A couple of months ago, my friend and I started using the Qapital app as part of our savings plan. Check out her blog to get her thoughts on how it’s working for her. Below are my thoughts based on my experience.
The Pros:
- You make the rules. For instance, I had every dollar amount I spent with my debit card rounded up to the nearest dollar, and the difference would be deducted from my checking account and deposited into my Qapital account. So if I purchased something for $5.45, then 55 cents would be taken out and dumped into my Qapital account. I also had a portion of each check withdrawn and put into the Qapital account as well. It took very little time to build up a decent amount of money.
- You can change, update, edit the rules at any time. If things are tight, you can freeze withdrawals for as long as you need. Qapital also has a safety net of $100 so if your available funds get to $100 or below, they stop withdrawing money.
- It was easy and as no-brainer as a person can get. For those of us lacking the appropriate amount of discipline to put money away themselves, the automated aspect of it was golden. Set it and forget it.
The Cons:
- This is where it gets interesting. I wanted to test how easily it would be to get the money back into my regular bank account. I attempted to take all of it out at one time, but they wouldn’t allow that. You can only withdraw a certain amount at a time.
- It takes three days to get your money.
- The customer service is not good. At one point, it looked like they had withdrawn $100 out of my bank account twice. I freaked out, and attempted to get in touch with them. There is no phone number. At all. Anywhere. So the customer is left with the only option of email. It took 72 hours to get a generic response.
- You can’t close the account until the money has been withdrawn. But remember they wouldn’t let me take it all out at once so now I have an open account without access to all of my money.
- It wasn’t until I sent a scathing response to their generic email insisting that they close my account, that I got a quick response.
My guess is that some of my problem was simply user error. However, not having immediate access to funds for three days and less-than-stellar customer service is enough to convince me that the Qapital app is not for me, and I would not recommend it. In the end, I got all of my money and closed my account.
What I wanted more than anything was the convenience of automated savings. That can be done anywhere. Maybe it’s because I’m middle-aged or maybe because I don’t understand how everything works, but for things like money, I’d rather open a separate account at a brick and mortar bank and have my money automatically deposited there than with some app out in cyberspace.
Have you ever used any savings apps? I’d love to hear your comments below.
Kathryn Nielson 