| 5 star: | (6) | |
| 4 star: | (4) | |
| 3 star: | (1) | |
| 2 star: | (3) | |
| 1 star: | (16) |
I strongly advise everyone to stay away from this company. They promised that applying for their loan would not result in a hard inquiry on my credit, but that turned out to be a blatant lie. My credit score took a significant hit of 50 points due to their inquiry.
I own multiple properties and conduct real estate business in two states. With an excellent credit score and ample financial resources, I have never had issues getting loans from other lenders. However, this company denied my loan application almost immediately, claiming there were numerous hits on my credit. This was completely false. In fact, I even own a credit repair company, so I am very aware of the status of my credit.
It's clear that they are just collecting information from unsuspecting applicants. Given their deceptive practices, I wouldn't be surprised if this were a foreign-based scam operation. Protect yourself and your credit—avoid this company at all costs. They are scammers and cannot be trusted.
sure you don't have overdraft fees but god forbid you need to dispute a transaction or any transaction....then forget it. there is no way to chat a live agent or get your transaction disputed. if you do finally get to dispute the transaction, it takes weeks to actually get the refund. closing my account soon.
My family was a SoFi family since they began, but they got really greedy after they went public, and we have since left SoFi. That's 4 customers they lost. Their customer service is extremely poor. They could have kept us if they would have paid us the $250 in referral bonuses we earned and had been clearer about SoFi Checking not having the same ATM fee reimbursement feature as SoFi Money did, resulting in another $35 in ATM fees. That's less than $300, and they are willing to let go of loyal customers for that.
Sofi is not a bank. It's a amalgamation of computer programs and rigid policies.
If something goes wrong, none of their agents are able to do anything to help you. They just mindlessly recite policies, or say that it is impossible.
Do not go here if you need any banking services beyond deposits and a debit card. They can't do it.
SoFi is amazing! They don't run a credit check which is nice for people who are in consumer reporting agencies.
The app is modern, well-designed, and this online bank offers everything besides a secured credit card/builder which would be nice to see. I love the early direct deposit feature, APY%, and other great features they offer as a online bank.
I would like to see them open up branches in the future, now, that would be even more awesome!!! SoFi has been phenomenal and banking with them has been a breeze!
Great products and fee structure. Good Digital Bank. There are other businesses that have a higher APY and a similar or better no-fee structure. My time with Sofi was okay. The relationship was like a lover that didn't just work out and you both know it. I left because of a low-interest rate, and it took 2 months instead of the time given to settle my dispute with Grubhub for not refunding me in full when I received a messed up order. Grubhub treated me like I was lying about it. I went to DoorDash and I don't have as many of the same issues as Grubhub. https://yieldfinder.app/
I am still waiting for a refund in the amount of $730.07 from over a month ago for furniture that I have returned already to Amazon. I contacted the merchant, and they said that the money was returned to the bank as a chargeback on 3/14. Nevertheless, the funds haven't been credited to my account. I guess they don't think that I need it. There is an obvious language barrier with the Customer Services representatives that I spoke with, and it's been quite difficult to resolve this issue. I have made about 10 calls to the bank, and I am still no closer to finding out where my money is or when I can expect to receive the refund. Getting a supervisor to come to the phone - Forget it. It's not happening. I've waited on several occasions for almost an hour each time, and still no one came to the line. A provisional credit would be great, and SoFi can hash out whatever they need to on the backend. At this point, my level of frustration is through the roof. I like the portal, but overall customer service is well below sub par. I switched banks to come to Sofi last year, and now thinking of making the switch yet again. I have filed complaints with the BBB and the Comptroller of currency regarding my issue. Truthfully, I would not recommend this bank to anyone.
I applied for a HELOC through SOFI. I was seeking $200k in equity, about 25% of the equity I have. I have excellent credit and make more than enough to qualify, over $400k a year. But my pay is a tiny bit confusing. I don't have traditional income. My income is dividends of the stock market. And I have wisely and carefully designed my portfolio to pay a good portion of returns as nontaxable dividends, return of capital. This means I don't pay much on taxes, but my income on the tax returns don't show all the income. I have 1099s which show everything. BUT . . .
SOFI can't seem to understand the concept. They say I only show $5k a month in income when I'm making, as of how, $35k a month in income. What is most frustrating is I have been going through this for a couple of weeks and from go, I made sure to speak to the rep about my income to make sure they understood it. I specifically asked if they had the experience and competence to understand the unique nature of this. I was assured they did. They got me through level 1 of a 2 level process of approval, got an appraisal even higher than I expected, but then just said, "Doesn't look like it'll go through."
From the beginning, the rep was lying about his capabilities and competence, and now I have wasted time for nothing. I urge everyone to stay away from SOFI, as this is not a serious bank for serious people.
... I wish we could give nicknames to the external accounts. (This is not an uncommon issue.) I'm supposed to remember what account ending in 1234 is? Otherwise this is a pretty cool outfit, and with their speedy transfers I'll likely make it my hub bank for banking bonuses.
Very inconsistent transaction timeframes. This has already caused me to get a late fee on one of my bills that I paid on time. I never had issues with my previous bank. I wanted to try SoFi because of their advertised APR and other perks. Well, not worth it!! They also do not treat every customer the same, apparently you have to have a lot of money or be a "good customer" to receive these perks and good customer service. Zai, one of their representatives did not treat me with equal respect or help in the way I needed help. With this being my personal banking service, it was extremely concerning and disappointing to receive this kind of treatment. This representative left the chat after I had asked to speak to a superior for additional help and questions, that left a very bad feeling in my stomach. Again, this is MY money. I have already set up an account elsewhere. Never again.
SoFi let's you set up an account quickly and easily, but it's NOT a real checking account. They take weeks to ship debit cards and will freeze your account if you spend use the account regularly without recourse.
I opened my account in a few minutes and had my biweekly deposit of about 3k hit without problem. I used salary through google pay since theyre so slow to send debit...inittially without issue.
They froze my account 2 days later pending an ID verification. This is obviously an app based picture process. When their app couldn't get a clear picture of my ID the link expired. Their representatives told me their policy is to not send another link for 24 hours...and of course no supervisor or workaround. I had to pay a restaurant tab and the rep literally hung up on me saying they can't help and try again in 24 hrs. Obviously a regular bank would never leave a checking account holder hanging. My entire paycheck is in SoFi and I can't access it.
This is a take it or leave it bank with off shore customer service who have trouble with English. Easy to open but they'll hang up on you if there are any issues and God help you if you have no other account. Still unclear why I need to verify ID when my info was sufficient to open account. It's likely a ploy to ensure you can't claim checking bonus.
I have not had this account long but was very suspicious when signing up for it due to issues like this. Absolutely ruined my daughters birthday celebration at the restaurant with the embarrassment of not being able to pay for our dinner because I had my card locked and when I went to login into the app it said my login credentials was not good. The system wouldn't even let me go into to reset my password. Sofi has definitely ruined our night for sure!
This scam of a company made me put $500 in my account to access the ability to deposit a check. Upon depositing the check, they had an agent call me to basically tell me they determined it was fake and it was being rejected. I tried to ask what recourse I had and the woman literally could not give me an answer.
I hang out with her and call back to try to get information from someone else since she clearly was not helpful. The next woman mentioned a restriction and that the check was under review. No explanation of what a restriction meant. However, I logged into my account and realized the restriction was on my ENTIRE account. So I have NO access to MY OWN MONEY, meaning the $500 unrelated to the check. Meanwhile I had also set up direct deposit for over half my paycheck into this account.
So, I call another person at the phone line listed with the restriction messaging to confirm if I am correct that I can't access my own money because of their incompetence. He confirms and every single time I talk to a person, the ONLY thing they make very clear is that "we can give no estimated time frame for resolution." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! You are literally holding the majority of money I have to my name hostage. What gives you the right? How is this legal? No one has answers just insincere apologies for the "inconvenience." NOT BEING ABLE TO ACCESS MY OWN MONEY IS NOT AN "INCONVENIENCE" IT IS A SCAM AND THE ABSOLUTE WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED.
I did a mobile deposit on September 7th for $6k and was notified when funds would be available, then on September 8th my account was frozen and placed under review. What they dont seem to understand is that this is a loan check and it has to be repaid starting October 7th and I borrowed this money for car repairs. I called several times which was a waste of time because they dont seem to care and keep saying the same thing, which is pretty much nothing. I will not be making payments on a loan that I never had access to and when they take me to court for nonpayment, I will send them to the bank that took my money and wont let me touch it. All they had to do is decline the check, if there was a big issue with it, but no, they accepted the check and then locked everything up. Im at wits end with SoFi. The first time I called, I was told that I violated Lord only knows what. The second time, they were making sure the check was valid and it must have been because they deposited it. Now, all I get is that were monitoring your account for your protection, sorry and to wait to receive an email. This is just crazy, I wouldnt be so upset if it wasnt a loan and didnt have to be paid back but here I am, car still need repairs and Im racing against the clock until my first payment is due. Does anybody know how long something like this could take? I deposited a check like this in the past from the same loan company and it wasnt a problem at all, so I dont know what they are doing but this isnt good. I was going to set up direct deposit but Im scared to death that I wont have access to any of my money and they dont seem to care whether you are able to pay bills, buy groceries or anything. They dont really care and this is really sad because Ive always spoken so highly of SoFi but now Im lost for words. Don’t use them, if you need access to your money. They will render you broke and homeless with a smile.
SoFi has been a great online bank with great rates for me and my family as we are saving for a major purchase. Overall, very, very good.
Opportunities:
1. Rates are not top of class. SoFi is now almost 1% under the top rates in online banking. C'mon man!
2. Immediate transfer wires when you need to buy a car or boat or another large purchase. They have options for a home purchase, but not for other purchases to get my money out asap.
3. Cafe in major cities so I can deposit cash - no options for physical banking right now
Good stuff:
1. Fast large transfers in one day to connected accounts - overnight
2. Customer service team is available and helpful
3. Get paid early with direct deposits
And with savings rates better then most CD rates, I'm happy. They just increased the savings rate to 4.30%!
I have a SoFi world elite credit card, too, and they're paying me 3% cash back on ALL purchases! I have had fraud on my card twice so far and it takes about a week to get another card. That's annoying, but there's not much they can do about fraud - it's rampant! I just wish I could get my card in a day or two, like I can with CapitalOne, when there's fraud.
The money takes a day or two to travel from and to my SoFi accounts to and from other accounts, but I expect that will change soon to a more immediate transaction.
I love the gamification they have set up. I get points when my credit score improves. I get points for setting up DD and bill payments. I've earned several thousand points just for setting up my accounts.
Their stock trades are fast and easy, too. Overall, I'm VERY happy with SoFi. And things will only get better with time. Plus, they have $2M in FDIC insurance, so my money is SAFE! Who else has that? Nobody!
Terrible trash customer service. They lied to me multiple times now im left to just pray and hope my direct deposit comes through.
My Sofi Money (Checking account) was blocked over a month ago with a balance of almost $10,000, without any explanation.
The Live Chat support becomes unavailable while the account is locked, NO email support nor ticket support is available AT ALL, and they will ONLY get a phone call, but SURPRISE, the matter cannot be handled by their support, but by a so called Security Team that doesn't want to talk to the customers in any way. NO live chat, NO email, NO ticketing and NO phone support for their Ghostly security team. The Security team ONLY accepts voicemail. That's what I've been told. Sure, I called several times and left voicemails, but nothing happened.
I'm starting to regret switching to this bank. Everything is SO FREAKING SLOW with them. Not joking, 4 business day to transfer funds ($500 it's not like I'm trying to transfer $10,000 that needs hella verification or anything), I ordered checks and a debit card 2 weeks ago and they JUST sent them out 2 days ago. They charge $4.95 to deposit cash!?! Unfortunately, the couple of reviews I read before signing up didn't mention that, and it was buried on their site, so I didn't know this. Their app is lame af. It is so busy; there is just so much sh*t on there, you have to wade through all the bs to get to what you are looking for. The interest rate can be amazing if my employer can ever get their crap together and get my direct deposit to go through. But idk if it is worth all the hassle of dealing with SoFi.
I also have a Chime account and although I don't earn interest with them, they don't charge for cash, deposits, they are fast with transfers, got my debit card like 3 days after ordering it and they have a clean, streamlined, easy to use app/website.
* SoFi-Fails Summary version - Affiliate links make people a lot of money to recommend SoFi - BUT SoFi seems extremely risky to trust with your money. SoFi's business & support practices were so broken they refused to take my millions of dollars due to flaws with THEIR processes. If SoFi processes are so bad they can't manage to take my money, what happens when their systems and processes don't work trying to manage or move my money out?
* Long version - Intro - I'm a software developer getting older and wanted to get my retirement and financial institution situation cleaned up. Between my spouse and I we have accounts with Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, Merrill Lynch, Janus Henderson, USAA, and more. Being someone immersed in Development & IT none of these other companies' platforms impressed me. They were clunky, fragmented, and so when I saw SoFi's vision about trying to have a modern platform, with a comprehensive portfolio of financial services to INCLUDE banking/checking/bill pay, that actually paid interest??? I'm all in, let's do the bank account, invest account, credit card, see what they quote for insurance, setup SoFi Relay the whole deal.
* Chapter 2 - I set up the SoFi relay service and it worked pretty well. I linked in almost all my accounts and credit cards and liked what I saw for features. There's my credit score(812), 3.5 million in assets. All linked in, nice.
*Chapter 3 SHTF Time - Bank account time - Name,address,DOB,SS# - apply... denied. Ok no big deal I've had this happen with other financial institutions online. Let me call support. Robot support... great, enter my SS#... and 'your application has been denied' hang up... not even a person. I go online scraping through their support section... what to do if you're denied. Nothing.
What more reputable banks do at this point is tell you why you're denied (always identity verification) and give you a way to verify your identity. Other non-fail banks did this by:
1.) Allowing me to upload my passport, license, SS# card, bank statements, birth certificate, etc. to a secure upload space they hosted, or
2.) Less tech companies gave me a paper form to
have filled out at my local bank via the 'Medallion Signature Guarantee' process where my local bank Manager will look at all the forms of identification requested and say, yes this person
in front of me is who they say they are and put an official stamp on the documentation to postal mail.
* Ok I'm stone walled, just for the moment right? They can't be this terrible to have no way to open an account. Time is money here, my wife fills out the bank application with the same credit score, address, and all shared finances for 22 years - While we sort out whatever the SoFi's system issue is with my info. Approved - Bank account opened in her name.
*Lies, lies & dead-end - So my wife (retired - thank goodness she was able to waste hours of time here...) is now a customer with a bank account. Ok, I changed my direct deposit info to the account... done. My spouse calls support and gets routed to a PERSON (non-native english speaker). How can we resolve the deny? Support person (reads things on website we can see already) and ultimately - can't help, good bye, go away.
* Chapter 4 - 3 weeks later - $6000 in direct deposits in the account now, and 5 support people later. Very consistently support has told us, there is no way to escalate or resolve, and some of them straight up lied to us any way they could to get us to hang up. I so wanted to love SoFi and consolidate all my mess of finances to them. I'm thankful I didn't move millions over now knowing if their systems fail or have issues, too bad, you're just stuck.
* Bonus Fail - During the timeline I also tried opening an Invest account with them... they failed to ACH transfer $ from the same bank/account my wife used to open the SoFi bank account after 15 days, some error icon, and no communications or path to resolve whatever the problem is with THEIR system yet again. At least they're consistent right?
--Wish me luck getting my money out now!
WORST BANKING EXPERIENCE EVER! To earn the higher tier APY, one needs a direct deposit. However, my first direct deposit was not coded right as direct deposit and my second one bounced back. I contacted them and they said they're on it, but it's been TWO MONTHS and nothing back!!
If you have put a security freeze on your Experian, Transunion or other credit bureau records, you'll likely have to remove them for SoFi Bank to review, if you're applying for a new account. Then, it'll cost you about $10 to re-freeze each account. Also, such "hard inquiries" usually impact your credit scores for about the next two years.
It might be a great bank, but for me, it'll have to be a lot "greater" to be worth the price of admission.
Setting up a joint account is a nightmare, requiring two separate registrations. Getting them to join is met with further problems.
Telephone help is very poor, some handled offshore, with variable competency. Could not get adequate answers to important questions.
Transferring funds from other banks to Sofi is through a third party, PLAID, which requires you to give them your secure Password to your other bank account! Security??????
Sofi Bank has only existed since 2022 and appears to be pushing hard for their other Sofi products.
They offer only Checking and Saving account combined but not one or the other, separately.
The main attraction is relatively high interest rate, but other online banks are likely to increase theirs with the Feds changing plans.
Before jumping in, check all reviews, not just the glowing ones that are at the top.
Be aware that there is a limit to transfer money out to another Bank (via Plaid) to $5000 at one time and total of $50,000 per month, per customer service rep. info. (could not find in writing anywhere on their web site). Easy to get money in but hard to get it out if you have a large deposit.
There is no obvious way of communicating directly by email with the Bank.
I’ve been using SoFi for a few years now. At first there were some minor hiccups but they have really matured as a financial institution. Since they merged with Golden Pacific Bank their interest rates on checking and savings have become outstanding. Qualifying for their best rate is fairly easy, just add direct deposit. Their website and mobile app work well. They have a suite of extra products along with that. They do try hard to cross sell you but every product they offer is low fee and very competitive. I can definitely recommend SoFi Bank without hesitation.
Open checking, savings, and investing. Set up direct deposit through ADP..now getting 1.25% up to $150k. But still, .7% is 2nd best to that Bask bank. Also, I was able to link all of my accounts except Ally Bank. Ally Bank is horrible, and that is why I'm switching. I'm also getting a quote on a home loan that I'm in the market for. I bought $100 of crypto too to test, and it worked well. Been looking for a checking and savings combo account for months, and it looks like I found one that hits all the buttons.
I have been shopping around for a primary checking account that has a decent APY and requires no debit transactions. SOFI offers 1% with a direct deposit. Signed up and funded account instantly through the app. Very easy. Today was the first day that I received my direct deposit. I got notice about noon on Wednesday that my federal employee paycheck that was scheduled for Friday was already available. They are now a "real" bank with their own FDIC coverage so I feel comfortable with them as my primary checking account for deposits and bill pay. Highly recommend.