Betterment Reviews

My experience with Betterment has been nothing short of terrible. I deposited $84,000 into an interest-earning account, and when I requested to withdraw $15,000 on November 18th, the funds were frozen due to a verification process. Despite providing all requested documents promptly, the $15,000 has not been returned to my account, is not earning interest, and is effectively unaccounted for.

I would give 0 if I could. I have waited over a month for a card and have to continue to wait another 2-3 weeks. I can't touch the money in my account until I get my card unless I transfer out and that takes 4-5 business days. What a joke!!! Have money but can't even access it!! Highly highly highly do not recommend!!!

Tried to open account, I am,, 75 years old,, 3 times I submitted the documents they requested, I am, 75 years old and find computers difficult, after the 3 try documents they closed account for fraudulent activity,, no fraud, just my computer difficulty, don't waste your time opening account.

I just wanted a simple walk-through of my Betterment account and the representative was so rude, had a sarcastic tone and was not helpful! I believe her name was Melissa. I felt so uncomfortable I had to tell her I had to go.

Betterment advertises that they are great for small business. Our experience was that we have to do all the managing and audit work constantly while they charge monthly fees, quarterly fees, fees for helping you make any changes, fees for cancelling, if they can think up a fee then you will be charged for it. Basically, they take your money, you do ALL THE WORK, they invest the funds (something you can do for free, on your own with eTrade or TD Ameritrade) and they bill you for all the nothing they do for you. If you are a small business, do yourself a favor and have this handled by your payroll company. Better yet, after what I have learned you are better off not offering a 401k at all. There are much better options these days.. AND PAY ATTENTION TO ALL THE FEES in the small print. Don't make the mistake we did.

Betterment makes it easy to take your money but transferring out is another story. They make it extremely difficult, expensive and burdensome to do so. And they aren't transparent about how to do so on their website. They take a month to process requests. So, they continue to earn $$ on your money during that time. They charge $75 to transfer out. Will not do business again and don't recommend them. Use Vanguard and manage yourself.

Applied for checking account online. Had to submit several documents for address verification and ID. Account under review for 2 weeks during this process. Finally email states account approved and verified can now log in and deposit funds. After logging in again given verification questions and account back in review. Then email received stating account not approved because documents not received in time and application expired.

They make it super easy to deposit but if you need human help, good luck. They locked my account from me after I shared how their system made an error and made multiple deposits from my bank account. Be very careful as their platform has obvious errors and can easily leave your bank account overdrawn! No joke, their system drained my bank account and has been a nightmare to correct. Thank goodness for my bank as they pulled my money back from Betterment. So, Betterment locked me out of my account with an email. Can't talk to a human to fix it but only through email. Be very cautious with this company and their platform. Feels like a third world country in trying to work and resolve their issues with them. Very disappointed.

I opened a Betterment Account because of how many great reviews they received. They must be pure fiction. They stole more than $250 from me and won't give it back. They say they put it back in my account but my account is gone. I just want my money back and my account closed but they refuse. Beware thieves.

Betterment has the absolute worst customer service of any company I’ve dealt with. They make it very difficult to manage individual account funds and it’s nearly impossible to get a live agent to speak with. They seem to be able to provide services with smaller fees but you end up paying more in the long run. Do yourself and employees a favor and take your investments to Vanguard. They actually answer the phone and help you.

Resolved in a timely manner!

If there is something you need done that involves customer service, it is hell. It takes weeks of effort. I am on day 12 of my current issue; the last one took six weeks to fully resolve. It is infuriated, it wastes a lot of my time, and it is just not worth it in the long run. I get similar or even slightly better returns elsewhere.

I run a small business and have been trying to set up our 401K with Betterment for a couple months now. The sales process was as smooth as butter. And then they sent over, as expected, extensive plan documents for us to sign before we begin. Some of the details we communicated about our plan design seem to be inaccurate. Others are inconsistent within the document. Mistakes happen, though, no big deal; that's something we can discuss and correct. But there are also parts of the 145 page document that just aren't clear to me, so I'd love if someone at Betterment would clarify how these specific terms play out. So I called. And called. And called.

After requesting funds to be withdrawn, I received a email that I needed to call to state the reason for my withdrawal. After calling, I still haven’t received my money in over a week. I initiated multiple transfers to close all my accounts after that experience and only one smaller transfer was completed after a week. I once again called after the week passed and still have not received my funds. They do not honor their published 3-5 days to return your funds. You should not have to call with a reason for withdrawing your funds nor have to face these kind of delays when other online banks transfer in 1-3 days. Beware!

I was very happy, overall, with Betterment when I was using them for my IRAs and investments. However, after opening a checking account with them, I've had some rather major issues. Betterment Financial LLC manages your account, but they aren't the bank, NBKC Bank is the actual bank. That said, you can't contact NBKC Bank, as you're a Betterment customer, but then Betterment can't always assist you either because they aren't the bank. You get stuck in a weird limbo.

Based on available reviews, price, and great experience with sales person we moved our 401k over to Betterment. Unfortunately, the entire onboarding and support system has been horrible. No onboarding meetings to review next steps, requirements, or follow up. Their "policy" is to respond to phone calls and emails within 3 business days. Their website onboarding dates do not update based on real time status or information provided. Unless you press for updates you won't hear back from them and the dates won't change. They wait until the last minute to make requests for more information, leave the employer with little to no time to request info from previous provider. Overall, If you transfer providers or at least want decent support I'd suggest other companies first, look at Human Interest, Guideline, ShareBuilder, ForUsAll, or one of the more traditional options.

I have been investing in a Roth IRA with Betterment for the past few months. Yesterday my account was suspended for suspected fraud along with several other customers--based on what I'm seeing in online forums. Customer service was extremely difficult to reach. Email notices were sent out after customer support hours, which are very limited for a financial institution. When I was able to speak to someone they acknowledged they didn't see any reason why my account should be suspended but that it was uncertain what would be required to reactivate it?! They also asked me to write a statement as to why I logged into my own account so frequently over the past few weeks. I will be moving my funds out of this business as soon as my account is reactivated but based on other reviews here and elsewhere I anticipate more trouble in ending my relationship with this company.

I got an email asking me to verify my checking account. They wanted driver's license, etc. I could understand if the account had not been verified, but they had done the test deposits to my bank account and I entered in that amount on the Betterment website a month prior. The account had been verified and this was a second external bank account I was adding. Meaning, I already had accounts and an additional bank account linked to Betterment. My external bank account wasn't new and I was not a new account holder to Betterment. I'd used that exact same Betterment account for deposits and withdrawals for almost a year. Betterment had no problem accepting a deposit from the external account. When I go to withdraw funds from Betterment, they had a problem. It's my money and I shouldn't have to send it various forms of ID to withdraw less than $1,000 on a verified account.

I attempted to close my Traditional IRA with Betterment and transfer it to a different investing option. The initial attempt was in early July. The final amount was received on September 28th. The customer service was awful. We talked with many different advisors, none of whom could help us find out what was going on. The standard response was that they would reach out to their "team", somewhere in the rear offices, it seemed, and get back to us. Which they did, often times a week or two later. It is so unprofessional and disorganized that we could never get a straight answer. DO NOT invest with this group of incompetent children.

My money was put into ETF fund in the model they set up, which supposes to follow the general market performance. However my account lost money the first day when all indexes on the market was up big that day. I suspect they manipulated my transactions that they purchased the EFT at low point of the day and sold/book into my account at higher price. I asked for the trade details from them but they refused to provide the information. My portfolio in Betterment account underperforms the market on consistent basis. There is something really fishy there. This firm's trustworthy and credibility is in great doubt.

I have multiple online (robo-investing) investment accounts (ie. Wealthfront, etc). I have had money in my Betterment account for a few years. It has performed below the market and since it is in the six digits, I decided to move it early last month. I asked my local broker to do a transfer in kind to avoid tax issues, etc. Betterment will not acknowledge the paperwork. I have called and emailed so many times. Yesterday I was on hold for 2 hours and then finally got a woman on the line. I answered my security questions and she said that she didn't see the paperwork requesting transfer so she would have to transfer me. I said NO, way. I have been on hold for two hours. And by the way, I have tried several times to use the "press 2 and we will call YOU back" choice.

First of all, I have multiple brokerage and investment accounts. All fairly easy to sign up for since I have good credit and good financials. Signing up with Betterment was like applying for a credit card. You have to give a lot of personal information but then you don't get instant access or response. They have to review and approve it first but that isn't very obvious from the start.

In looking for a new bank, I I like what I read about Betterment, so I opened an account. Shortly thereafter I received a large deposit that I had been waiting for for weeks. When I was finally able to use my account, I used it for four transactions, as I was just beginning a much needed road trip. One transaction was to transfer money, the others were gas for my car, soda from a convenience store and $20 cash back. To my surprise,, I was denied getting my $20. Immediately I looked on my app to check my account and it had been locked.

I don't know what y'all 1-star reviewers expect from a ROBO-advisor. I opened a regular taxable investment account with them in May 2020 when the market was already on its way out of the covid hole. By January 2021 they earned me 28% of the sum of my deposits. Simple as that. I haven't tried rolling over, withdrawing or asking questions their robo customer support. Trouble withdrawing is no fun obviously but again, haven't been there, haven't don't that. And tbh when I transferred some money from a Fidelity brokerage account it took forever too. I don't know if you realize it or not but your money is not stored in cash there, it's in securities, ok? It's NOT an ATM. So it takes time to sell them, then transfer the proceeds to another firm and then buy securities there. Just google how the whole thing works before raising hell and harassing the robo customer support.

My company-sponsored health plan allows for me to opt into an HSA. Once I have enough funds in my HSA, I can then invest the funds. The company the HSA uses for investing is Betterment. I went through the process of creating my Betterment account. I provided the two forms of identification requested (picture of my driver's license and my social security card). I was told it would take several business days to verify my information.

In the 12 months leading up to Dec 2020 - Not one of my other accounts (stock/401k/IRA) at other institutions lost money. In fact my 401k returned 20%. But the ROBO investing at Betterment 'lost' $1000 of my $5000 I put in there to see if ROBO worked. So, as I withdraw the money and transfer it out after a year. I hope the people at Betterment take a cold hard look at the algorithms in their system and re-work them. Even if they do, I won't be back.

I can't explain it any other way. I moved away from my full-service CFP, and transferred all assets, as well as a rollover, into a Betterment IRA. I originally opted for the full package, which includes financial planning advice with a human. What a joke--a very green, uninformed individual clearly reading from a script. No thanks. Now, several years later, I need to move those funds. Betterment makes it extremely difficult/inconvenient to transfer funds. While they boastfully advertise that they accept "in-kind" roll-INS, they are not able to do so when you're moving funds OUT of Betterment. You have no control over when assets are sold, so it's completely up to chance. With a volatile market, this is not a risk I'm willing to take.

I decided to stop using Betterment and instead of having a tax implication by selling, I initiated a transfer of my betterment balance to my Vanguard account, in kind. Betterment only transferred 75% of my holdings, leaving 25% in their account! My vanguard rep was perplexed by this and thought it could have been some part to do with the fractional shares, even though I had specifically authorized the entire balance including fractional shares to be sent over to VG in kind. I called to sort it out and was on hold for too long, and so decided to sell off the rest to just be done with them. (Yes tax hit, but alternative is deal with them keeping my funds and infinite back and forth?) The withdrawal into my savings account was recorded, but it said it would not post there FOR SEVEN DAYS. Read that and decide if you want to do business with a financial outfit that will tie up your money for an entire week. Inexcusable.

Do not use them. I can't believe how bad their support is. Phone calls are never answered and callbacks are not returned. Instructions on the website are not specific and emails to support are all canned responses that don't address specific issues. They do great at taking your money. They make it extremely difficult to withdraw. I wonder how many people just give up and leave money there. Whether this is their marketing approach or incompetence, I don't know. But do not use them. I can't imagine ever choosing to use them if I have the choice.

My employer set up my 401(k) with Betterment. Now I need to consolidate that account elsewhere. Betterment strives to make this impossible. Their customer service entails multi-hour hold times (initiated with a friendly message from their CEO telling you you're going to wait a looong time). Their website is a collection of dark patterns designed to fool you into transferring money INTO your Betterment account rather than out of it. And if you find the instruction for transferring out of Betterment (which they do their best to bury), you'll see that it is the other institution's responsibility to initiate this transfer, something no other institution does. In short, Betterment provides the scammiest investment solution available on the market. Literally any other would be better.