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What’s the gimmick with the Albert app?
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They advance you $250 with no interest, credit check, or late fees. What’s the deal? Are they mining personal financial data in return? Clearly they’re getting something out of this.
Top Comment: From my 2 mins on their website, Albert is a challenger bank which means they offer banking services but are not an actual bank, The bank is some actual bank in the background with all the money. Their $250 is their max OD protection coverage and they also offer the $250 advance on your direct deposit. They are doing the same thing that every other challenger bank is doing, no OD fees and advancing you your DD early. Only difference is they only advance you $250 no matter your direct deposit amount. They are making money the same way all banks are, debit card transactions and other services like investments and holding/using your cash.
DON’T use Albert
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Ngl, I feel like I went full Karen on the Albert customer service rep. But I am beyond frustrated with this app. I’ve never done an advance on this app, I only downloaded it because I am bad at saving and thought this would help me. But if you are living paycheck to paycheck, it makes it 10x harder. They were constantly pulling out random amounts of money on completely random times no matter how much money is in your account, rn I’m in the negative and am going to have to pay an additional fee from my bank bc of this stupid ass app. $6 here, $15 a few days later, $55 a few days after that. And every time I would try to delete it, I couldn’t because it takes days to process a transfer out of savings. And by the time it processes, they’ve done taken out more! And you can’t pause it unless you have another “savings goal” open? Nope, this app is shady af. I’ve been trying delete this damn app for weeks and have been in a constant cycle, and every time I have reached out to customer service, they’re no help. They finally deactivated the savings account but I still have to wait to delete my account until the transaction clears.
Top Comment: ... why do you have 386 unread messages
PSA: Avoid the Albert app.
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I know there are other posts about Albert on here but I just had such a terrible experience with the app that I need to warn others in a similar situation so they don’t get screwed over like I did.
Albert is a money management app, with its instance advance feature being the main component (and why I got the app.) From the app’s description and ads, it sells its service as an easy way to get money before payday to cover bills or unexpected expenses.
Once you download the app and finish linking all your accounts/giving your personal info, Albert then reveals that in order to use this advance feature, you have to subscribe to a plan for $150/yr, starting with a free trial.
I still signed up because I needed money right away for an emergency vet visit, but I would get paid two days later so I knew I would be able to repay the advance and cancel the subscription well before the trial ended.
The catch? You are prevented from cancelling the subscription until your account is completely empty on Albert/all advances are repaid. Makes sense, right? Except when you find out that repaying the advance takes 6-8 business days to ‘settle’ in Albert after you send it. Albert also automatically ‘invests’ money you have in the app, meaning that returning this money to your checking account takes over two weeks because you have to wait to ‘sell’ the ‘investment’, then wait for the money to ‘settle’, THEN wait for Albert to process the transfer back to your checking.
I have been trying since 12/4 to cancel my subscription and just got charged $150 today for this crap. Fortunately, my bank is going to charge it back and I’ll have the money back before Christmas hopefully. I just wanted to warn others on this sub because this has been a nightmare and I don’t want anyone else to go through this. Don’t be an idiot like me.
TLDR: Do not download Albert. It is designed to make it extremely difficult to withdraw your money, and it all but forces you into a $150 subscription that cannot be cancelled quickly or easily.
EDIT: For reference, Albert took $20 out of my checking on 12/4 to ‘invest’. It is 12/18 and I am still unable to withdraw this money from my account.
EDIT 2: Albert charged me another $12.49 today for a “Genius subscription” even though I am literally unable to cancel this subscription because of a pending transfer that is now on its 11th business day of “processing”. Fuck this app.
EDIT 3: After texting their customer service, Albert initially refunded this $12.49 fee, but then withdrew the refund. The app also got a new update today and you cannot even open the app without signing up for a subscription.
Top Comment: May be worth a report to the FTC for deceptive business practices.
Albert App
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I used the Albert app to borrow some money. I paid them back a few days later using a different bank account that’s not linked as the main. It stated it didn’t go through, okay so I contacted customer support and he/she/they/it stated that further investigation needs to be done to hold. That was yesterday at 7:27-8:44 AM. I’ve been texting the customer support line and no response. I find that highly suspicious, it’s the only way to contact them(no number that reaches a live person, email just tells you to text the number). I gotten an email from the bank that it said it didn’t go through on saying a direct debit was attempted but failed cause of insufficient funds(I moved the money). That same day once it said it didn’t go through I went to the bank and put cash into my main account that’s linked. I transferred the money owed successfully using that but apparently it’s not going to be completed till 10/30. The Albert app states it did, that’ll probably change once it updates I think. I’m just trying to find out if this app is a scam? It’s feeling that way to me. What you guys think? I’m going through so much just to close the account. I can’t close it cause of the outstanding balance and I can’t cancel the free subscription(Genius) nor something on there named (Smart Money) that you can’t even turn off. I hate that I even downloaded this app.
Top Comment: After reading the reviews, it looks like on of those "technically legit" companies that pulls just about every anti-consumer trick in the book to extract money from you. Reviews are super polarised with the majority being 1 star and most of the remainder being 5 star. This points towards shill accounts trying to boost the rating (most of which only produce 1 or two reviews). Based on the bad reviews, the stuff they pull includes: Continuing to charge on cancelled substriptions. Preventing unlinking of bank accounts Runaround with automated customer support Prevent withdrawal of all funds to keep the account open Looks like withdrawing from their service is near impossible. Best thing to do is probably to transfer everything from the linked account and then stop using it so they can't drain it. Edit: also make sure you can't go overdrawn on the linked account!
Albertapp is no longer worth it and I don't recommend anyone to use it.
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Okay, so I generally think that the Albert app is no longer worth it as they are now charging every single customer $15 a month no matter what. This is an app that literally offers features available on all other apps. They used to make you pay to speak with a "Albert genius" but has decided to just charge all customers a 15 dollar fee instead of the 8 dollars a month (charged yearly). What is sad is that most people I know have never used the genius feature ans can get access to accounts with similar features and pay NO fees. The website does not even clearly mention the 15 dollar a month fee and most people are getting Albert thinking there are no fees smh. I stopped use ng the service and so should you.
Top Comment: Most of those apps aren’t worth anything. They charge you fees and such and still sell your info off in the back end. I would recommend staying very far away from them all.
What in the world is “Instant from Albert”?
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BACKGROUND: A former friend owes me a ton of money. I haven’t spoken to this person since this person tried to get me fired; indeed, my boss advised me to never again communicate with this person. I’ve assumed that if this person hates me that much, I’m never going to see the money this person owes me again. We have not communicated in over three months. (Shortly before our friendship collapsed, I had to get a new credit card because of a huge number of PayPal charges I was seeing after having given this person my card information. The ton of money this person owes me are from the Lyft charges I did approve this person making to my card.) (Another fact about me—and this person knows this—I’ve never used CashApp or Apple Pay or any other app-based means of transferring money to or from people I know.)
TODAY: I just got a text message from a five-digit number that reads,
“👋 [name redacted] sent you $50 with Instant from Albert, an app that helps you manage money. Advance $50 immediately when you sign up.
“This offer expires in 6 days.
“Terms apply. See the app for details. Text STOP to opt out.
“[link redacted]”
I have never heard of this application, and I’m not entirely sure I feel comfortable reaching out to this former friend. What is this? Is this a scam? If this person actually wanted to start paying down the debt, wouldn’t the person just text me directly? If I were to get this app, what would happen? (I worry about attaching my bank account to any app other than my bank’s own app. Is there any vulnerability involved with this app?)
Should I bite the bullet and text this former friend and ask why I got this text?
(I am so confused. Why would this person try to ruin my entire life, not communicate to me in over three months, and then use some application I’ve never heard of to possibly pay me some tiny portion of what this person owes me?)
Top Comment: Albert is an app that spots you 50 bucks with a small fee for instant delivery plus optional tip. You have to link a bank account to prove an income, with your bank login and password. Can only speculate passed this but that’s the app.
[deleted by user]
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Top Comment: It works fine for me. 🤷♀️ I Can get an advance up to $75 to pay back. Sometimes it can pull $2-4 from my account into the Albert savings. But you can just opt out of auto save and it shouldn’t do that.
Albert App. HOW IS THIS ALLOWED?!
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Not only do you never sign up for premium before they start charging you almost 17 bucks monthly, but you can’t cancel. They have almost 5 stars in the App Store by RIGGING IT. ALL THE RECENT REVIEWS SAY “scam” and have a 5 star rating. Whoever is behind this better pay.. go take a gander.. this is without digging. This has to be illegal. HYPE THIS UP FOR MORE AWARENESS
Top Comment: Here are people sharing their bad experiences a year ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/comments/18k6gvj/psa_avoid_the_albert_app/ Sounds like nothing has changed since then.
Albert Budgetting App?
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Has anyone tried the Albert budgeting app? I'm intrigued. I am a former Mint user turned YNAB, but YNAB caused me to be almost too obsessed with my daily charges. The pros so far are auto-saving and investing. They "analyze" your spending and transfer small amounts from your account into savings and investing. They are technically a financial institution, not a bank. The back end for the checking and savings is either Sutton Bank, Wells Fargo, or another bank. The back end of the investing is Vangard. Cons that I've found so far. I assume this is a newer app because some UI/UX things are slightly off. For example, I can't split transactions like I could in YNAB (e.g., Target $100 purchase, $40 for pets, and $60 for food). Also, if you change the category for one Amazon purchase from shopping to holidays, they all change. The workaround is to change the name of the transaction, so it's a little clunky. I'm trying this out for a bit. I transferred my direct deposit to them - so wish me luck. Also, very important... You might see an ad that says free $250 or something like that. What it is is overdraft protection or a line of credit. Auto-saving or investing will pay off that line of credit first. I also saw some negative posts about Albert because someone didn't read the T&Cs. People complained that Albert took their money without permission (auto-save and invest). It's extremely simple to turn off this feature, but I needed something automatic. Anyway, has anyone else tried this?
Top Comment: DON'T USE ALBERT
Canceling Albert Subscription
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Okay, I've tried everything in the book to cancel my Albert Subscription. Nothing has worked. Not even their tech support. At the end of it all, Albert is a scam and they're constantly withdrawing money from your checkings into your Albert account. But, when trying to transfer what you have in your Albert savings, etc, you get the, "Hold On. You don't have enough funds to transfer" pop up when it clearly shows how much you have in your savings and investments.
Now if you know how(because I don't) to bring all your balances to 0 and back into your checkings then by all means, do so.
But if that doesn't work the only option you have to "cancel" your Albert subscription is to contact your bank and have them put a stop hold on Albert. It's the only way.
Hope this helps!!
Top Comment: The same happened to me. I had to close my bank account and open a new one. Fuck Albert