Betterment

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.

I created my Betterment account on 9/28. Ultimately, I wanted to transfer rollover profit from my business account into Betterment to invest. I submitted a request to open a bank account on 9/29 since this is a separate step requiring more information verification than is necessary for signing up. On 9/30, I received confirmation and notification to link my current bank accounts to my new Betterment accounts. I set-up my Betterment Checking Account on 10/1 and received notice the same day that my debit card would arrive in 6-8 business days.

I invested with Betterment about 2 yrs ago. I can't even get through to see my account. Every I try to login my password does not work. They ask for my email address & they will send a link to reset password. Never happens! Never. So I can't even sign-in to see my account. I dont know to do. I think I will find another financial business to place my money.

I transferred my taxable Betterment account to Fidelity. They did not provide Fidelity with the cost basis information for my investments. Every time I call them, I have to wait several hours on the phone before being able to talk to someone. This is very frustrating and they should definitely at the very least provide cost basis information when transferring accounts, otherwise, one cannot calculate how much taxes are owed to the IRS!!

I started taxable wealth builder investment account at Betterment in 2016. I had a few questions regarding my account I tried to call Betterment customer service. I waited for several hours on the phone and still could not speak to a representative. I tried several time to reach out still could not get hold of a customer representative. I tried sending them an email with my questions hoping I would get an answer. I got an auto-reply email mentioning that it will take several weeks for them to respond to my email due to "COVID-19" situation. Finally, I decided to withdraw all my funds and close the account at Betterment. I initiated a fund withdrawal on Aug 3rd, 2020 and today is Aug 10th, 2020 still I don't see the funds transferred into my checking account. I am planning to share my experience with BBB and take legal action against this company. I recommend all to stay away from Betterment if you don't want to have my experience.

Rolled over my IRA into Betterment. HUGE mistake. Low investing fees but you get what you pay for...remember it is a rigged game against you and it is all for them and their multiple houses in NYC, Aspen, Vail, the Bahamas or Europe. You won't play 3 card Monte on the street but you'll invest your life savings with the white collar version of the street hustler. They have no cash option for your IRA, so even when I saw the pandemic was going to crash the market, and asked how to park my money in a no risk (OK cash still loses to inflation) position...sorry bud. Should have rolled it right out, but the GD 2 rollover rule would have cost me 10%...LOL would have been cheaper in the long run. Every chance I get to tell someone to save their money and avoid them... I pretend I get a dollar back. Never going to recoup my losses but WTH, only live once. STAY AWAY.

You typically don't find out how good a company is until you get burned by them. In my situation I needed to withdraw money from my account and was willing to deal with their already slow speed of 3 business days. Well 3 days came and went and so I phoned them only to be told that my withdraw had triggered a "extra 4 business day hold" policy. Well I asked for a written copy of that policy or explanation to no avail. I would completely stay away from a company like this if you want/need access to your funds. They are obviously playing games with your funds in order to benefit themselves. They don't even allow wire transfers out.

I decided to try Betterment for their integration of products; checking, savings and investment products. I have had nothing but problems since day one. Coming from Ally transfers between their banking products were typically instant. Betterment, on the other hand, I have been waiting for simple transfers for weeks. I had to verify an account external account was even mine with Betterment's customer service. The accounts I hold at Betterment will occasionally list as being unable to connect and I will be unable to check the balance. I was overdrawn on the checking account due to funds that were supposedly present not being present. The experience thus far has been beyond dismal.

If I could give zero stars I would. Betterment's as a vehicle for my 401(k) is completely and utterly incompetent. I left my job and decided to roll my money over to my main retirement accounts. The returns didn't justify keeping the money there. I've don't 401k rollovers before. It is a simple process. Betterment failed at every step in every possible way. As others have said, they are slow beyond reasonable with cutting a check. They are cavalier if not rude about it. Plus for me, they did not even get the final amount correct (and subsequently deducted some of my money as a penalty when correcting the amount). Stunning incompetence like this is truly rare. Like I said.. I'd give 0 stars if possible.

My personal overall experience with Betterment leads me to a decision to extract my funds from the grips of this outfit and not bother with these people again. The reasons can be reduced to three:

Betterment is very user friendly and simple. But trust me when I tell you, find another service to invest your money. I have my entire life savings in the account and because of the pandemic, I reached out and told them to withdrawal a pretty large sum of money. They told me it would take up to two days and there’s no way to expedite it. I asked to speak to a manager, they denied the request and said they would tell me the same thing.

I've had betterment for about three years now. I had just been depositing money for investment. However, every time I tried to withdraw my money, it would take a long time to do that. I guess I was ok with that since it wasn't something I would do that often, but the real nightmare started when I opened a checking account with them. First of all, they advertised it as "No withdrawal fees", so I'm thinking, that's great, because if one day I get a withdrawal, I don't have to worry about having all these fees.

I absolutely love Betterment and the automatic investing services they provide at a very low fee. Their website is extremely user friendly and you can make changes or withdraw your money at any time. I read the other reviews posted and have never had any problems with Betterment not wanting to transfer withdrawals to my bank account. I am a CPA and I have never seen anything that would make me think they are not trustworthy. I have been using them since 2015 and have seen my investments grow steadily over that time. LOVE USING BETTERMENT AND HIGHLY RECOMMEND THEIR SERVICES!!!

You can send them money, no problem but if try to get your money out, they act as if you're a criminal stealing "their" money! Mismanaged employees constantly contradicting each other, supervisors are clueless about banking etc. I spend hours verifying myself just to get my OWN money back out. And after all that they closed my account with no explanation or warning. Would gladly give back all the interest I made to get back all the time I wasted and hair I pulled. I'm genuinely surprised the FTC hasn't shut them down yet.

I requested transfer on Oct 1 and they intentionally put hold on my money so they don't have to pay interest. They also don't have a routing number when you take money out only when you wire in or deposit. they make it very difficult to withdraw and they lower interest without any notice. Is not a company I would like to invest or work with.

They paid me less interest than what I actually should have earned when I calculated it. They even do not provide any documentation of calculated interest that you earn and at what rate. Also, they promised 2.69% guaranteed for 2019 and then they did not keep that promise. They are literally scammers. They need to get sued.

I signed up with Betterment in 2013. Robo-investment firms were newer then. My experience has been largely positive. I invested enough to fund a major purchase (car). It was satisfying to set and meet a goal even though the customer service was ALWAYS minimally responsive, even rude, IF you could get someone to answer.

1. Yesterday (9/18/19) their website was down and I called the number listed on their website. My phone carrier (AT&T) caller ID automatically picked up the number to belong NOT to Betterment but to a company named Langstonegate. Lines were busy, and I opted for callback. Callback was immediate and caller ID was Langstonegate. I thought that perhaps Langstonegate was a parent or holding company for Betterment. The "Betterment" agent I spoke with, had no access to their systems to verify me and would give no reasonable explanation when site access would be restored or why he couldn't at least verify me and provide me with account info such as the balance.

I had to have money transferred from my ex's betterment account from a divorce settlement. This was court ordered, strait up, split the account in half. Betterment has been a deterrent the entire time.

Betterment advertised a 2.69 savings account promotion guaranteed until the end of the year, yet they dropped the rate a week later to 2.43. Why did they advertise the rate as "guaranteed" through the end of the year if it would fluctuate. Totally misleading. I am assuming somewhere in the fine print, during the account opening process there was some small print explaining that the word guaranteed does not actually mean guaranteed - like when President Clinton said "It depends on what your definition of "is" is." What a SCAM.