savings account w/online banking. She'd been with them for 25+ years and had a reasonably significant account balance. They didn't budge on anything, even after she asked them to close her account. I was totally appalled at their attitude.