Ally Financial
reviews and complaints

Like most of the poor reviews on here, mine stems from their poor customer service and inexplicable holding of customer funds. Opening my account was easy though I found it troublesome that they shipped a debit card with no way for me to track or check on the status of. I moved money with Zelle from an existing account and that was smooth despite the ridiculous limit. Where my trouble begins is when I tried to change my direct deposit. I used their provide sheet and sent this to my job. My job claims the bank rejected the prenote. I still don’t know who is being truthful but after my interactions with Ally CS I’m inclined to believe the payroll company. Though sending me a paper check without any communication was also terrible on ADPs part. The most infuriating part is that I checked with Ally before I deposited that check and flat out said that I needed those funds as I only get paid 1-2x a month. I was told next day. So I stupidly deposited the check. Now here we were 6 days heading into 7 and I still don’t have access to my money. I have talked to their absolutely awful CS several times and was told last night my money won’t deposit until the 21st. That’s 10 days from the day it was deposited. For a payroll check and I had the full check amount in my account. My employer says the money’s been pulled. So someone please explain to me what reason they could possibly have to hold thousands of dollars of my money for 10 days with no explanation during a pandemic. For me the lying is the nail in the coffin. I will be moving right back to my old bank. Every bank has issues but I have never encountered such poor, inept customer service. If you never have an issue you’ll probably like this bank but think back on your years of banking and tell me if you’ve never not once needed CS.

Most of the app works fine, but I may have identified a design problem. I used bill pay to schedule a payment and accidentally selected tomorrow as the delivery date. Shortly after, I got an email saying that I had scheduled a same-day payment and incurred a 9.95 fee. I checked bill pay again and it does show the same-day fee, but also said you can’t edit or delete a same-day payment. I tried calling customer service, but they said they can’t cancel it on their end, either. The problem is that I did not know that I was scheduling a same-day payment. I didn’t see any warning about a fee anywhere in the process. I canceled and rescheduled one of the other payments to try to spot some warning I might have missed, but that one wouldn’t let me select tomorrow. I suspect (but can’t confirm) that there was no warning. The only thing that stands out is that tomorrow’s date was blue on the calendar, while the rest were black. But there’s no explanation of what that means. If you’re gonna charge $10 for an irreversible error, there should be one last chance to notice and correct the error, with the fee made extremely obvious. It’s possible that there was some mention of it that I missed (perhaps listed on the confirmation screen somewhere?) but I use bill pay so much I was kind of on auto-pilot while scheduling payments. A warning about a $10 fee needs to be obvious enough to break the auto-pilot.

Update: I explored a bit further and when I tap on today, I get a popup error warning of the fee; exactly the type of warning I would expect for a $10 fee. But I don’t get that popup when I tap on tomorrow. It was about 9pm Alaska time when I scheduled the payment, so it makes sense that tomorrow would be considered a same-day payment. But the app does not give any warning about it for tomorrow, only for today. This is definitely a bug.

I will stay as objective as it’s important. Ally Bank is practically one of the best out there, if not the best! However, here are a few ideas that will make Ally Bank App beat the competition permanently:

1. Ability to link any net debit, credit, and other third party bank accounts into Ally App.

2. Ability to track and round up spare change from any eligible expenses made on any Ally checking, debit and/or credit card accounts and all linked external accounts. For example, say I donate $124.50 on a charity cause or I spend $2.49 on “bulletproof coffee” from a store paying Ally or a linked external debit or credit card, or both, Ally rounds these up and deposits into the preferred Ally account i.e 50¢ or 51¢ respectively.

3. Allows different options and frequencies for depositing for these spare change roundups. For example, in nearest whole dollar, double, x3, or x4... etc; or instant deposits, weekly, monthly, and/or each time a round up is over $4.99 (similar to the free BoostUp App).

4. Enables the ability for customers to rename Ally bank accounts within the Ally Bank App. For example, instead of the default “Online Savings Account” or “Interest Checking,” a user can change it to whatever they want under “Account Nickname.” This ability already exists on their website. You can do this from website but not from the app.

5. Merge Ally Card Control App and Ally Bank App.

I recommend Ally Bank highly.

1. Do you have to deal with bureaucracy of teller banking with BOA and their cohorts? Ally is 24/7 service with none of the judgements and all of the best practices customer service.

2. Do you have limited options with traditional banking? Well, Ally has a plethora of options, and via their user friendly app and website interface, you see details of each account even if you’re computer-illiterate. And more...

I’ve been an ally customer for years and have truly enjoyed their offerings and model over many other options. However over the past few months I’ve noticed logging in has become more and more problematic. It isn’t very responsive, and habitually presents states that are hard to discern as a user by not offering acceptable feedback. A pair of examples I have readily available - Tonight I was entering in my username and password, hitting submit, and the loading prompt would flash up briefly and then disappear. After doing this about half a dozen times, closing the app and restarting my phone I finally get an email that my account has been locked after too many failed password attempts. I was never notified by the app - and my only option to get back in seems to be calling as no other method of password reset has any response. This would be so bad except ally makes you stay on the line while on hold, which tonight was over an hour. This is completely unacceptable for an online only bank. Call me back? Why can this not be a thing? Plenty of other places do it. I have to sit on a phone call that tells me every 20 second that it appreciates my patience for 90 minutes so someone can reset my password that I wasn’t told was incorrect in the first place because no feedback was issued despite reloads of the application and restarting my phone. This seems fundamental.

The second more common though less impactful scenario is when logging in and pressing submit the screen can hang as though nothing has happened for quite a long time. Obviously it’s relative, probably 3-6 seconds. But in a modern software world that’s plenty long enough to think nothing has happened. This happens moderately frequently and I frequently press the FaceId button thinking it didn’t take, only to be told that I’m about to unregister FaceId before something finally happens.

If Ally wants to be the future of banking let's begin leading the pack and not being behind everyone else. We were practically the last people to get: Pending transactions, check scanning, a mobile application, and will be the last ones to get mobile scanning. Come on Ally you are making me rethink my decision to move all of our accounts over to you.

Update: Sadly Ally I'm afraid our long term relationship will probably very soon be coming to an end. I had such high hopes to be a part of something and that you would be leading the pack, we would be the cool kids on the block that everyone thought was the leaders, the movers and shakers. I used to be proud to say I was an Ally customer, now it's embarrassing. For an online bank that talks about how great and wonderful they are...we should be making other banks want to be like us, not many of your customers saying things like, why can't we have what the other brick and mortar banks now have as fairly common place.

It just floors me, and if there are reasons you aren't doing things, share them with the family...because for the most of our relationship I have felt like the red headed stepchild. I no long feel that cool factor I once felt.

Can you do the basic things a bank should do - certainly, but since I do everything through a website or an app and not with a person - I should be able to do it on the best banking app around. Sadly I'm going to have to switch to another bank in order to get that. They are realizing technology can set them apart...where we are simply getting left in the dark and feeling like we are in the dark ages. Unfortunately, like many failures, you will begin to wake up as a last final ditch effort to save yourself, let's just hope it is not too late. I should have known this would be the case since Ally came from GM originally...that's exactly the place GM allowed themselves to get.

I opened an account with Ally bank on 03/03/2023. I had my first direct deposit with them on 03/24/23. I contacted them to find out about by debit card so I could gain access to my money. They stated that my debit card was created and would arrive to my address within a few weeks. On 03/29/2023 they locked my account due to “suspicious activity in my account” Despite verification of my identity using all identification methods they were unable to provide the reason for my account being locked or the actual timeframe of when I may regain access to my money. I called Ally Bank several times and left three different voicemails to management on three different days with no response from management despite being told they would respond within 24-48 hours. The following is a call log with Ally Bank: 1500 03/30/23 Madison “They will call you back with an update.” 1517 03/30/2023. Falicia “I do see where they placed a restriction on your account 03/29 let me see what this restriction is for.” “Although we have done everything we can to confirm your identity, an investigator has to complete the final steps to verify your account because your account is new and not finished being set up.” 1230 04/03/2023 Charles w/ Fraud Prevention. “I probably wouldn’t use an online bank. If you would like to close the account we can now.” 1430 04/03/2023 Stuart w/ fraud prevention. “We are unable to close the account because it is still under investigation.” 1515 04/07/2023 Customer service representative states account is still under review. Loss prevention did not connect to call because they said I already spoke with them four days ago. This “Bank” has caused me extreme financial hardship and suffering due to no access to my funds. Absolutely NO ONE should hold an account with this negligent institution. Chase/JP Morgan bank owns Ally Bank and therefore by association should never be considered a trustworthy institution. STAY AWAY!

July
Still having issues with this bank and transparency with my funds.

I am currently unable to access anything here at the grocery store due to their conducting maintenance. Highly unprofessional. Over the months I’ve split my deposits and cash into other accounts and will have to take a higher percentage out as my trust for this bank degrades even more.

I've had ally for three months now and decided to assign direct deposit through them since everything was going mostly smoothly, with the exception of a very glitchy app. Initially it was great... Until I got a promotion from work. My job accidentally shorted me over $2500. A big deal for the every day worker like myself. My rent payment of course did not go through. I was, rightly, charged an additional $25 return fee by ally. More than understandable. I made sure to pay it. I have had in-app issues but decided I needed the money safe so I quickly deposited into my account. This was Friday. A day later I get an email saying my money, all of it, will not be available until next THURSDAY. Almost one full week, 7 days from the date of deposit. Even though it's clearly a payroll checks and 6 full days after my rent and car note are due. I'm astounded. What ever happened to transparency and honest banking? In all my years of trustworthy banking I've never had a bank hold a check for almost full week. I call and inquire and am told by two not-so-helpful, uninformed employees that there's nothing they can do but I should have it in two days. This is a lie. The customer service is the worst I've ever experienced. I should have done my research before I gave them my money. Do yours. Long story short, do not trust this bank with your hard earned money. They will basically steal from you and leave you stranded. I did some additional research and this bank has a history of fraudulent and discriminatory practices. When my check clears I'm using the money to open an account somewhere else. You're better off cashing your checks at the gas station. Just my opinion.

I was at first a bit wary of having to switch from the old TradeKing iOS app, but I'm glad I did! This app is in my opinion an upgrade to the original Zecco and TradeKing app. It's got all the same information displays and trading interface that the old ones had, plus the initial overview donut chart display. Perhaps some people didn't know how to get to the rest of the investment portion of the app, but as soon as you click through the initial dashboard, you get your portfolio view as well as the Watchlists which were thankfully ported over and should have the same data from TradeKing. The stock quotes are updated on demand by pulling down. Just wait a second or so, depending on your connection speed, and you get fresh quotes. The chart, options and news displays are the same UI that TradeKing users will be familiar with, however I noticed the chart view has a couple differences: 1. They finally fixed or completely avoided the old app's chart view display bug! The old app used to get somehow stuck when rotating between portrait and landscape view, and there was no way to fix the shortened view when the bug was triggered except to restart the entire app. This implementation does not have the bug that the old Zecco / Tradeking app had! 2. The upper and lower indicators do not save state between sessions of use. This is a minor annoyance, but the old app used to save your active indicators for longer it seemed. However, with the display bug fixed, this is a preferred trade off. I'm not giving 5 stars yet because I don't have any other Ally accounts and hence no access to those other parts of the app. These parts all say inaccessible to me when I select them through the "hamburger" menu on the top left. So I can't give a perspective on those parts, but overall from the investment part and as far as feature parity with the old TradeKing app, this migration gets 5 stars! I'm sure a lot of porting work was done in order to have a smooth migration to a new app and UI, and for things to be this polished, bug free, and having the same features is a great and rare scenario for a migration such as this.

I’ve only had my account with Ally for less then two weeks and I am already in the process, yes process because Nothing is easy with this bank, of transferring my money back to Bank of America. The last two days have been so much more stressful then they needed to be. The level of unprofessionalism from their “customer service” representatives is at a all time high. I’d say 2 out of the 10 people I talked to were either, rude or clueless. One of the employees, I believe his name was Dimitri or Dominic-idk, literally argued with me, raised his voice, told me an entirely different name then when he answered the phone, lied to me about my account activity, and then hung up on me. It was awesome, not. They locked me out of MY account where MY money was and wouldn’t let me touch ANY OF IT. My rent was late, couldn’t go to the grocery store, had to borrow money to do those things so now I owe someone money. I mean my god! They said my checks hadn’t cleared after over a week for one and coming up on a week for the other. Ok let’s say PNC lied and they hadn’t actually cleared(they had), why TF was I locked out of my account and not able to touch the other half of my money? Why did my account say that I had x amount available if I actually did not have that much available? My day yesterday consisted of hours of on and off the phone with different people who didn’t know or care to help me. Do you know how it feels to be kept from the bulk of your funds? Thousandsss of dollars, everything you have? It feels nauseating. So my point here people is, RUN the other way! Do not make the same mistake as me and open ANY type of account here. I have got to call complete BS on this rating they have in the App Store. There is absolutely no way that this is real. Feel free to head over to Ally Bank Facebook community page and read the many MANY negative comments. I’d say about 8/10 of the comments are negative. It’s sad actually. Like who is running this place? What kind of soulless monster is running a business that operates like this?! Ally, read your Facebook comments, help your people that are begging you to do what you are supposed to do as a financial institution, DO BETTER.

DO NOT PUT YOUR MONEY IN ALLY BANK! I haven’t been able to transfer money out of my account. Someone warned me he couldn’t get his money out of his Ally account, and I decided to move some of my money out, and ran into the SAME PROBLEM. Ally keeps FREEZING THE TRANSFERS, then CANCELLED THEM ENTIRELY, while sending me constant emails that they’ve suspended my transfers and I need to call immediately, and I do, and after AN HOUR phone call EACH TIME, they tell me it was an ERROR ON THEIR PART and everything is now sorted, and THEN A FEW HOURS LATER I’ll get an identical email that transfers are suspended AGAIN, and have to go through it all AGAIN! When they cancelled the transfers entirely, they said they were putting the money BACK in my Ally account, BUT THEY DIDN’T. MY MONEY ISN’T SHOWING UP ANYWHERE, NOT at the bank I was trying to transfer to, and NOT in my Ally account either! All this when before I made the first transfer I first called them to tell them I would be making the transfers out of my Ally account, and they said because the account was “only” months old, I could only transfer out 10k a day, BUT THEY STOPPED EVEN THAT. DAILY PHONE CALLS, SOMETIMES TWICE A DAY, HAVEN’T HELPED. They keep telling me, after an hour on the phone, it’s sorted, that the previous person made a mistake (they say this EVERY time)—BUT IT’S NOT SORTED. MY MONEY IS NOT SHOWING UP. I just got TWO more emails in the middle of the night telling me transfers were suspended, AGAIN, and will have to call AGAIN. THIS IS INSANE. THE ONLY TIME I’VE EVER DEALT WITH AN EGREGIOUSLY CORRUPT, GROSSLY INCOMPETENT BANK, AND IT’S SCARY. AVOID ALLY AT ALL COSTS. At this rate, I’m wondering if I’ll even be able to close the account, which will require them to TRANSFER ALL MY MONEY OUT—IF I CAN EVER GET MY MONEY BACK IN THE ACCOUNT. NIGHTMARE. How could anyone take this bank seriously? Who would give them a penny of their hard-earned money?! I’d call it a Mickey Mouse operation but that would be an insult to Mickey Mouse. I’m writing this review for two reasons: because I wish I’d read a review like this BEFORE I put my money in Ally bank, AND in hopes that someone will see it and stop this craziness and GIVE ME MY MONEY SO I CAN CLOSE THIS JOKE OF AN ACCOUNT.

Dear Ally Corporate:

I’m an Ally customer and I use your app, but for some reason I can’t figure, I still need to use a separate checking ledger to keep track of ALL encumbered funds ... Why? I find this offensive because it sets up the client for failure and causes unnecessary complication to the end-user in trying to stay on top of what their actually-available, encumbered balance is. Why would you do this? I can only think of one reason, because you are now excused to charge the simply outrageous overdraft fees you, and most all financial institutions, believe you’re entitled to. You need to enable your customers to succeed, not fail. This feature should be SOP for Ally. Why don’t you cut the edge of personal banking and get this done. [That’s not a question, nor is it a request - it’s a demand. You’ve got my hard-earned cash, I don’t ask for permission.]

+++++++

Dear Ally Customers or Those Considering Ally:

If you’re a customer of a bank that provides apps to their customers, demand that they include a built-in ledger that provides an upfront running balance showing all encumbered funds, not only those funds that are immediately withdrawn, but, also those funds which you have generated electronic payments for, or, hand-written checks for. Anything less is a scam and it’s about time ALL financial institutions that offer checking accounts with apps grow up and honestly serve their customers with this very basic, but, vital functionality. Banks need to enable their customers to succeed, not fail.

By the way, if you’ve never seen what I’m describing, check out Simple bank app. They feature a “Safe-to-Spend” visible balance that includes ALL funds that have been or are going to be withdrawn from you account. So why don’t I use Simple? I did for six years, then, for a reason I’m sure was all about the bank that backed them, BBVA Compass, they suddenly stopped offering any bill-pay features and promptly sent all of their customers paper checks, and essentially said - Have a Nice Day! Other than that, I’d still be with them. Bottom line, stop letting your financial institutions set you up for failure by providing a feature that should, by now, be SOP.

(This “review” was also included in my review of Accounts 2, the checking ledger I’m forced to use because Ally won’t provide secure and safe user interfaces to their customers via their apps.)

EDIT 2: Due to some bugs that caused me to uninstall and reinstall the app and a lack of features, I am reducing my review to 2 stars. As the title states, I would like a 1080p resolution for my iPhone 6 Plus. Apple opened up Touch ID, so use it Ally. Get on board with Apple pay. It's better than carrying around cash or plastic.

EDIT: I am increasing the rating to 5 stars for Ally Bank adding bill pay functionality, remote deposit, and ACH transfers. There are still some things to improve on, and I am still waiting for an iPad or Universal version. I am glad it is not so bare bones anymore.

Loan customers need to stop whining and stop rating this app! In the app's title, it says MOBILE BANKING, not financing. The app is for Ally Bank, NOT Ally Financial (Ally Bank is a subsidiary of Ally Financial Inc). Ally Bank does not handle loans. With that said, it would be nice if Ally Financial DID have an all-in-one app like USAA, especially to assuage their loan customers. Also, showing balances of linked accounts (e.g. PageOnce, Mint, or USAA) would be a bonus. However, they can only take it one step at a time.

Now let's review the app. The first thing they need to do is add external account transfer (ACH) functionality. The second thing they need to do is add remote deposit. Just those two additions (if done right) would make this app 5 stars for me. I know Ally says they're working on it, but these features can't come soon enough.

Ally could improve some things in this app such as the login function. For example, they could include an option to remember your password on your phone, so it will login automatically on startup. Another idea is to ask for a short 4 number pin like many financial apps do (i.e. PayPal, USAA, and PageOnce). It would be nice to include access to Ally Perks within the app for those who have checking accounts.

I am sure some people think Ally should have waited on the release until everything in the app was finished; however, I am very glad Ally released what they had instead of waiting. Today, virtually no software is released in perfect condition. It is released, then updated. This is mainly because if developers waited until everything was perfect, the software would almost certainly never be released.

At this time, this app gets 3 stars because it is very bare bones. Once this app gets the features Ally is promising (or at least the two I mentioned above), it will be 5 stars.

TL;DR: avoid if you want anything more than free convenience store ATM usage.

I’ve been banking online since the 90s, and immediately prior to my 2 years with Ally I was with both Simple (online only) and BofA (behemoth).

My experience with Ally is that if you just want a place to send your direct deposits, set up some automated bill paying, and use your card at lots of ATMs, you’ll probably be fine - assuming you’re ok with long hold times should you ever have to call.

If, however, you need to do anything more with your money, your relationship with Ally will leave you consistently frustrated. Need to pull out more than $5K in cash in one day? Nope. Want to send more than $10K in any given 30 days via Zelle? You drop down to ETF (3 days to clear). Sending a wire? It could take a couple of days because they get, in their words, “backed up”.

For an online only bank, they put remarkable little care into the quality of their new feature releases. The Zelle rollout was a disaster that’s been well documented elsewhere. Popmoney, its predecessor, could largely be managed only on a desktop web site for much of its existence. It’s only within the past 6-8 months that you’ve been able to view your account and routing number in app.

The customer service staff is quick to refer you from the app to their website when things aren’t working for you. What they really mean is the desktop site, because their mobile web site does even less than the app. But the particular flavor of responsive design they’ve implemented on their site stymies efforts to use the desktop site on mobile - even when you tell your mobile browser to present itself as a desktop site - yet again leaving one wondering how a bank whose only touchpoint with customer is digital could get its digital experience so consistently wrong. So plan to sit at your desk to engage with them. In 2018.

Travel international much? Be prepared for even longer hold times, random freezes on your card even when you’ve informed them of your travel, and myriad other frustrations.

Which leads to the last point - their customer service. Affable, pleasant, and entirely disempowered to solve problems. There’s far too often another “department” that has to get involved in problem resolution. Of things that should never have been problems!

I’ve moved on to Chase, and though I find it odd that I would say this, I’ve found the giant incumbent is out innovating and better servicing than what should be the nimble, scrappy digital native.

Update: 2.2.2 has fixed my issues. App is still a little buggy, but much better than the 2.2.1 update.

Update: The 2.2 update left the app fubar. After 2.2.1, aesthetically it looks nice, but functionally it’s still barely usable. I’ve discovered two bugs thus far:

First, you can no longer copy and paste passwords from apps like 1Password. I hate that I can’t save this password to begin with (see the last paragraph from my original review below). Hopefully this is a minor oversight, instead of some goon’s idea of security.

Second, when depositing checks the app can’t upload the check image. It freezes when loading and then the app crashes.

This is a big deal for a company that leverages technology so heavily. To publish such a half-baked update is a real issue, leaving many customers out in the cold.

I tried submitting a bug through the app, but the app lacks that functionality. So, I called Ally. The rep didn’t seem to have a method of reporting bugs either. She encouraged me to review the app so the right folks would see my issues. I didn’t want to trash the app, but that seems like the only way of reporting these fundamental flaws. Thus, I’ve moved my review from a 4-star to a 1-star. I will update my review again once the app is stable, assuming this happens in a timely fashion.

Original Post: Coming From ING

Moving to Ally from ING Direct and I've been pleased with the Ally app. The mobile deposit, a feature of ING's that I've grown to love, has worked for me without any issues (For those experiencing issues, I would be curious to know what iOS they are running and if it is up to date). I appreciate mobile bill pay, a feature ING did not offer. And baking in some semblance of customer support in the app was a nice touch. Everything else seems to work as-expected.

I do have some feature requests...

I, too, would like an iPad version. But unlike many past reviewers, I don't think the lack thereof constitutes giving this iPhone app a poor review.

I wish there were a quicker alternative to logging into the app. When will app developers understand that iPhone security begins at the OS level? It trumps in-app security. I have very secure precautions in place for if my phone is lost or stolen - a very secure 'Lock Screen' password and 'Find My Phone' features in place. Having a mondo in-app password for the Ally app (and every other important app) adds virtually nothing but inconvenience. And having a easy/crappy password makes me a threat on the web.

That being said, all-in-all a nice offering from Ally.

I was pretty excited to start using Ally as my main bank but I must say I am utterly dissatisfied and disappointed with how things turned out after about a month of usage.

I have multiple accounts for multiple things and so I send money to myself between my banks via zelle often. It’s pretty convenient because I get the money immediately. What I do is I just have my number set up with one bank, and then one email set up to use zelle with another bank etc.

However, when I tried to send money to myself (a different account, not ally) from ally via zelle, it took, and is still taking, DAYS to compete the transfer. It’s as if I did an ACH transfer. This is so frustrating as I had already planned out my finances and such. I expected the money I sent from ally via ZELLE to my other bank account to be available immediately. When I contacted support they told me that this is they way zelle operates with ally and they usually advise customers not to zelle money to themselves because zelle might end up blocking their account. They also said that for money to be sent from my ally bank account to another one of my other banks via zelle, I would have to establish a relationship in order for the transfer to happen immediately. Factors such as overdraft fees, amount of money being sent and frequency at which money is sent, are all factors that determine how quickly your money is received. Excuse me WHAT!? Zelle is pretty clear on their end that money sent between zelle REGISTERED users is usually available almost immediately. I have been using zelle with Bank of America and Capital One and I have never had this issue. Never.

This whole ordeal just messed my plans up and I literally do not know how long the pending zelle transfer would take to send. I will be closing my ally account as soon as I can move all of my money away. I wanted to switch from BOA because of the monthly maintenance fees but I have honestly never had any problems with BOA. And thanks to Ally, I would probably never switch from BOA, I’d just have my direct deposits from my job go to my BOA so I can avoid the monthly fees.

I was really looking forward to using ally but this experience has made me not want to use their platform anymore. And it’s sad, because I advertised the bank to friends and family and had a few of them switch to ally. I have of course made my feelings know to them.

One last note is that using the app is kind of buggy, when I had initially contacted support about this issue I tried to use the chat feature but the UI/UX experience was woeful. So I had to call. There have also been some intermittent issues where I’ve been logged off while navigating the app. Also clicking on some links within the app don’t work / doesn’t take you anywhere. Oh well.

Hope this helps someone.

The app in it of itself is just fine in my experience. My issues with them stem from the market getting busy, retail investors getting more active, and their inability to ramp up their support staff to scale to customer needs.

After the issues at the height of the GME squeeze, their entire platform went dark. Couldn’t get ahold of anybody, the app was down constantly, the online chat service was never working (still isn’t), and the “alternative link” to access accounts wouldn’t work properly, if it loaded. I simply don’t have the time to sit on hold endlessly waiting for somebody to pick up. After losing a chunk of money by not being able to access my invest account, I figured I’d try to keep with them. I gave up on that when every email response said something along the lines of, “we’re available by phone 24/7, or chat online”. I realized then they couldn’t grasp the fact that when it comes to my money, not being able to get timely answers is just as important to me as the software itself. Being able to sit on hold endlessly and having a chat icon on your platform isn’t the same thing as being available. I understand that holding to speak to a representative is standard, but that doesn’t make up for the hold lengths and chat features not being manned. That simply means you aren’t staffed properly. And that in it of itself is a problem at the top of the company.

Having a callback feature could’ve prevented my departure. In which you ask for a call when the next rep was available. At least that way I wasn’t forced to wait constantly and could move on to other things without ridiculous hold times with a recording stating that “you’re important to us.” Not important enough to staff your support department properly though.

I decided to change brokerages and move on. Submitted a request to transfer my account in kind elsewhere. Received an email from my new brokerage stating the account has been transferred, which took a few days, but I know that is standard. Logged into my new brokerage only to realize it was short $5,000 and four of my positions didn’t get transferred over. Ally left 4 stocks in the account (which was closed now) and I had to sit on hold with them, again to see what the issue was. As of pre-market on 2.11.2021, I was told it would take a day or two to move them over. Going into a long weekend, I’m hoping those positions are over in my new account by Tuesday. If not by Wednesday I’m going to need to speak to somebody in management.

Honestly, if your company staffed your support team properly you’d still have my business. My last email was is going on 72 hours without a response. Further evidence that they simply can’t take care of their customers in a matter in which is necessary.

***Edit to add***
I sent an email on 1.30.2021. I just received an email response today. Today is 2.24.2021. 25 days. An absolute failure of customer service, and further proves my point that they are not nearly as staffed as they need to be. May you fix these issues for your current and future customers. I won’t be one of them again, you’ve lost my trust.

To be fair, please note this is going to be a rather longer review. There are details listed you may want to be aware of before you make a decision.

Ally does not do business as a bank. They may be called a bank, but I have never experienced an institution to behave like they do that was actually a bank.

My horrible experience started normal as I applied to open a IRA and checking. I go through the process and I get to the end and it states that my application has to be reviewed for approval. Please keep in mind that I have excellent credit history, no criminal record, I have lived in same county for 49 years, lived in same house for 14 years, and have never, ever had problems or been denied a bank account! So I complied and waited for an email or phone call. After a week, I decided to call and find out what’s going on.

I called and spoke with two different people and found out they want to do a hard pull on my credit reports in order to start the review on my application. I asked why would you not contact me and why in the world would you need to do a hard pull on my credit report to approve my account. Rep said it was their policy to do that and my reports were locked. She refused to address the question as to why they didn’t contact me. I do have all my reports locked and against my better judgement I agreed to unlock them. I got them all unlocked and called them back to let them know. So I waited again...

One week later, still no emails or phone calls again, so I called in again. Rep said they had not started the review process! This should have told me to run away far and fast, but I didn’t. Rep said that sometimes a phone application will go through less problematic so I agree to let her try. She tries to open a checking account and guess what; it doesn’t get approved automatically. I am beyond irate now and demand answers as to why this is going on. Talk to two different people and of course they refused to give me answers. So I waited again!

Finally get my accounts opened and guess what; there’s a IRA account and 2 checking accounts! Unbelievable! So I call in to get one of the checking accounts closed. I give the Rep the account number I want closed. I also find out that Ally will not allow me to simply move funds from my checking account to my IRA account without having to go through filling out paperwork for a IRA contribution each and every time I wanted to make a transfer and then I would have to mail it in to Ally before they would do the transfer. They have to “review” it before approving it (where did I hear that before). Bet you can’t guess what happened; both checking accounts get closed!

So after multiple chances for Ally to be a “bank”, Ally successfully demonstrated that they were not a “bank”. So in summary, Ally practices draconian behaviors in order for you to do simple actions like opening accounts and doing account to account transfers that all other banks have no problems with at all completing them instantaneous without having to have some person(s) to do a manual review.

I hope they don’t decide to open a library. Can you imagine what would happen if you wanted to check out a book?

So I do agree that you need an Ally, but Ally “bank” is anything but an ally!

I have been using online digital only banking for several years now through my accounts with Chime and Simple. The only thing that sent me looking for a different company was the mobile check depositing issues I’ve had with both in the past. Other than that though I haven’t had any major issues with either company.

So I had this insurance check that I needed to deposit and wanted to try another company in hopes of finding one I can use for an easier mobile check deposit experience. I did some research and then opened a new account with both Varo and Ally at the same time because I wasn’t sure which would end up working out.

First of all, I got my Varo bank debit card in the mail in just 3 days and I activated it on their super easy to use app in under 30 seconds! Unfortunately I found I couldn’t use their mobile check deposit until my account matured. So, I decided to just deposit my check into the Ally account thinking I should have my debit card from them ready to go by the time my check completely cleared or shortly there after. Well, that was obviously wishful thinking because it took over 7 business days just to get the card. They wouldn’t even send the card until I made a deposit?! And now I’ve had this Ally Bank Card almost another full week and STILL cannot activate it! The check cleared like 3 weeks ago and I can’t access those funds unless I transfer it using my other bank accounts ACH transfer service which takes about 3-5 days for processing. Already this is becoming so much of a hassle.

I tried the activation number on the card over a dozen times but it never worked. I’ve also called into customer service and talked to 3 different associates which all made me hang up after each conversation to call the activation number on the card, AGAIN to try to activate it! Of course that doesn’t work. I’m starting to think the CS people I talked to literally did nothing. Why does a digital bank even need you to call a phone number to activate your debit card? Shouldn’t that be included in the app or available ONLINE?! And why can’t your customer service people actually ACTIVATE the card for me? None of this makes a lick of sense.

Each phone call took between 15 and 45 minutes because they had to go through security questions to access my account, then wait on their slow computers to pull up my account information and then finally verify all my information is correct. Why do we need to verify my information matches the info on file all THREE TIMES is beyond me!?! Ugh.

The last time I called I sat on hold while the associate was “checking on things” for over 30 minutes. Then when she finally comes back all she can say is that she can’t do anything and I need to call a completely new phone number to talk the their “back office people.” Oh, and of course they aren’t open now so I have to call back tomorrow and sit on hold again or leave a message and sit by my phone waiting for someone to finally call me back in maybe 2 or 3 days. The whole while I can’t use the card to access my money!

So needless to say, I’m done with this bank.

Here’s the TL;DR version: This company is a joke and you should really not open an account with them unless you enjoy your bank holding your money hostage by making it extremely difficult to access while you are forced to deal with relentlessly absurd issues that most digital banks figured out years ago. My opinion? Save yourself the headache and avoid this company at all costs. Choose Simple bank instead. Or Varo. Or Chime. Any company but this one!

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I was switched from Ollo to Ally because Ally bought out Ollo. I received the new card and activated it but when I went to create the account online, it says no user found. It doesn't let me log in or create an account. Luckily I'm on autopay. When I called customer service they just say some users are delayed and to try again at a later date. WTH is wrong with this picture? People need to be able to view their account and to make transactions. It's been about a month since I've had the new card and over a month since changing over to Ally. The switch was in June and it's now the end of October. This is unacceptable!

ALLY is the worst. I returned a jeep, all payments made and made on time, 4,500 miles under. I viewed my credit report and found a balance that I was unaware of. When I leased my new vehicle, the dealer and myself was never notified of any balance or termination fee. I spoke to numerous employees, Abby, Angela, Paul, Rachael and Renee at Ally and all they kept saying was "I'm sorry". I asked when and how I was contacted asking for money and I was told, "We never contacted you." Yet, the balance is on my credit report. ILLEGAL!. I will never use Ally again. I urge everyone to stay away from them at all costs. Trying to fix a credit report is not an easy task. Thank you Ally for causing chaos and fraud!

My husband passed away in 2022. He was the co signer on a loan for my car. I need to get him off my title. They kept saying they were removing him and corresponding with the DMV via snail mail. The women in the deceased account holders line is so aweful and rude. She puts you on hold and never picks up. She's just the most evil person to someone who just lost thief husband. Needless to say I finally got an email to email the death certificate almost a year later and now maybe I can move forward. Not from her. I had to call a different department to get it because the one who should have directed me on what to do, never did.

I sold my truck June 12. My buyers bank sent the check, Ally cashed it and sent the lien release but no title. It’s now October 4th and I’ve called four times and four times online chat everytime getting a different answer. Ally claims buyers credit union needs to initiate a real ease of title. Is then sending you a check not good enough!?! Your sending them the title not me.

Buyers bank said they never got the title and that I need to handle it. I am between two banks that don’t seem to know what’s going on pointing the finger at someone else to do something about it.

Worst company ever, have made numerous calls, first documents are accepted, then they are returned, had to get a third party from Ally, on phone with Wells fargo, because they did not accept Wells Fargo letter, or my insurance loss letter, they constantly find excuses to get out of accepting documents. I get no feedback, i have to calll to get status updates. Do not waste your money and purchase gap insirance with this company.

"Dirty" marketing. By 'dirty" I mean the three-credit card offers I received from Ally Bank all had a $39.00 annual fee plus no zero annual percentage rate introductory offer.

These mailings by Ally were by design. I accepted and got approved with a $300 credit limit along with a $39.00 annual fee and a very high annual percentage rate.

Today on August 31, 2023 -- I receive a no annual fee offer plus 0% annual percentage rate for seven months.

How thoughtful of Ally. I responded to the better offer being informed that a second card is not being offered at this time.

I will charge very little on the annual fee card and pay my bill in full.

Ally sends a better offer "after the fact" when they gobble up an extra $39.00

Why didn't Ally send the better offer from the beginning.?

This may be legal, but it is "dirty" business.

Anyone else, please be careful with Ally's offers.

August 14,2023 I call to check the status of my payment. The first call he ask for my name then said our system down to call back tomorrow and hung up. I call right back and this lady pick up talking sooo fast didn’t understand her at all. They are rude people. You tell them to slow down so you can understand them and they get mad. I really dislike this company

This company is bad energy and it's not worth the risk. They stressed me beyond belief by essentially holding $1#,### dollars of mine (life savings) hostage shortly after opening a new account. Forced me to jump on a call and it took hours of my life away, and they asked me bizarre questions and made me feel like I was be interrogated by police officers. Was hard to reach someone who I felt somewhat comfortable talking with too, as I kept getting a call center in India (no disrespect to those hard working people obviously). This bank is not your ally. Many other banks who will not cause your blood pressure to boil over. I signed up before reading reviews (big mistake I made). After reading reviews, this practice of freezing your account access is more common than imagined. And the sheer number of complaints of them essentially stealing people's money, are not uncommon. That's scary. Luckily I was able to pull 99.9% of my money back to the original bank via ACH, but not without stress. As soon as my receiving bank saw the money, I get an email from Ally saying my account on their end was closed. I stressed for another week thinking that maybe the ACH would get messed up and the money would bounce back to a now nonexistent account. Thankfully, after one week, it seems to be safely back into my bank. I check daily now just to make sure (literal PTSD from this experience). All in all, this bank is bad energy all around. Run the other way. They still owe me about $110 (initial deposit), but I'm done with this entity. Hopefully they do me right and send that $110 as a check to my house. If not, I will just walk away and let that sit in the ether forever. I just want to move on from this experience. Ugh. Worst experience in my entire life.

I am not one to complain or waste my time making a complaint but what happened to me was wrong on so many levels. I recently had to go to enterprise because I needed a loaner while my car was being fixed due to my car being vandalized. In order for me to obtain a loaner it is Enterprises policy to have a hold on a credit card in the customer’s name of $300. I had made a payment with my checking account of $400. to make sure there was more than enough money on the card for the hold. Usually a payment directly from a checking account goes out right away. Well it doesn’t work that way with Ally which is fine. So I called up customer service to find out if they could expedite the payment just for the hold, since I was now at Enterprise and needed a car. After waiting on hold for like 15-20 mins I finally got in touch with someone. After talking to her and explaining my situation she said that my payment will process over night and be in my account in the morning but just to verify she will connect me with another department. I’m waiting and waiting on hold to speak to this other department when the woman I was speaking to originally got back on the phone and said that there was nothing they could do but the payment will be processed in the morning and to ask if enterprise would be willing to wait until the morning to do the hold. I asked her several times if she was sure it would be available in the morning and she reassured me it 100% would be. Thank goodness the man at enterprise was understanding and willing to do just that so I was able to get a loaner and not be stuck theee and an hour away from home. The next morning I called Ally just to make sure the payment was completed and available for enterprise to go ahead and process the card, the Ally representative told me that it would NOT be available until AUG 1st ! Seriously?! So now I have a loaner car that hasn’t been basically paid for and the company is over an hour away! I do not have another credit card and enterprise does not take debit cards. Now I feel like a complete dirt bag and this guy is going to think I am a liar. I asked to speak to a supervisor and he was no help either he offered a meaningless apology and basically acted like he didn’t care and no big deal. Now enterprise did me. a huge favor by taking my word that they would be able to process the hold the next day. Why would a freaking credit card company give me such wrong information especially when they knew my circumstances and this wasn’t just about making purchase this had to do with a automobile company and me driving away in one of their vehicles. Why would they lie to me about such a serious matter and it was the Ally representative’s brilliant idea to ask if they would be willing to wait until the morning to process the hold! Ally blatantly lied to me and had me lie to this company and then they chose to not do anything to correct the wrong they made and created! There needs to be repercussions for this type of carelessness and misinformation that literally can create unnecessary harm. If enterprise wanted to they could of had me arrested. Due to the shock and disbelief of how a reputable financial company could make such a incompetent decision and then not do anything to show good faith or good will, I told them to close my account immediately which the supervisor did so nonchalantly and then had the audacity to ask me what I wanted to do with my cash rewards I earned I told him if they couldn’t fix the problem they created then I do want anything from them.

I bought a new RAM in May 2023. I still haven't been able to get an account number to pay on the loan. I had to wait in June for them to call me to make a payment and asked them to please get my account information to me. They said they would. Well as of July 20 I still haven't received the information. I tried to log in on line and use my DOB and SS as asked and also my email and they say I don't have an account. Also tried my wifes information with the same result. When I call to make the payment they asked for SS or account number so I use the SS and it tells me I am past due.. I try to make the payment by phone and when transferred it asked for my account number which I don't have so can't make the payment. Last week I called the main bank number and explained the problem 4 times and every time they sent my call to the auto department whereas I sat on hold for over an hour every time. I do have a record of this on my phone. Finally on Saturday the 22nd I was able to get in touch with an agent but on all four attempts they could hear me but I could'nt hear them. I said if you can hear me please call this number but finally the last on said they aren't allowed to do so, I hate making late payments and wish someone could help me. After all the tries to log in I was locked out of my account.

I have spent almost 2 months contacting Ally financial about accessing my new auto loan online which is always locked or information doesn't match which is confusing being i havent had access since i purchased my vehicle. Now that i am calling for a payoff (because i cant go online) i am waiting 1 hour and 10 mins one day and the next day 3HOURS With no one available to pick up still. This is beyond ridiculous i need help. Not to mention when ally reps call to request a payment they are rude and hung up when my husband and I asked a question that didn't answer theirs.

On June 22, 2023, a payment of $200 was drafted and applied to my account. This payment was set up to be a principle only payment. When I logged into my account, I noticed that not only did my total account balance not decrease, but posted to finance charges $150.72 of the $200 payment. When I saw this, I called Ally Financial and explained that they incorrectly allocated my funds. I was told this would be corrected and my balance would correctly reflect the correct allocation.

Since my June payment was satisfied, when the $200 principal payment was made, it should have allocated accordingly. I called several times and spent several hours on the phone trying to get Ally Financial to fix my account. I eventually asked for a refund because my funds were not correctly allocated and did not reflect in my total balance after 2 weeks of calling and trying to get this fixed. Since I had no payment due, the $200 refund should have just been a wash. This did not happen.

On 7/11/23, I checked my account online for any progress with correctly allocating my $200 principal payment (since I had not received a call or a refund).

This is when I saw that my July 6th payment was now not correctly reflected in my balance. As you can see from my statement, I once again overpaid my contractual payment but below you will see that my account is now reflecting as past due and Ally Financial is illegally trying to collect these funds when I call about my account (call is recorded to cell)

2 BBB complaints are filed and I am contacting an attorney

on 7/10/23,

I called to check on the status of my title release letter. I explained that I had started a refinance with another company and needed to know if Ally had sent the title release letter. The lady on the phone had an accent, and I could not understand what she was saying. Additionally, she was super rude; she would talk over me, not letting me finish my sentence, and she was not polite. She asked me a question using her work terminology without explaining what it meant or the process of it. She would use phrases like " I'm asking you" and "I told you" with an attitude and a tone. She intentionally argued with me and always had the last word to say as far as arguing with me. I had asked her if the paper could expedient, then she asked me if I wanted her to fax my document as if I had a fax; she didn't ask if I had one. Overall, her customer service was rude and not considerate; some customers may not know the lingo Ally reps use, she did not explain what she saw on my file, and she didn't even answer my questions about the status of my document. She spoke over me the entire time, she talked to me like she was talking to her kids, with attitude.

In the end, I requested to transfer to do the survey and instead, she hung up on me.

Ally has been a horrific experience from the beginning, and I will NOT recommend anyone doing business with this company.

Hopefully, she actually send out my document. Now, I have to call back to verify that my document was sent.

The company Ally Auto told me that I could have a extension. Well that was denied and lied to after they told me i could. So me and thousands of other customers that ever get hurt, layed off or sick. You WONT be helped. So we started a petition for a Class Action Lawsuit starting July 2023. This company uses a 3rd party from India. The worst customer service ever. I was treated awful by these people. I feel they treat me with biased!