Google Pay
reviews and complaints

I’ve been using the original Google Pay app for years. I convinced many people to try it over apps like Square Cash and Venmo because it was easy to use and free to send money to other people. Instant transfers. No wait time. Google had an app that really made it easy to send and receive money into my other bank account so that I could make my car payment. I could easily send money to my friends or family members when they would pick up something at a store or restaurant for me if they were out and about. Now? Now that’s gone. Now the greed has settled in. Now when I go to pay someone I see a list of people I have never known. Phone numbers I’ve never used to send money are listed as an option. I’m being charged to move my money around now. On top of that there are so many other things I don’t even want to use or know about. Convoluted and cluttered. The app feels like an early day Android app. It stutters and crashes on my iPhone 12 Pro.

Google. Please. Scrap this. Go back to when the drawing board. Listen to your customer and bring the old app back. We know it costs money for you to do instant transfers. But my god man. You guys have more money than God. I think you could afford to have an app that shows you’re not greedy and that makes people’s lives easier. The old app had amazing reviews and just plain worked.

I’m so disappointed. One of the best things about the previous version of Google Pay is Joe simple it was. I was able to get my non techie friends to buy into its use over a pizza night dinner. People born in the 1960s or earlier finally had a simple electronic payment so they felt comfortable with. I’m no where near that age group but I am software development professional and I know my audience. Yesterday it took us 45 minutes to attempt to get a payment done! Then we find out there’s this middle man app called “Plaid”. So now to money out of Google Pay people need to know their login to and password to banks? Make it even harder to get their money? Old GooglePay was simple and my 50’s 60’s and 70s neighbors could do it! Now they’re all just fumbling around trying help each other figure the app out. And what is this messaging feature trash? Just keep it simple. Send money to a gmail account, done. Money shows up on in persons checking, done. Now Google is holding money hostage and people are forced to not figure out how to use it or comply with using Plaid. And also there’s no simple way to cancel a payment either in this overly busy, ad filled, forced, hyperactive feeling app. Guess I have to teach them all to use something else and that’s sad. Google was winning for the non millennial crowd with brand name and simplicity. They trusted this app. Now I don’t even trust it and I write code!

Documents for verification can be submitted only by photographs for iPhone users. Once the documents are submitted the verification team will ask you to re-upload for no reason. The reason for rejection would say “The document cannot be verified. “ I know the document cannot be verified, but why? That will always remain a mystery since the email is from a faceless google Id .

- Chat won’t be able to help you at all in giving alternate means of submission.

- Google pay is the only service which wants the full 10 digits of my social. I read the privacy document and it was very bland. It said that we need to verify your identity. Even Credit cards are issued with only the last four of social. I don’t know why google pay needs all 10.

-And to verify my social you need me to give an image of social security card. I have not sent an image of my ssn except to a government agency. I don’t understand why Google pay needs my social security card alone. My driving license has my social. Why not use it for verification?

-There is no vault where the documents I have provided are stored or at least shown to me. If my account needs to be deleted there is no option to delete. Google says it will keep details private, but there is no substantive evidence that it does keep it private.

-Last if you try to delete your account because verification failed there is no button to delete it. Google can use the private data provided to anyone or everyone who asks for it for a price of course.

First Google chrome fast and secure automatically synced all my devices. One of which was 10 years old and no software updates. Because ya know. Android doesn’t believe in keeping their customers secure. So it spread outdated super viruses disguised as apps throughout all of my Android devices inviting hackers through my modem and giving them all access to every single device in my home. So. Product of that is I lost all access to all of my accounts. My bank. My Facebook. Samsung. Google. Home/Auto insurance. Portals to pay my utilities. I was completely lost. My Google and Facebook accounts both have all of my photos on them. Of my parents that had recently passed away. All of the photos of my children from birth to them getting married and the births of my grandchildren. EVERYTHING GONE. So I went out and purchased new. A new Android phone and a new Chromebook. Virus spread to them via Bluetooth (is my best guess) the brand new phone was bricked. The Chromebook did recover ( at least I think it did) and is functioning. Was able to recover my account for about a day when it updated. And long behold. Google account gone again. I have money sitting in my Google pay that I can’t access and the customer service number is not even a working number. Now I have purchased an iPhone. I use the Chromebook for minimal activity. I don’t trust Google with any of my information anymore. I don’t trust you with handling my email, my photos, much less my banking anymore. Get y’all stuff together.

TL;DR- skip this and use Zelle if your bank supports it. Google Pay (new) is terrible.

I recently switched from Android to iOS and wanted to transfer over some of that Android experience to my iPhone since I’ve had a great experience with the previous Google Pay app. Boy was I wrong about that.

The new Google pay app is far more invasive in terms of privacy as other reviewers suggested. It adds support to “aggregate” all your banking information into a single app. Now you may not see the issue with that, but it also allows the largest data mining company access to your financials.

Furthermore, it supports “Offers” that can be redeemed as cash back. However, the offers haven’t payed out for me, and if you EVER unenroll your card you will be unable to enroll the credit card in ANY future offers. The issue here is I unenrolled (to re-enroll) my credit card wondering why my offers haven’t posted and contacted Google Support about this. They had me install the old Google Pay app, delete my cards and re-add them. When I returned to the “new app” none of my cards could be enrolled. Infuriating design.

Finally, as a payment app this app really flunks. I’m glad I only sent $10 to my brother as a test because I still have yet to hear that he has received it after 15 business days. Yeah you read that right. My anecdote experience is Google pay is slower at transfers than a snail and still is pending. Do yourself (and your friends and family) a favor and skip this app for something less invasive and fast for quick, and small payments.

I recently downloaded the app. Thought it would be good since I use other google services. A friend sent me money. I tried to transfer the money out. Google allowed me to link my bank account but when I tried to transfer the money to my bank to avoid the 1.5% fee, it didn’t recognize my bank. I asked if I could just transfer the money back to the person who sent it to me, they said I would need to confirm account. Google wanted access to ALL my info. They already had my bank account info. They wanted my full social security #, drivers license, address, selfie, the whole 9 yards just to give the money back to the person who sent it to me.

I don’t have to give out ALL that info to other money apps like Venmo or PayPal just to use their platform. If the person sent me the money, why couldn’t I just return it without disclosing sensitive info. I will definitely be deleting the app after I get this problem resolved! Not interested in all the hoops! I understand security but when it forces me to disclose info against my will just to get the money out or send it back and doesn’t give me an option to cancel the transaction then it is has too many hoops for me!

Just too invasive for me. The documtation even said I could transfer up to $700 without disclosures and it wouldn’t let me! Don’t waste your time. Find and use another app that is easier, less invasive, and has less fees. This app would connect with my bank to check balances but can’t connect to transfer funds to? What the heck! Cost me $5.25 to get MY money out finally! Deleting the app ASAP!

Before we get into any of the annoying things they added to the app, let me start telling you what happened when I responded to my fiancés “invite request”.

Well, long story short, instead of having me create and original account, it gave me access to his account and I was adding my information to his account. So then we had to go through and delete all of that, but imagine if we were strangers, and I sent someone an invite, and they took over my account and started sending money to themselves. Mkay? Pretty sketch.

So, in the new app, instead of being free (the only reason we downloaded the original in the first place) it’s a 1.5% charge. Might as well have switched to Apple Pay, for my purposes. More over, this is bad for businesses who use the app, because if doesn’t charge the person sending the money, it charges the person who is receiving it when they go to transfer it from the grey zone to their bank account.

Which brings me to my next point, instead of the money going directly to my bank account, it went to this standing zone where it waited for me to tell it where to go. Which was a bit inconvenient if only because I didn’t know that’s what it was doing. It would be a benefit to someone using the app to work with several bank accounts, but for me, not so much.

And lastly, while this was only a minor matter for me, the app now requires you to have a passcode on your phone, which was a big deterring factor for my fiancé, and probably many others, who don’t want a passcode on their phone.

Really, it was all a horrific experience, one surprise after another. I would not recommend.

This app is a nice revamp to the service for sure, and makes it more than the simple send-and-receive money app it was before. That being said…

Over the course of the last year or so, I’ve been slowly getting more and more concerned about Google having access to my information. It shouldn’t be a secret in this day and age that Google is an information company, and they make a large amount of money by selling the usage information provided to them by their users.

There is some worrisome text in this app, especially because it’s a financial app and it’s run by Google. Text regarding sharing your data for more personalization options, on pages asking you to link your bank accounts for expense tracking… I’ll just come out and say it, if you’re looking for an app to track all of your finances it’s nothing made by Google. Do you really want a company that makes its fortune off selling user data to have access to all your financial records?

Do with that as you will, but as for me I will still only be using Google Pay to accept reimbursement from friends when we go out to eat or split other expenses such as a day trip or whatever. That’s not happening a whole lot in 2020, sure, but I do have a friend who only uses Google Pay for sending and receiving money with friends/family so I need this app to get paid by him when we split costs.

Ultimately, this new Google Pay app has brought me startlingly closer to my eventual ultimatum, which I know will be deleting my Google account completely. That will definitely come with difficulties because of how prevalent Google is in our world, but it’s worth it for privacy — companies like Google/Amazon/Facebook, after all, prompt worldwide discussions on what companies should and shouldn’t be allowed to do with user data, and that should be enough of a red flag on its own.

App seems to work fine though, and it doesn’t look bad. So… three stars? That’s probably generous.

First things first, I’ve been using the old app with no issues ever. Had great time and even paid friends, family and coworkers with it. It was amazing doing that since I have a lot connected with google. I’ve always like the google product, I’m a subscriber to YouTube as well to other google services since they do such an wonderful job at pretty much everything they do. Here is my issue: App does not work. Yes, you read that right. I tried over and over and over and over and over and over again till the point that I do not know what to do anymore. I need to pay someone which I’ve been paying for months now through the Google pay app flawlessly and then this happens. My phone is not locked, I do not see the point since all my important apps are locked. I need to constantly use my phone for work so I just leave unlocked for faster use and unfortunately this app is not allowing me in because my phone is unlocked...this is ridiculous. Set up a password like every other app I have on my phone. And when I want to use this app(in which is rarely) I will gladly type the password instead of me having to type a password on my phone for hundreds of time a week to unlock my phone because one app (this app), requires me to lock my phone before I’m able to use it. I understand that most new phones have the fingerprint system which I also can’t use since I wear gloves at work and it would not work for me. Google, the wheel has already been invented. Don’t have to reinvent. I am still a loyal customer for some of your other products, but seriously...fix this issue. I’ll set a quick password now just so I can use and then later unset again for quick access at work but please, hopefully next time I come here again to use this issue has been resolved. I hope that someone in Google reads this and do something about it. As of now, this app is trash and I’ll probably start using other transfer money apps but as of now I trust you guys and hope that this issue can be fixed. Yes, I’m upset, sorry if I sounded too harsh! This is my honest review.

I was referred to join the program and subsequently referred three additional friends to join. This app/service is a total SCAM and I can never believe a reputable company like Google is doing this to customers. All my friends and I completed all required steps to qualify for the $21 bonus and I should have received $21x4 for the bonus. After two weeks, I only received $26 in total bonus. I immediately reached out to customer service via email and received no response for three days. I then used the chat function to express my concerns. I was told that the bonus will be credited after the first transaction is processed. When asking why I received only two bonus (one $21 and another $5), I was told Google changed its referral bonus on Dec 21 and the new bonus was $5. First off, all my friends and I completed our first transaction by Dec 16, 5 days before the change took place. Secondly, I was told the bonus amount is not based on when the first transaction was started, but based on when the first transaction was “processed” and “completed.” One of my referral sent me $10 on Dec 16 and the amount was immediately deducted from her bank account the next day. Today is Dec 28 and I still haven’t seen her $10 go through and clear the process. Funnily, Google says it will take 1-5 business days to process and we have doubled the high end of the range and that transaction is still processing. This makes me believe Google is INTENTIONALLY holding off these transactions so it could change the bonus amount before transactions clear. Then Google will no longer pay us the referral bonus or pay us the minimum based on its “new” policy. This is such a FRAUD you are doing. Other apps like Venmo literally takes no time and no fees to process peer to peer payment. Why is it taking you two weeks and a simple $10 transition is still “processing”? Why do you lie to your customers and refuse to honor your bonuses while delaying these transactions? Stay away from this shameful practice. I’m being owed $21x3-$5 or $58 plus I’m not recovering my friends transfers.

The year was 2020. Google Pay was the best money transferring mobile app on the market. UI was clean and straightforward with no glaring bugs, lag, or confusions.

Now, with the so called "New" app for Google Pay, everything is somehow miles worse, in almost every regard. The only reason for two stars instead of one is that you can in fact send and receive money for free. The process of doing so is awful.

Initial impressions find the UI animations and navigation laggy and choppy. General navigation is the most confusing design I have encountered this decade, with a random array of different design choices from swiping between screens left/right to swiping modals up/down with no real distinction as to when something would be on a different screen or if it would be in the modal after swiping up.

The recent activity is difficult to find when I would expect that to be one of the first things I see, second only to paying or requesting money. Instead, the front and center UI is to 'Invite friend', showing that Google’s priorities are on themselves, not the actual experience usinng the app.

Actually paying someone involves tapping pay, waiting for the pay modal to load (about 3 seconds), then pay again, then waiting for a spinning icon to finish loading (about 3 seconds), after which you are presented with a full-screen-covering animation that takes another 3 seconds to finish. Finally, there is a 'Got it' button to tap to dismiss this screen. This process takes at least 15 seconds even if just tapping through as quickly as possible. This slowness is exemplified when you have multiple requests to pay at once, making a simple few payments take over a minute of mostly waiting on animations to finish.

Once you have received money, it banks into you Google Pay balance instead of automatically depositing into you bank account. It is much more involved to deposit this money into your account manually with no way to setup automatic withdraws. It is clear that Google is trying to mimic Venmo or Cash App after they already had one of the best apps available. Now it is one of the worst you can get.

So, some months ago we we’re all told Google Pay seen it’s day & that the funds we had were safe until we used them. • Ironically I stumbled across the App, a few days ago in the App Store, & at first sight I was excited! BUT, I see the that the real truth was that helping us out by allowing us to send $ instantly to friends with no fees being tacked on, was “too much free” going on. So you now charge a fee, to do those type of transactions, it just so happened all this you did while our jobs are being taken, while our small businesses are shutting down, while we can barely get by day to day because some of us don’t know if we will EVER get our jobs back. So this is how you treated us die hard Google Lovers, by making our lives just a lil harder. Sure the fee isn’t a lot but, YOUR GOOGLE, YOUR COMPANY SEES ALL, KNOWS ALL, DOES ALL! But yet your still able to sleep at night knowing that maybe that $3 fee was going to go towards making that crying hungry baby in the house only wants & eats Mac & Chz but you couldn’t get it cuz the lights and water would have been shut off even if it was 1 cent shy of the amount due, especially if your working on payment plans with those utility companies I think the majority of us are! So, here’s to you Google, (My entire family now back to iPhones, & we traded in our Google Pixels & Google Homes, for Alexa, she’s smarter anyways!) Oh & Yeah, used to PREACH Google Chrome, #TeamMozillaFireFox2021; until you and your administration sits down & rethinks how much you may have caused to ppl that are already dealing with enough already. I will NOT allow a Google anything to be sold without this letter in the box & the story will be told that by sales reps, oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I did lose my main job, but my Uncle & Fabulous Aunt run 4 stores, 2 Best Buy’s (1 is in Los Angeles California) & 1 Verizon Cellular Store & 1 Sprint/TMobile Store! They gave me a job doing a little stocking at 3 of the stores local to me next! So this isn’t just a review, it’s an FYI, a hint, a promise! Fix it, HELP the people out, by offering small rewards like Venmo & Cash App, & they don’t charge us fees! HOWEVER UNTIL THEN, STARTING 01/07 I’m gonna be stuffing letters in any Google product I see on shelves, Oh & I will for sure remove the tacky little display phones you all send us to show the customers inside the cell stores, besides ppl steal those anyways, Apple is the only ones that sends several extra’s for broke or stolen displays... & No worries, there will be an excerpt of this nice letter (review) to read!

Btw, I’ve also copied every review that reverts back to this act of disgrace. So everyone’s voices will be heard, 1st Amendment is in ORDER!

Ohhh & I forgot I also order stock for our Best Buy, so I’ll make sure I get just the right amount of Google Products. :) (One a week)

Thanks for ruining Google for all of us, The Millennials set the move for the future, Google, your off to a really bad start sweet tart!

Take a STAND, Demand the Change! You can reply to this when you have a heart & reconsider being humane for once, I do believe in second chances. However, There is a time limit on when that second chance can be considered as a true sincere motion! Don’t wait until you notice a dip in your stock because that would be proving to us that all you really ever cared about was the value of your company & the products/assets!

So, clock starts now!

Spoken Truth, #ExGoogleLover #ExGoogleEverything, #ExGooglePixelInfluenxer #NewGoogleASSASSiN
#GoogleExposer

#iPhone12ProMaxMotivator
#iPhonesDontDiscriminate
#iPhoneForTheYouth #FindMyFriendsAppleAppStore
#iPhoneForTheElderly
#iPhoneForEVERYONE!

The Google Exposer ❤️ All You Gotta Do is Google it!

❤️❤️

Ive never had problems with the old app but when I tried to use it recently,it wouldn’t send the money($200 which was my Jeep payment!) until I downloaded the new app. Threatening if i wait i will lose my balance on the account! So i did! Well there us a third party bank #1 After downloading the app is Google Pay of India! #2 A 3rd party bank Placid or something to handle your money. #3 No where did it warn you that its a P2P type if transaction. So, long story short...The old app took the money off my debit card then sent it out thru the new app.While at the same time, the new app took the money out again-directly out of my checking account-not debit card and it showed i had a balance of $200. Well poof! When I tried to get it back and delete my bank info, it wont & my balance is zero! The saddest thing is that im a terminal cancer patient that lives on SSI and i cant afford to have lost that $200 So just a word if Caution. And Google I hope you sleep easy!
Ive called, emailed, everything

1) The ratings for the old gpay and the new gpay need to be separated. The 4.7 stars is based on the old app, not the new one.

2) I used the old app to transfer funds between 2 debit cards/ bank accounts. I was able to switch between my main google account and a secondary google account I created specifically for gpay. With this update I can’t send a “friend” invite to my mobile number because google views it as the same account. I use the same mobile number on both accounts. Now, I can’t use the main feature that the old app was easily able to do.

3) My credit union is not a listed bank

4) This app states bugs were fixed , what exactly was fixed?

5) As many have stated there was no notification that we would no longer be able to use the old app.

I never write reviews, but this “enhancement” was so bad that I had to write something. We should have had the option to be grandfathered into the old app and notified that starting in 2021 if you don’t upgrade now, you will automatically be instructed to install the latest version. So simple.

Google pay recently has advertised the “$21 refferal rewards” for referring new users. On the first day when it started, it said the deadline is December 31st, you can refer up to 10 people, so maximum you can get total of $210. But on the same day, just couple hours later, Google immediately changed the policy to only can refer up 3 people, then later on they added $10 as a minimum transaction in order to get the reward. Then today, they changed it to “ while supplies last”, that mean they can stop this reward program anytime regardless the deadline (12/31). Hey this is kinda like a joke and fooling around people. I mean if you can’t keep your “promise” then just dont start it. Be honest, the app just like a trash, lagging and very difficult to find anything compare to other similar apps. No wonder why u Google need to boost up the download on App Store by this “fake” reward program. You should think about how to improve your app instead of doing such things and fool people around. If i can give negative star i will do it, but the lowest is one star. You can do better Google!

The Old Google Pay app was great. It was very simple. This new app is extraordinarily convoluted. It has no section to receive money and absolutely no ability to integrate from the old app.
The customer service is beyond horrible. My name on the old app wouldn’t transfer and I tried contacting cs. They wanted me to uninstall & reinstall. We were connected through the New app. I asked if that would disconnect us. They said No. Of course it did. Then after talking to 3 different agents none of them understood the problem, but want more screenshots.
I used a different email to connect to the new app, since the old one has some undefined fatal error. And I still have absolutely no way to either input old contacts or receive money from them. I thought I found it and NOPE, it was sending a text message to someone to download the new app, not connect with me.
After fiddling around with it for an hour of credit card info, password changes, requiring a passcode on my phone. I gave up!
I decided to simply use another system. This is beyond ridiculous!
They should have just kept the old app exactly as it was.

I live in Puerto Rico (PR) we are part of USA and I'm using the Google Pay (Google Pay (old logo)) many times, when try to send money the app ask me to install this new GPay (new logo) as a early access because I can't send money.

Downloaded and installed, then...

I can't register because my phone number is from PR not USA.

“We are part of USA”

But what the heck!, people that live here in PR using Google Pay are fine without problem using Google Pay (as repeat old logo app) and by the way in the
"United States: Supported payment methods" the list of banks YOU HAVE Banco Popular of Puerto Rico and im using another local in PR bank on my list of payments methods.

You MUST INCLUDE Puerto Rico's area codes; 787 and 939 for the process of register correctly my account as well thousands of residents in PR and those who live as well in USA using phone numbers from PR.

So you're giving a bad step for this early app for people of Puerto Rico and you strongly discriminate us.

By the way too, Google recognizes us part of the USA on many services using our area codes...

I have to use for emergency PayPal's service instead.

Shame on you Google.

After referrals sent out out directly to several colleagues.

Zero payouts! Google has tons of profits yet is pulling a bait and switch so never refer people to this App!

Google could write this App to be less than 99 megabytes, but laziness with sloth and indolence obviously took hold for this behemoth begging to be broken apart!

They created a legalese out, but never tell you status, just while supplies last for payouts. Well obviously they change their terms of service unilaterally faster than you can say Kim Jung Un to cheat you from your earned referral mutual credits.

None of my colleagues have received a dime nor indicated dollars from the greedy Google Plex whilst you download, jump through hoops and perhaps like me, actually have a real reason to utilize Google Pay in context, yet are prevented from rewards because of their greed to be I’ve sided like a monopoly would behave from the John D. Rockefeller handbook of Sherman Antitrust moves.

So do not refer with expectations of payouts, as these Mountain View cheaters to United States, Singapore and India have decided to be rogue on referral dollars promised with true legalized banditry!

The app worked very well as it was. If it's not broken, don't "fix" it.

This new app is trash. I dont understand why they got rid of the old app, it was perfectly fine

I don’t understand how you can go from being the most easy to use, flawless, useful app, and then turn into the most broken, complicated garbage of an app. You guys should go back to the old app because it actually worked properly.

This app is terrible I liked the old one but can’t link bank accounts to the new one tried from 2 separate banks they both were on the old version. Can’t add people not from contacts. I contacted customer service and they were worse than the app. They couldn’t answer any questions I asked. I will never use this app again. The old one was perfect I don’t know why they had to replace it with this trash.