Chime
reviews and complaints

IRS deposited stimulus money for my 10 year old and myself on 3/12. The following day the app started having issues and I was unable to see my balance and the temporary card said “temporarily unavailable” at the time I was using the temp card as I was still waiting on a replacement from over a month prior. I downloaded the Chime app and logged in from my sons XR iPhone and same thing. So it was not just my IPhone 11 having an issue. I immediately called Chime support and updated my e-mail address, password, and requested new cards be mailed to my home address on file for over 1 year. I was not feeling secure after the phone call as the agent literally misspelled my e-mail address five times after I phonetically spelled it out ( it’s my last name backwards 5 letters and three numbers @ iCloud.com) not difficult. Anyways I decided it was best to move the money out of chime into a brick and mortar bank ASAP. I would not have had that large of a sum of $$ deposited into an online only bank IRS deposited as a result of COVID. I saw Chime had the bill pay, “Chime Checkbook” option. So I read all the information regarding the electronic agreements that’s what I do, and I decided it was a safer option than leaving the $$ in an app I had no cards to access. So I mailed myself a check to my home address. I actually mailed three. To be safe just in case. Well on 3/23 I received an email from Chime saying my $1500.00 check to “” myself had been cashed. While I was at work on camera mind you. I was beside myself. I immediately called emailed chatted. Thirty emails, daily phone calls, countless chats later. It took Chime three weeks to provide me a copy of a check issued by BANK OF AMERICA, cashed by ?!? god knows who?!? Or where? Jeff who is supposedly the head of Chime escalation told ME to pursue the issue with law enforcement if I thought someone had taken my funds! Are you freakin kidding me, no assistance from Chime at all. Thank god I stopped payment on the other checks immediately when I got the email. Chime took three weeks to get me any evidence and the other checks and replacement cards never arrived! They are still MISSING IN ACTION. Before Chime provided any documentation I could use for law enforcement I had already filed reports/complaints with FDIC, USPS, METRO POLICE, NV ATTORNEY GENERAL, FTC, IC3 and CONSUMER AFFAIRS. I also opened a claim with Chime as well. Chime said they have NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR CHIME CHECKBOOK ISSUED CHECKS AS A THIRD PARTY ISSUES THE CHECKS! This information needs to be known to anyone before they download the APP. PERIOD.

BEWARE: Stay away from Chime! I’ve been receiving my unemployment from my job (government job) for a few months. On Friday chime without notice suspended my account telling me that the system flagged a deposit & that they need to know where that transaction came from (clearly marked State of Indiana Unemployment in the statements) & what I was planning to spend the money on! I can’t make this up! apparently in the terms and conditions (section 9) we agree to have our account suspended whenever chime feels the need then we wave our privacy, agreeing that we will tell them the origin of any deposit & what we plan to spend the money on. The only way to get your account unlocked is to jump through hoops and arf like a seal. I have sent a pic of my ID (front and back), a signed handwritten letter of what I was going to spend my unemployment deposit on and a letter proving that I am indeed entitled to receive unemployment. Only to be met with email after email requesting more & more information. Most recently I received one this morning. We are now at the point where they would like me to send them a pic of me holding my ID as well as another form of ID & proof of address. (The same address that’s on my ID as well as the official letter documenting my eligibility to receive unemployment.) Meanwhile, I have not been able to pay my bills because I cannot get access to my money what so ever. I can’t even go to a physical bank to withdraw. I have had chime for years & this is the first major problem I’ve had but it’s enough to make me take my money and run! ( well as soon as I can gain access to it) UPDATE: it is day 5 of not having access to my money: I have been asked for another form of ID, more proof of address (even though my address has matched on every piece of documentation) W2s and checkstubs from a previous job. Keep in mind this is all over a “suspicious” unemployment payment. This process has been long and they are very unapologetic, “It’s just policy and procedure” LAST UPDATE Day6/7: after all proof and legit paperwork was sent they still elected to close my account. That’s fine but they are keeping my money as well. More than 1/2 of the money in my bank came from a source other than unemployment (even if it didnt I still don’t see them entitled to keep my money) I now have to contact the attorney general to sort this out. Idk what kind of scam they have going on but I wouldn’t trust them with my money unless you can take a loss when they decide to steal it. I would also like to add any company that makes their clearly foreign customer service employees pick an “American” name instead of using their given name is soooo racist! It’s 2021 come on!

MY REVIEW IS, guaranteed,
- 100% real
- unbiased
- without incentive / promotion of any kind

The good, the bad and THE UGLY

THE GOOD
1. ALLOW TRANSACTIONS FEATURE
This feature allows you to choose whether or not you are allowing transactions at any given time. Additionally, you’re able to decipher whether international transactions are allowable.

2. SPOT ME
It’s nice having a little bit of leeway if you’re short on cash. They don’t charge you with NSF fees. You’re able to TIP them once you bring your account balance above $0.01–but it isn’t a requirement

3. Credit, Spending & Savings
Having the ability to move money into your desired account is incredibly easy. I’ve worked with different financial institutions in the past that made getting money out of my savings account near impossible. Chime lets you have control.

THE BAD
1. DISPUTES
Don’t expect this process to be simple, quick or effective. I had unauthorized activity on my spending account and I notified them as soon as I realized the discrepancies. I canceled the card, ordered a new card (which took centuries to receive) and disputed all of the activity I didn’t approve. They quickly denied my claims and made zero effort to help me.

2. Ability to access YOUR MONEY
perhaps there was unauthorized activity on your card... or maybe you just lost your card. Either way, you’ll have to order a replacement. While you’re waiting for the new card to be printed, shipped and (ultimately) delivered to you... be prepared to have absolutely no way of accessing your funds. Also... if you try to find a solution to this, be prepared for complete disappointment. Chime Support will send you an irrelevant, pre-written response or will simply dismiss you all together. It depends on the competency of that particular associate.

3. ZERO NOTICE FOR SPOTME Limit Changes
I had a limit of $75 on SPOTME and then, suddenly, my limit had been reduced to $45. They didn’t warn me that my limit was going to change. I didn’t receive an in-app notification. It just happened. They provided no reasonable explanation as to why this occurred. They also completely failed to offer any solutions for this, VERY FLAWED, business practice.

4. CONNECTING TO OTHER BANKS
Each time I’ve tried to connect my Chime account to any of my financial institutions, it’s unsupported. I use globally-supported businesses that have been around for decades; yet, Chime doesn’t “support” the connection to my accounts.

5. NO PHONE NUMBER
Sometimes you just want to be able to get a hold of A REAL HUMAN BEING without waiting for 24 hours. But... this is not an option if you’re using CHIME

THE UGLY
Read their “Disclaimers; No Warranties” section in their User Agreement. It’s abysmal.

My name is Leah Edwards. I have been banking with Chime for a while now. Up until now I had never had a problem. I had someone from Chimes direct customer service number call me and say they had declined a payment due to suspicious activity and wanted to verify that it wasn’t me for fraud prevention. Long story short it was a hacker and they stole $6,900 dollars out of my account. The initial customer service agent I spoke with regarding the issue told me that she would cancel my card and get me a new one. I needed the money to move my family from Indiana to Arizona so I tried getting all the immediate expenses I needed out of the way. 2 days later I got a notification saying my current card had been canceled and that a new one was on the way. When I went to try to log into my account to check my balance it logged me out and said my account was suspended without any warning. This was on June 29th. It has been suspended since then and I moved my family out to Arizona with the little bit of money I had taken out. They said I needed to send them proof of who I was with additional documentation and once they’d received it, it would be 1-2 business days before they would make a decision on if they would lift the suspension or not. I heard nothing and called after 2 days. They said they needed additional proof regarding specific transactions and deposits as well as proof of who I was. Again, once I sent the information and it was received, it would be 1-2 business days. Again I heard nothing after 2 days and called and they said the same thing. I did the same process and they said they couldn’t offer any more information on how much longer it would take. A week later and we’re at today. 2 weeks now, with no access to my account. Now way to see if my money is even still in the account or not. No money for food or to pay my bills that are all now past due. I again called today and they said that they have now “escalated the situation” and upon the department reviewing my information it would be another 1-2 days. When I asked the agent what they were going to do about the now balances I owe that are now past due because of Chime they said they aren’t responsible, I tried to explain that because they closed my account my family and I are now moved across country with no money and their suggestion to me was “to wait a little bit longer.” Chime has suggested to me that they don’t care about the situation and that they won’t be covering any late fees that have been now acquired directly because of them. My account is still currently suspended and will still at earliest be hearing something in “1-2 business days.” I’m currently taking action. If this is how Chime handles it’s customers and their money, I AM DONE WITH CHIME. If I could give 0 stars, I absolutely would!

When I first heard about this app/bank I was a bit skeptical. No fees? What? I can’t tell you how many hundreds of dollars I have lost over the years to other banks. It’s really a shame. Chime was an absolute life saver. I will say though, I don’t get my pay check any earlier like some people who bank with Chime. I’m not sure why. I also don’t love the fact that I can’t deposit money into my accounts without paying a fee of $5 for every $500 I believe. It’s my own money, my own account so I shouldn’t have to pay money to deposit money into my account. CVS & Rite Aid are the places I’ve gone to deposit so far. I just hate that fee. I’m sure once Chime becomes bigger & more popular, there will be “few free ATM’s” where we can deposit money into our accounts without a fee. Anyways, I love Chime for SO many reasons. I love that they offer us the credit builder credit card! My credit score has gone up significantly because of this! I can even split my pay in half, half to my spending & half right to my credit card so I don’t even have to think about it! Every single purchase is rounded up & that money goes into my savings (which has grown significantly because of this). Every penny counts, literally. Before you know if within just a week, you could see an extra $10-$20 in your savings from simply sounding up purchases all week. I also love that if I’m buying something online & don’t have my debit card in front of me or don’t remember my card number, I can simply go to the Chime app & see my debit card! Not only that but the app makes it so simple to copy & paste your routing & account number for easy online bill pay. Nobody remembers their account & routing numbers! But Chime, once again, makes it easy for their customers. I just absolutely love the Spot Me part of Chime too! If you’re running low on cash before the next payday, Chime will spot you the extra money without a FEE! How awesome is that? I make sure I “tip” Chime when I do get paid because that feature is incredible. You can easily transfer money & get this! You can also MAIL A CHECK for FREE! In the Chime app, also making bill pay that much easier. Now I don’t have to worry about whether I have stamps or envelopes at the house. Chime also has a section that shows their customers in the app how they can make extra money working from home, lower their bills or car insurance, it’s just great! Anyone who doesn’t have Chime, is just dumb. There are so many benefits! I should literally be in a commercial for Chime. I can’t say enough good things about it. No fees (at all), tips on how to make more money, work from home, lower car insurance, investment options, fee free ATM’s to withdrawal money, mail a check for free, easy transfer money options, super convenient round up options, it’s a no brained! Bank with Chime!

If I could put no stars I would put zero!
I believe that my account was compromised because of Chime banking as of 08/13 things had escalated on emails look like chime but was not the hackers where able to change my email address just by knowing my email address my phone number my name everything they changed except my s.s number for that reason I closed my chime banking account that was awfully easy for them to take over my account and withdraw my money on the 16th even though I contacted chime banking on 8/13 when I was notified my email address had been changed I told them no I had not requested this and they where supposed to suspend my account so we could secure it then I received an email later on that same day from chime banking support notifying me my phone number had been changed I responded right away again no no I did not request my phone number changed no I DID NOT REQUEST MY EMAIL TO BE CHANGED PLEASE SECURE MY ACCOUNT and then on the 16th I called them and told them NO ONE FROM SUPPORT HAS RECHED OUT TO ME NO ONE HAS REPLIED TO MY EMAILS AND I HAVE MY DIRECT DEPOSIT ARRIVING TODAY SHE TOLD ME SHE SUSPENDED MY ACCOUNT AND THAT IT HAD NOT BEEN SUSPENDED AT THAT OINTMENT BY ANYONE BUT SHE SAID NO WORRIES I HAVE IT SUSPENDED NOW THAT WAS AROUND 10:30 am at around 7pm I was notified on my iPhone my deposit was in I call chime right away to se if I could withdraw my funds until this banking matter was resolved she said yes because I had my card then she said no my deposit of $481.00 was deposited but then was removed and paid to Apple for my exact deposit amount . I was on the phone yes it was and $481.00 was deposited and with in 30 seconds was payed to Apple and I would have to contact Apple about the matter for a refund it’s chimes fault I have emailed them numerous times since the 13th and numerous time on the 16 th because they told me that was the only way I could contact chime support to resolve the issue of changing my email back to regain entering my account and that I would have to contact Apple for a refund are you kidding me. and not one time has chime banking responded to my emails not even my first email telling them I did not request my email to change. And I told them no I did not request phone number to be change on the 13th and I called told them they say sorry nothing I can do you have to email support and wait for them to reply but tell me that they can suspend my account then they unsuspected it for the hackers to steal my money and now they have let these hackers steal my money change me email change my phone number my address my name all after the 16th except email and phone was done on the 13th they where notified right away it was not me worst experience I have ever had and they definitely dropped the ball and have not done one thing to help me I’m discussed

ITS EXTREMELY DUMB TO OPEN AN ACCOUNT AT CHIME IF YOUR JUST BANKING. YOU HAVE TO BE SUPER DEAPERATE TO USE IT FOR CREDIT BUILDING. it will help credit for 2-4 months then it has no effect. Credit bureaus once something is widely used drop the effect of it. Customer service 1I’ve requested a copy of all my transactions in paper form in to be mailed for 6 months never received. Been told verbally they would mail them then it became they will request them. The credit builder card is useless I highly recommend not using this. Getting a secured card is much safer & better. They basically report what they want when they want. I once had them report a $41 balance for 4 months straight lol so even though I’ve paid that balance and had hundreds of dollars in and out of that account they still reported it. I called and asked why this is done they apologize and say it will be corrected then it never happens. You could seriously be guaranteed verbally and then nothing happens. I then requested an investigation they say in the response “ we understand your frustration & sometimes it’s hard to understand how credit reporting works” lol I have had my card have multiple charges fraudulent maybe not on their doing but still you can’t dispute something in the app but you used to be able to. So if you’ve had 4 or so fraudulent charges they make an extra step where you have to call them and they transfer you 3 or 4 times and each time you have to repeat it to each employee and obviously they rubber stamp it with the guarantee to fix it. So then they randomly will send you a document for that dispute you just spend 40 minutes explaining a court case on why it’s fraudulent they make you print out document and sign it then send it back to then randomly they decide not approving it and then send a document saying they’ve approved or denied it. Let’s say they do approve it you can’t go into your account and search for it and sometimes it doesn’t show up . The keyword search for transactions is horrible. It only searches for you checking account and savings so if you want to research and investigate your credit card so called credit builder account you have to download your statement then look thru bc they don’t mail them obviously. So good luck with that. They denied one of disputes for reasons unknown I had two transactions back to back and the company got away with it because they reworded the business name and of course chime denied it bc well it’s impossible to get real help. They have such bad security they allow their members get catfished by fake twitter chime accounts. Trust me do not put very much money in this company. I have no clue how people are allowed to open up banks this easy. But obviously they are biased at this company Customer service negative 500 stars Banking zero stars Credit building 1 star Security zero stars

As a brand new Chime customer, I decided to give it a shot to see what the online banking world was all about. With multiple promotions, and seemingly good reviews for an early direct deposit...why not? Well, based off my rating...we can see the direction this review is going.

If there’s anything I would suggest...DO YOUR RESEARCH! Here’s my experience with the Chime Banking platform as well as the Chime support team.

-If you are looking for a quick solution towards obtaining a new debit card...this would not be my first choice. It takes approximately 10 business days after opening an online account to receive your new debit card, with no tracking method. The mobile app is beautiful and seems great, until you start needing additional customer support.

-My debit card was lost, so I immediately tried to use their “support” chat-bot, who tries to be the AI solution to your problems...but in reality...I just wanted to speak to someone in customer support who could direct me with a simple solution to figure out how to get a new card. They immediately shut my card down within 3 business days, and sent a new card to my billing address, without my knowledge. I somehow was able to locate the customer care phone number, in which hours of operation are from 7AM-7PM CT. Getting thru to an ACTUAL agent required some bypassing of the virtual robot who continued to redirect me to the Chime Mobile app. If you’re struggling to get through, and have tried to call...just keep pressing 2.

-My card that was USPS expedites was told would be sent in 3-5 business days, yet no one could ever provide me with a tracking number. Well, that didn’t show up. They had to RESHIP a new card in which I was told would take ANOTHER 10 business days (which would make it 1 month of having no debit card).

At this point, my direct deposits are coming thru, 2 days early as promised (but truly not worth the stress elsewhere) and I’m trying to transfer an outside bank. I’d HIGHLY SUGGEST keeping a local bank that you can gain access to the funds in person, as this bank doesn’t have any locations to stop into.

Chime’s support team not only read off a scripted sheet...they were all very difficult to understand, and everyone continued to reroute me with different answers each time. Thru my frustration, I bypassed my calls by directly asking for the direct Floor Manager, which still did not help me.

Chime encouraged me to use my Venmo account until my new card came...yet once added to Venmo...was “flagged” from the Venmo team. They also “flagged” my new debit card (officially received 3.5 weeks later) as “not accepted,” when their support bot states that they’ve worked out their issues with the platform. Again, sincere disappointment.

Hopefully this helps give some clarity. There’s a great opportunity for Chime to grow into something great...they just aren’t there yet. ‍♂️

IF YOU FREELANCE DO NOT OPEN A CHIME ACCOUNT. Better yet, if you’re a human who needs reliable access to money, do not open a chime account.

I opened my account February 12th and in the first month of having chime, I have encountered the following issues:

1: MONEY TRANSFERS TAKE A LONG TIME. transferring money from outside bank account into chime took 9 days, the money was held in limbo, leaving me without any access to my funds and no way to track it.

2: TOOK A MONTH TO RECEIVE DEBIT CARD AND ACTIVATE ACCOUNT. It took until March 6th to receive my debit card. This would not be such a huge issue if the app didn’t require me to activate the card I have not yet received in order to use all the features of the account, such as withdrawing or transferring money outside the account as well as setting up automatic payments that used to be on my other bank card.

3. MY ACCOUNT WAS SUSPENDED WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE. I went to check my account today and found it suspended, meaning I could not get into the app, did not have a debit card and literally no access to money. I was never told WHY my account was suspended, even though I talked to support. It is now regained access, but I am still unsure of what I did to warrant the suspension or how to avoid another one in the future.

4. MOBILE CHECK DEPOSISTS ARE NOT A GIVEN FEATURE. What kind of mobile banking app holds mobile check deposits hostage? In order to use and keep using mobile check deposit, you have to have $200 in direct deposits every month. This means you either have an employer making direct deposits or, the solution that was given to me was to deposit the check into a PayPal account to then transfer it over to my chime account. Sorry, what?! I have to use another banking platform to use my banking platform? What kind of nonsense is that? Honestly, taking the most crucial part of online banking and making it unnecessarily complicated.

5. PAY MY FRIENDS IS USELESS. Pay my friends feature is NOT like chase quick pay or bank of America’s zelle. It says you can transfer money to your friends even if they don’t bank with chime—sounds great!—if it weren’t for the old bait and switch. After paying a friend via chime, he informed me that it won’t allow him to transfer the funds to his account and will be sent a debit card in the mail instead. Sending a friend a debit card is NOT the feature I was sold nor the feature I want.

I had such high hopes for chime. I’m desperate for an easy bank account that doesn’t charge me for not making substantial monthly deposits but still gives me ease of atm access and money tracking.

Switching to this bank has been nothing but a nightmare and I will be closing the account ASAP. A month after opening my chime account I’ve called support 5 times, although I’m not sure why I bother when the response is always the same, infuriating “sorry, but there’s nothing we can do.” Please, Chime, do better.

Here is a list of events
Tuesday afternoon text from Chime:
“CHIME BANKING: Did you try to use your Chime card ending XXXX for $1.00 at 'CASH APP*MISSA PUMS gosq.com KSUS' on 07/20? Reply YES or NO.”

Replied No and they texted back “this transaction is blocked and no funds have been taken out”
Then another SERIES OF TEXTS 2 minutes later the same as the last about 20 of them

Replied No again same message again.

Wednesday: The above repeated several times Tuesday night until over $180 of transactions was pending on my account in the morning. I went through the messenger for help and disputed the transactions, they responding “we do not investigate transactions while they are pending”. Keep in mind all these transactions have already been flagged for fraud. I ask for a stop payment, bot doesn’t understand so I call. Tell a man on the phone the whole issue, these transactions are still pending they have already been flagged for fraud I did not make these purchases I don’t even use cash app this is Theft, you need to do a stop payment immediately.

This whole time more of these transactions are still coming in $1-$2.5 each. The member I talked to said there’s nothing they can do while transactions are still pending they do not stop payments, they do not stop transactions before they are completed. I know for a fact this is not how banks work I know this is not how a wire transfers work, they can request a stop payment at any time and report any transaction. At least during the Federal Reserves 24 hour verification period anyway. I inform the attendant on the phone of this, he said there was nothing he could do. I asked him to transfer me to someone who could help me, he refused and said there was no one that can stop any transaction.

Thursday: So today when I woke up none of the transactions were pending anymore and to my dismay they all went through, not a single one was blocked. So I filed a dispute again they sent me back an email with a list of questions that looks like they’re trying to deter blame to me,Do you write down your pin, where do you keep your pin, how many people do you share your pin with. If you’re curious the answer to those questions are no in my head and no one. The rest of the questions were about my car who do I share my card with do I have access to my card and I still have my card on my person was my card stolen. Those do make some sense but the answer to all those there’s also no I have possession in control of my car the whole time and no one else.

So answer the ridiculous questionsAnd received back a PDF document I have to print out and fill out before they will start an investigation that could take up to 90 days to determine whether or not I’m eligible to receive the money back that they allowed to be stolen. I do not have a printer at home and I will fill out this document tomorrow when I print it out at work, but this is currently where I am.

DO NOT USE THIS APP.

THIS APP IS NOT AN ADEQUATE SUBSTITUTE FOR A LEGITIMATE BANK.

I could sit and honestly write forever about my horrible experience with Chime, but I’ll just give you a summary:

Someone “cloned” my card and tried to withdraw $400 from an ATM. The charge was declined because of insufficient funds. I notified customer support and no action was taken. On Christmas Eve they tried again and this time drained my account. I was told I needed to wait until the charge was no longer pending to file a dispute and from there it can take 10-45 business days for them to “investigate”.

I call 2 days later and file the dispute, asking only that they hold off on deactivating my card because today my direct deposit would hit and I needed to pay my rent. I was assured it wouldn’t be deactivated until Jan 3rd so that I could still access my funds.

Today I find out that they deactivated my card, leaving me financially stranded. I called customer service and just so happened to speak to the same agent “Ralph”. He interrupts me, talks over me, repeats over and over that his computer is showing that the card should still be working and that he needs to transfer me so we can “re activate” my debit card. He puts me on hold only to connect me to an automated voice that says they are now closed and to call back at normal business hours. Instant disconnection.

I call back and my call is answered (they are NOT closed)by a “supervisor”. I tell him my situation, ask him to re activate my card, and get put on hold again. Turns out it is IMPOSSIBLE to re activate a debit card. There is nothing they can do.

Not only did “Ralph” initially lie to me by assuring me my card would not be deactivated, he lied to me a second time the following day when he told me that his computer showed my card was fine and had not been deactivated, and a third time when he told me my card could be “re activated”, only to transfer time to an automated message.

It is the 28th and come the 1st I will have rent to pay and I cannot access ANY of my money. All I am able to do is open my app and view my balance. Until my new card gets here on January 12th I can’t do a single thing.

This is wrong on so many levels. At this point this goes so far beyond a bad experience. You’re playing with a family’s life right now.

Chime’s atrocious customer service has made me distrust this app altogether. The fact that I called during genuine times of financial concern only to be transferred around, lied to, and hung up on is incredibly troubling. How can I trust these people with my finances?

I had initially thought this was a good idea because of “no fees, no hassle”. I now understand that monthly maintainable fees may be the price I pay for security and peace of mind. 24hr customer service, fraud protection, the ability to WALK into the bank to physically withdraw funds without a card, these are all luxuries worth it.

Think twice before downloading this.

I had my identity stolen due to a data breech caused by my medical / dental insurance in two states in 2017. Unfortunately for me I did not know until the theft had happened and had already destroyed my credit. I was 700 plus at 52 years old and going through a lot of hardship at that time. In 2018 when I had no
Issues getting a rental home due to
Good credit and one credit card that was paid in full every month and a bank that I have had for 15 years I did not have any idea what was about to happen. The first quarter of 2019 it was confirmed I was an identity theft victim and employed by a company that provided me with a company car. Due to fraud taking place at two banks I tried to use I closed them both with a 0 balance and went to Chime Bank. I had a fraud alert in place for 12 months and police reports. Chime Bank interest me because they offered tools to help someone like myself build credit during a time when I had my perfect Visa closed due to fraud. At 52 I had to start over and chime bank protected me from fraud for 12 months. When a merchant removed the cars that were purchased in my name that is when these cyber criminals returned. Do not believe anyone when they state you can’t get your bank statements sent to you or you can’t deviate from chimes online policy. Chime sent me every statement to an address that was not at my current residence due to Mail being held or taken by a Mail person who is part of the cyber criminal group. I also after being locked out of my Chime app again due to emails was able to speak with a real chime employee thanks to the state and attorney that has been involved with my situation. Chime Bank is outstanding for any age. Identity theft is a major problem and one that does not allow ease of doing business! That’s why I loved Chime. I am on my account now after money was stolen from me and placed on a closed credit builder account. That money was used to pay a merchant and buy apps in my name. I don’t use Facebook and these people do. Thanks to chime sending me real statements I no longer owe any money for an account I had and will be receiving the money taken back directly by Chime. I was not going to request anything from chime bank because they did more for me then most banks wouldand do for victims. Young or old I highly recommend this bank. Cyber crime happens at all banks but how it is handled makes all the difference. The credit builder card is not like a secured card where you give the bank $1000 and pay your balance monthly. Chime bank reports you at the end of the month for the monthly amount you spent. Also Chime Bank will pay your bills each month by check. Every merchant takes payments from chime bank. When you are told your money that was used and accepted with a merchant is no longer allowed or the money returned but it is never returned because you were locked out of your account make sure you send a letter to chime not in San Francisco because things like that are red flags. I want everyone to know how great this bank is should this issue be going on with others.

I started using Chime a couple months ago. At first it was great. The app was easy to use and everything was great. Then I see a message saying if you get direct deposit you could get it up to 2 days early. LIE! They told me that they could NOT post money to my account that hadn’t come in yet. So ok I get it. Then I get victimized by someone who called me from the same phone number on the back of your Chime debit card. He told me his name was Jason Adams with their loss prevention department and someone tried to access my account and mak a purchase of $717. I got so worried listened to everything he told me to do and I did it. Changed my password. Well an hour later when This Jason Adams told me my debit card was secure and I would be able to use it and my funds were protected. I go to the atm and make a withdrawal. $712 was gone! Every penny I had to my name was GONE! I call Chime right away. “Oh we can’t file a dispute because the purchase is pending!” Well then put a stop payment on it. If this was my Capital One account they wouldn’t have authorized this purchase AT ALL! So of course I’m hysterical and spend almost 2 hours on the phone with these people. They barely speak English to begin with so when your hysterical because you have a family to feed in the midst of COVID19 Pandemic, the last thing you want is a language barrier. And after 2 hours I’m told to call back when those purchases are not pending any longer. Meaning they have to process in order to actually file a dispute. So 2 days later I call them and get a woman by the name of Diana, who was the worst CSR I’ve ever dealt with. I was just another call to her. She spoke so fast and with pronunciation issues so not only is it hard to understand her but I have to ask her to repeat herself. She wasn’t listening to what I was saying using her own words and something so minuscule as using someone else words instead of the customer or members can actually hinder any process. I file my dispute. I’m still waiting and still out $712. That happened on July 28, and it’s now August 12. Diana tells me it should only take 5-10 business days. Well I’m not seeing anything on my account. So I call and this person I got today AGAIN has such a strong accent that I cannot understand him. What should’ve been a 10-15 min phone call lasted a lot longer. He transfers me to a manager who AGAIN, English is NOT their first language. And I’m all about equality. I’m bilingual myself, however I speak very fluently and people understand me in both of my languages. My pronunciation is great. This company hires people who are rude, no empathetic to someone else’s circumstances. And they have such strong pronunciation accents it’s so had to understand their agents. So now I’m talking to a manager who tells me that the process can take up to 90 calendar days. I’m so infuriated and upset about this situation I have no idea what to do. All my money is gone and I have no idea when I will get it back or who to call so I can speak to someone who actually I understand. If I could give this company -10 stars I really would!

FIRST OF ALL NOBODY HAS PAID ME, NOR MY HUSBAND TO WRITE THIS. I SIMPLY CAME ACROSS A CHANCE TO REVEIW CHIME AND THIS IS OUR TRUE LIFE, EXPERIENCE.

My husband and I both signed on with chime because our credit scores were low. We had not had experiences with other, large banks. One would think the larger the bank the more they would have to offer.

First thing that drew us to Chime was the ease of using it, we had not seen anything quite like it and it was all done through a app online. After reading and researching (I'm not one to jump into something, especially when it comes to finances) We decided to give it a year. We found it was a multi-purpose app. It was a online bank, helped customers build credit scores. And during a time when so many of us need just a little help we found after a couple months if you have direct deposit it allows you to have a FREE overdraft. NOW... it is up to the customer but you can have a small amount up to $100 without fees. Once your direct deposit gets put in it just takes out what you went over in your acct. NO FEES! The overdraft is free, but chime (wisely) gives the customers a option to tip towards the overdraft programs. And it goes towards other customers who are in the same boat as you and perhaps need help that month. Depending on the month my husband and I always donate. Even if it's 5$(and if you never are able to tip it is not disqualify you from free overdraft) Other months, if it's tax season or we had a good months we'll donate more. However, in order to have the option you have to have money that's a direct deposit.

I love that friends who have Chime can send money and it's in there acct in seconds, every morning you get a balance and under settings you have options to customize your account .

CON: The only Con I have have is if you're married you cannot have a joint account. However, that's where sending money through the chime app comes in Handy. ALSO, I believe that helps you build individual credit as well but I'm not quite sure. This is for individuals. Also, my work doesn't offer Direct deposit
••CON: However Chime offers many many companies that are approved you have to pay a fee to add money into your Chime acct. But then again, compare that one few to the large fees we were hit with from large banks it is a small CON!

PRO: But you can take money out from qualifying banks at an ATM with no fees. So it really depends what you're looking for. I know for my husband and it transformed our lives. In a time where phones & apps are what most of the world works from, this Online bank offers what so many "Corporate Banks, that is looking out for each of its customers." doesn't. After a year we were offered to sign up for a Credit card. However, the Credit Card is designed to help the customer. You add money to the Credit card and you spend $ on the card, just as you would on the normal Chime card. EXCEPT, This spending is going to Credit Bureaus to help build customers credit score. I could go on & on! You have nothing to lose, try it! If you dont like the benefits (including credit alerts) after a year...cancel!

***My score has gone (in one year) from 400 to 650. If you really want to change your score- your life, then CHIME IS FOR YOU!

So I will say this, Chime is very user friendly and I switched to Chime because I like they’re Round Up feature and an added bonus that I get my paycheck one day earlier.
That being said, I rly liked the idea of the referral bonus so I started telling my friends about Chime right away. I told my sister in law about it and about the $50 bonus we would both get if she signed up and received her first direct deposit within the time frame. I sent her my link and was literally there with her when she clicked on it to sign up. I do know, at first she had some issues with them sending her card because of the fact that she doesn’t have a mailbox where she lives and therefore has a PO Box, but regardless she still managed to receive her card and her first qualifying direct deposit within the required time frame.
After she signed up, she received an email from Chime specifically stating (the email even stated both my name and her name directly) that as long as her direct deposit of $200+ was processed before feb 27th, then she and I would both receive a $50 referral bonus. So like I stated, she received her first direct deposit well within the time frame given and it was well over $200. A few days go by and neither of us received anything at all. When I opened a support request in the app, I explained everything and they asked me to provide her email address. I provided them with the email address she used to create her account and they then replied back to me and told me “sorry, you don’t qualify for the referral bonus because she did not really use your link when she signed up.” And immediately marked the issue as solve as soon as they sent me their response so I couldn’t respond any further. Which, of course, didn’t make any sense to me. So probably a week or two went by and my sister in law went back in her email and sent me a screenshot of the email she had received stating that we would both receive a bonus.

So I opened another request and SENT THEM THE SCREENSHOT THAT CLEARLY STATES, NAMES AND ALL, THAT WE WILL BOTH RECEIVE THE BONUS!
They still continued to tell me that the link was not really used and even told me that the email she received was not really a confirmation that we would receive it.
HOW DOES THIS MAKE SENSE ? I repeatedly asked the support person this question and was never given a direct answer, he just keeps saying that he double checked and the link was not used.
At this point, all of this seems very shady and how they are handling this, doing so much to avoid having to make good on something they actively advertise and promise really makes me nervous about what else could go wrong in the future and how they might handle it if something ever did happen . Idk what to say, they make it impossible to speak to a real human over the phone and idk, this has just rubbed me the wrong way. Honestly, like I stated before I really only switched to using Chime because the Round Up savings feature is what appealed to me the most, but I’m pretty sure I could find another bank who mayfer something similar. I’m just not sure I really trust this company at this point, as none of this makes any sense to me.
I’m disappointed because I am really not a difficult person and if this had gone a different way, I would have given them a much higher rating.

I needed to send $75 from my Chime account to my girlfriend’s Chime account. I was using her phone number to find her Chime account. When I found her phone number in the contact list it didn’t have her name it said Alfonzo. I thought that was a strange so instead of going ahead and sending the money I figured I would make sure that if I sent the money it would be her to receive it so I sent a money request to her phone number and she received the money request. So after that I assumed that there would be no problems sending the money. Unfortunately I was wrong about that. I sent the money and she didn’t receive the money for whatever reason. How is it possible that my girlfriend received the money request that I sent to her phone number but when I actually sent the money to her using her phone it showed up on my Chime account recent activity showing that I sent the money to someone named Alfonzo. Instead of Alfonzo being a decent human being and declining the money sent from a random stranger he decided to be a piece of crap and accepted the money I sent him. I quickly looked through the app for a way to cancel the transfer but apparently Chime thought that was a good idea to make it so that there is no way for you to cancel a money transfer. I Immediately contacted customer support thinking this should be a simple issue for customer support to correct because it’s “MY” Chime account and I accidentally sent money to the wrong person and I’m calling them to tell them what happened and thought they could just stop the transfer and put the money back in my account. I was so wrong on so many levels it’s ridiculous. After being transferred from the representative to this representative to this representative I finally reached someone I thought would be able to help me but what a shocker I was wrong. They told me several times that I simply needed to contact Alfonzo and ask for the money back and I kept telling them that I don’t know anyone named Alfonzo and that I couldn’t contact him. Finally the representative understood what I was saying. So I filled a transaction dispute in which they told me that I had 10 days to print a form they emailed me, fill it out, and fax it back to them with a written account of what happened exactly and that the money would be put back in my account until the issue was resolved. I thought this was a little inconvenient considering I thought they would have been able to simply cancel the money transfer. I don’t even own a printer anymore since everything is pretty much done electronically using smartphones these days much less own a fax machine or scanner. So I figured I would just use the printer and fax machine at my job. The next day before I could print the form I received an email stating that Chime had contacted Alfonzo and that he had provided documents that the money transfer was intended to be received by him and everything was legit with the transfer and that claim was closed and resolved. What a piece of st this Alfonzo is. I contacted customer support to inform them that there’s no way he provided any kind of documentation supporting the money transfer was intended for him because I don’t even know this person. I’ve been with Chime since September and honestly this is the first time I’ve ever had a problem with Chime. I just wish they would take better care of their loyal customers. I guess I’m just gonna go open an account at a bank with a local branch so that I can actually talk to someone in person.

I have been a Chime for over 2 year, loved it at first and told all of my friends to use it. But after waiting over a month for my replacement card that I had to order (because I received a notification that there was fraudulent activity on my account) I will no longer be banking via Chime.

Customer service is not good—

The FIRST time I called a few days after my 1st replacement card was not received on the date that they quoted. CS suggested that I send money to Venmo/PayPal to have access to the money while I wait for my 2nd ordered card to arrive. Which I was fine with this because I have a Venmo card that gives me easy access to my Venmo account. A new replacement card was ordered— a little inconvenient but I loved Chime, I knew as an online banking company that processes not online would take a little longer, and understand things are slow everywhere bc of COVID.
———
The SECOND time I called was the day that my 2nd ordered replacement card was supposed to arrive (it didn’t). They told me I needed to wait until the next day to call back incase it comes tomorrow (which yeah maybe, but at this point I’m getting somewhat paranoid and not wanting to be late on bills). CS went through their script “you can send money to 3rd party vendor, send to a friend so they can get money out for you” and so on... I told them at this point that this is not on me, Chime is who I trust with my money (as this is my only checking account), and they needed to come up with a solution for me to have access to my money.

Asked to speak to a supervisor—At this point I’m a little sketched out, scrolling through my app and making sure there is no funny business going on. And remember talking to my sister about Chime a few days prior and then got to thinking about a check I sent her in March via Chime. She never received it.

Was on hold for a few minutes, CS came back on phone “um this manager can’t talk now, but I’ll send you to another manager so you don’t have to wait as long” At this time I mentioned the check—CS acted like she MIGHT be able to cancel the check (which was sketchy, I’m thinking “Um if you can’t then where did my money go?”) Anyways, she was able to cancel and told me it would be 1-3 business days before I saw the $$ back into my account.

After about 30 minutes on hold (she told me 2 minute wait time) I finally got a supervisor on the phone. She sounded angry to be on the phone, asked me what my problem was and again read from the same script. At this point I’m getting angry, “I am not mad at you, I am frustrated that this is happening for a second time and all you can do is send me another card (standard shipping)”

Ok, so I did end up blowing a fuse on this lady BUT after she:
1) did not offer me any sort of solution—maybe 2 day/quicker shipping?
2) did not reassure me of the whereabouts of my card—so my name/card is out there SOMEWHERE and she told me that if one of the first 2 cards happened to arrive that I could activate those, so now I’m thinking like okay someone can get into my Chime app and activate my card and have access to my $$? You’d think they would tell me to cut it up or cancel the card that they printed (I’m not sure how it works)
3) was extremely rude and not helpful, this is not my problem at this point, it’s their mess up and they didn’t do anything to ensure me that my new card would arrive.

So after a heated convo my check $ that was supposed to take 1-3 business to return to my account was received in my account INSTANTLY. Hmm seems a little sketchy to me.

I will be closing my account, but before I do I will have to wait for my paycheck and go through the struggle of transferring over any payments attached to my Chime account. If you are looking for a bank you can trust with smiling faces, stick to your hometown bank!

UPDATE‼️
(8/16) NOW my ridiculous Chime account is NEGATIVE ➖$370❗️
Thank you Chime for STILL PENDING AND POSTING the SAME charge that’s almost a MONTH old. Thank you for COMPLETELY screwing up my finances. And lastly, THANK YOU FOR THE REPEATED CONTACT THAT DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Nothing has been resolved or even attempted.
But here’s my gift to you; you will never see a DIME of that money. I have contacted the organization on every social media site and avenue. I’ve submitted my complaint and review to the ComplaintsBoard.com and still nothing. Therefore, since I am no longer willing to work with such blatant incompetence I will seek the assistance of legal counsel and they will resolve it for me. PERIOD!

(8/2) review
I wish I could give NEGATIVE 5 stars! Standard banking practices re: rental car charges and transactions is to hold both the deposit and estimated charge until the car is returned. Once the car is returned as expected the company submits the final bill to the bank and the hold is released and the charges posted according to bank policy.
Simple. I’ve done it multiple times. However, I’ve only ever used my Bank of America account. And never out of the last 10 rentals this year alone have I had an issue.
Until now. Let me explain something; I had begun to trust Chime and began allocating more towards my direct deposit with them. So as a trusting customer and savvy business and personal car renter I utilized Chime. The reservation, charge and deposit hold all occurred seamlessly. BUT after assuming that Chime would be similar to Bank of America in billing processes once the transaction was submitted I found it strange that the hold remained on my account hours later. I called they advised they did not have the final bill and a couple of back and forth calls later I left it alone to await the payment completion.
The very next day I see the charge has posted no problem. However, BOTH the estimated charge AND deposit hold remained pending. So not only do I not have my deposit but it appears I have paid twice as none of my $1038.00 funds were available. I went from having $952.00 in my account to -9.35! HOW! Well I book my reservation via the app or online as moot EVERYONE DOES so this displayed the corporate address but the final bill was from the actual location. So clearly these are two different charges. I will not tell you how many people or how long I had to be on the phone with before I got so upset I I began to hyperventilate so I hung up AFTER being told everything from, it’s not them holding my funds, I can dispute the cleared charges but I’m still out ALL of my money until it’s settled in about two weeks, did I call the merchant and discuss the release of the hold, and the absolutely infuriating repetition of how rental car transactions work until they are finalized. Over and over. IT IS FINALIZED. I can’t even tell you how MANY times I had to advise the rep and supervisors of where and what transaction I was referring to. Even though only TWO transactions were posted on the day in question. It is and was THE absolute WORST customer support I’ve ever had the misfortune of experiencing. No customer consideration or empathy. No real review of the issue and a complete lack of concern that my incoming bills would be declined because of a situation in which I as the customer had no control over. Just absolutely horrid and no online/in-app option to interact with Support which defies logic considering you market your self as a a completely mobile banking institution and experience. This was nothing short of nightmarish and is indeed the worst financial institution I’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with. No one speaks English as a first language and NO ONE CAN FIX MY ACCOUNT
I WILL BE FILING A COMPLAINT. Posting this ridiculous and god awful experience on every social media platform and contacting every VP listed on LinkedIn

I have been a member of Chime for 2-3 years now and I will start this review by saying my truth on this banking app: If you do not have any checking or savings accounts w/ a physical bank or financial institution of any sort and/or do not wish to start one for any understandable reason, this is the app for you and has been for me all this time. After a friend referred me to checking the app out, I found out using Chime was, and still is, worth investing time into opening and currently using them to keep my finances in. They allow perks to where you can boost others you know with a Chime membership, allowing your overdraft amount to increase, which has no fee might I add and not having to deal with ATM fees (at 7-Eleven locations only) is also a plus. I will be honest, I have been reluctant to use Chime before due to me reading multiple online reviews by people who claimed their information had been accessed to hack into their profiles and steal money from their accounts… HOWEVER, I believe those people lost what they had missing of their own accord and have not admitted to their self made mistakes because I have never had a problem like that before w/ Chime. You also get your paycheck two days early of your job’s original payday… again, however, that is not always the case.. or at least w/ me it’s not. I don’t know why because when I first started using Chime it worked but one day, for some reason I have yet to figure out, I randomly started getting my checks a day early instead, eventually changing to only the night before my former co-workers would get theirs. Currently mine are back to coming a full 1 day ahead of payday (last check was between a day to two early and I have gotten a new job since my pay times started to change) so again, I do not know what happened that could of caused a little longer delay on them but since I was still getting paid early I didn’t look further into finding the cause behind the small delay times. The only other couple of issues Chime has is the few options provided on the app to tip them after your overdraw amount is paid off once money hits your account again because the only ones to choose from are pricier than tip choices at other places & w/ us not being able to put in a custom amount usually I can’t afford to tip, which won’t effect your eligibility to use SpotMe (the name of their overdraw perk) but I still feel bad for not being able to provide a tip. Also, the amount your allowed to overdraw is provided, according to your income. Another thing that bugs me is not being able to pay friends, through other payment apps (Cash App, orginal PayPal sending money method, Venmo I think, Facebook pay, etc.), money when your account is in the negative, even though other banks probably have the same rule, along w/ no ATM withdrawals, including 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven I keep referencing because the company they use for helping people access their money is the same one Chime uses. I forget the name though. Otherwise, this banking app is definitely an excellent one to use and again they have multiple perks for one to earn money that are shown once you open the app. Inviting friends and earning cash if they start an account, seasonal promotions, helping people get access to their unemployment benefit checks along with tax returns, setting round ups on purchases every now and then to help increase the dollars in your savings account, credit building, etc. Other pros are being able to turn your transactions (active and/or international) off & on, ability to view your card when you put your information on a website for a purchase but do not have the physical one on you, how easy it is to set up direct deposit, being able to use a virtual temp card if the original is lost, damaged or stolen & must wait for a new one to arrive, which for me never takes more than a week. All in all, I recommend Chime to anybody that is like me and likes using a banking app that makes it easy to handle your finances. Thank you Chime for being my bank these past few years and I hope whoever reads this are happy like me with using Chime as your money protecting company :D - Tri$tan H.

I work for a consulting firm, and our clients occasionally ask us to research an app or new business. I was asked to write a report on Chime for a client (an overseas financial concern) to assess whether Chime was serious, legitimate, easy to use and whether their marketing accurately reflects what people actually get as customers.

The app (both iOS and Android) is crisply designed, responsive, and offers an especially well-organized, clean, thoughtful and intuitive user experience. When text, buttons and content appear on the screen, all are relevant to the task at hand. Unless it is useful to the user and what they’re doing (or expect), I haven’t seen a screen with a pixel more content than is required.

When I signed up as a customer (easier than my two previous favorites, Square and Pinterest), I arrived with severe skepticism and dread as soon as I entered the first couple fields on the setup screen.

15 minutes later, I had spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how Chime breezed me through opening a checking (debit) account so fast, and without ominous 10,000 word disclosure and consent agreements. I still don’t understand, but in less than 20 minutes Chime began as a work project and ended as my personal bank of choice.

I couldn’t be more delighted with Chime. I even did something I haven’t done since college, just to see what would happen: I transferred most of the balance to my regular bank, then went to coffee shop and charged more than I knew was in the Chime debit account. The transaction cleared, despite my $7.00 balance, and Chime covered about $14 of the debit as advertised. No fees, no overdraft penalty, no warnings.

Amazing.

——

In my professional experience as well as someone who has traditional checking, credit and investment accounts, there are few tasks I enjoy less than online finance and credit account tools. Signing up, registering, linking and verification is traditionally frustrating, buggy, repetitive and unpredictable. I’ve entered information that a bank refused four times as invalid, and the fifth time (same info, same formatting) it went through. It’s insane.

But with Chime, I entered the barest bone personal information on a couple screens — expecting the complex part would follow. Instead, Chime chirped that my account was activated and my debit card was on its way to get imprinted and shipped.

I seriously thought there was a bug in the signup process, or a trick where the next screen would have the dreaded header, “Just a couple more questions to complete your profile.”

NOPE. Chime collected my social security number, but the firm’s credit monitoring system found no inquiries or “hits” against any reporting agency. It’s still monitoring, but there have been no “meta-checks” from Chime on me either. (This is a technique many companies employ that collects data from thousands of brokers about you — not credit agencies or FCRA entities — that assesses trustworthiness, income, stability and other factors without the consent and notice rules under federal law applying.)

Easy and fast, just as advertised.

—-

Finally, for my fellow nerds and infosec pros:

Chime got a perfect score surviving our firm’s automated (partially manual) device and software stress-testing process.

The punishment apps like Chime get in these test is so over the top that the team who runs it is building a less-evil cousin. But Chime got the evil treatment, and came out with top marks in every category we assess.

The intensity of the tests is more than any user could ever inflict once on an app... we do it for 196 hours straight.

There’s battery-draining; random restarts; apps we wrote that consume all device resources (CPU, memory, storage, illegal actions like attempting a secret screen capture) while Chime was running. Hours of various crash-inducing events... input overloads that would have 6-8 people simultaneously tapping, swiping, app-switching, microphone-activating and more at the same time, for more than 5 hours at four intervals.

The stress-test is fun to do, but the part I actual care about — especially in apps that touch my money — are the security-exploit test and malicious apps the firm commissioned to find less commonly secured ways to defeat an app’s defensive measures. I can’t describe them in detail because the ITSEC guys who work for me say I have no need to know (awesome, actually).

I can say that Chime is what the IT guys call a “data fortress”, or “a security platform disguised as a banking app.” This is a high honor coming from these guys, because their job is to trust nothing and assume the worst in anything with a power supply.

Any app that even limps to the end of 8 days nonstop torture that literally could not be repeated in the actual world is an achievement, and we will assess an app as stable and robust even if the technical scores are uneven... if the app makes it to the end.

For Chime’s apps to survive 196 hours AND consistently pull top scores is really remarkable.

The app is reassuringly secure. Five apps in the last 50-60 I’ve assessed achieved a perfect rating like Chime, so it’s an accomplishment.

This bank takes your money, mine more than $300.00, then I make a complaint regarding the theft, I have good proof that I did not use my card on that day for that amount of money. I placed the complaint on January 9. In less than 24 hours on January 10 chime bank sends me an email stating that the case is reviewed and closed and that they would be sending that information to me within 10 business days. Well today, January 28, has been more than 10 business days. I called chime and the representative said their was no information she gave me the run around about how the case was closed but refused to share the information with me. After arguing with her for more than 40 minutes, I hung up and called back. I spent more than 50 minutes on the second call where as the gentleman on that call said the information was sent to me a week back, I informed him that I had not received it. I asked if he would send same information to me as we spoke, reminding him that the prior sent email should have been time and date stamped if it were previously sent. He placed me on hold and came back online saying that their was a human error and that the person who sent the previous email did not properly send it and that was why I had not received it. I asked him if he would email it to me properly at this time while we were on the phone. He answered me saying that it would be another 3 days because the department that handles that information would have to review it. THIS IS VERY FRUSTRATING TO HAVE UNAUTHORIZED MONEY TAKEN FROM MY ACCOUNT AND NO ONE CARES TO RESOLVE THE SITUATION. CHIME BANK IS A FRAUD!

Time for me to chime in with my 2 cents...

If you’re looking for a new bank to deposit your hard earned money into, look elsewhere. There are half a dozen banks that will give you 300-400 as a sign up bonus if you sign up for direct deposit.

All of them have 0 fees, they all give you your direct deposit 2 days early. The only thing that makes chime stand out is their inability to follow through on their promises.

They’ll bribe you into opening a checking account, claiming you’ll receive $200 when you sign up for direct deposit... then once you’ve been receiving your direct deposits for over 2 months and you still haven’t received your $200, the support team will act like they don’t know what you’re talking about.

Oh and if part of the reason you sign up for direct deposit is that they’ll enable mobile deposit, forget about it. They’ll enable it if they feel like it. They reserve the right to deny the functionality of using mobile deposit for any reason. And they WILL exercise this right. If you happen to ask why you were bribed into direct depositing your paychecks into chime when they didn’t intend to fulfill their end of the deal, you can expect them to site their user agreement that “they reserve the right to deny direct deposit for any reason”.

TLDR: not only did I not get the $200 bonus I was promised which is at the low end of sign up bonuses in the industry, despite setting up direct deposit for over 2 months... I also can’t deposit my checks on my mobile device for completely arbitrary reasons, even though this was also promised when I signed up for direct deposit.

My advice? Go get your $400 sign up bonus from a bank that actually honors their promises.

First of all, the card takes forever to arrive. How will you get your money during this time? Transfers have issues and take a long time. Also, if it gets scratched or lost/stolen it will take forever to replace. In my neighborhood only one of the two shown “free” ATM places is actually free. If you get your payroll deposit early, the next week and all subsequent weeks your deposits are still 7 days apart, so does it even matter after that? i.e. usually paid Thursday and then next Thursday, now paid Tuesday and then next Tuesday. If you need customer service for any reason at all you’re completely screwed.

What happened (is still happening) to me: The app advertises giving you and a friend each $50 when you send them a referral code. Turns out someone else’s referral code (like another user’s actual first and last name!) was inside my app. Did someone hack into it? Or did they have a glitch so big that it jumbles users personal information in between apps? I had to turn over a lot of detailed “evidence” to them to prove this including private text conversations. It’s been two weeks and over a dozen emails. A couple times I’ve gotten close to a resolution with a person. But then the very next day I’ll get one like, the majority of the ones I’ve received, very robotic (but not auto-reply) responses from different team members, who clearly only skimmed my email. “Did you try refreshing the app?” Or asking me now for all the “evidence” again. During this journey I have not received a single admission of their mistakes within the app or after with the horrific service.

And my friend who I referred had all these separate issues with them and bank transfers and subsequently their horrible customer service. So it was super embarrassing on top of everything else that I referred someone to them, for a $50 I never received.

Transactions description is missing, both in the App and online statements. If you need it, the only way is to bypass dumb bot and try to reach a human representative, with a message, like back and forth for weeks. Response takes a day or two and then, regardless that you're coming from the App, from which you can send checks, pay bills etc they're first gonna ask you for last 4 of social and ID. Why?
Like if you're registering your card for some payment method that sends transaction with the verification code in the description, you're gonna need a week or two to get that. The description should be visible by default, well not on Chime.
And where the heck is widget now in the last release? You know, quick checking your balances without a need to login into the App.
Overall it's working, support is horrible and transactions missing some info that should be shown by default. 5 seconds process now takes weeks to solve. Not very bright written App.
==============================
Update on recent update with widget back.

Now it's logging me off few times on daily basis. That's really annoying!
Still missing all transaction details, like description etc.
Widget is back, but it's making mess.
Design the app first, don't just code it.
Make sure that you're first good to go with features. This's banking app, not game.
You need more PMs with banking experience.
Other than that Chime banking is really great, but, since it's online banking only, the App must be much, much better than just side support for it. It must support it on every level, without asking to invite friends every single time when I login.
Now down to two stars, make it work and make it awesome and secure. Secure means 2 step verification with authenticator app, not mobile phone text message. That's not secure. Have you heard about port spamming on mobile phones. If not visit T-Mobile web pages!
And just as a side note, where's support for iWatch? It's also gone.

I been a member of chime now or at-least use to be for a while and during that time they’ve been great with transaction time and the simplicity of all things they have to offer they really fast with moving money between other banks and such only downfall i can see in that area is that they are not partnered with palpal so thats a big lost but one day i check my account and realize over a time span of about 2 to 3 months unknown lyft charges was racked up averaging about 1 ride a day which i was completely unaware of so i took it to chime costumer service and immediately ask them to turn off my card and then ask if theres anyway i can be refunded the money asking if they could also ban lyft from being used ever again because i never even had lyft i don't need it. they went over information and things with me and then told me to fill out a form through email and in a span of ten days the money would be refunded and 3-5 days my new card would come but it took about 2 weeks for the card to come and after the tenth day i receive a email saying the money would not be refunded for some unknown reason and then 2 weeks after that i wake up to my account being terminated i emailed them asking the cause to this and was pretty much told that they don't have to give me a probable cause because at any moment if they add new rules to the agreements its in a affect the next day and if my account doesn't match up to their bare minimum they can terminate me like what type of corporation is this? But anyways i replied to the email saying that i understood but also if i could just make a new account if that was the case and was told no. so that kind of immediately told me there was nothing wrong with the account as far as agreement goes they terminated me because of the charges and didn't want to actually resolve it so what better way to shut me up then to terminate me for no reason other than that they can if they want? Chime is just terrible

This is the absolute worst bank ever. After repeated mistakes on their end they were unable to present me with any way of accessing my money for at least 12 days as I was out of state. I decided to transfer all the money in my chime account out of their system and close the account. This was on a Tuesday around 8am and on Friday around 3pm I get an email from Venmo claiming that a $450 transfer had not been funded and that I now owe them. I also sent a transfer of $504 to a Wells Fargo account. Which chime sent an automated email stating Wells Fargo was having some sort of odd activity that caused my transfer to be returned to them. The reason both of these issues occurred is that CHIME neglected to mention that they are rude enough to close an account while funded outgoing transfers are technically pending which causes those transfers to be returned to them. Every person I talk to there starts completely fresh and unaware of what’s happening with account, multiple employees respond to the email customer support and in an attempt to reply faster they only respond the the information in the just previously sent message instead of the string of emails like a normal person or representative that actually wants to help. They want a fresh picture of my ID every time I ask for any information or if I provide them with information. Every time anything happens that seems like progress they say that the information will need to be reviewed for 24-48 hours before moving forward. They are supposed to be reopening my account but apparently that is going to take 72-96 hours, is still a maybe. Even then they wont have my money to me for at least 96 hours after it reopens. The most likely option is that I will receive a paper check in my mail sometime between the 12-15th of the month after I closed my account(on the 20th) they have made no apology, not a single attempt to find a functional work around in their system and continually prove Chime to be the worst banking decision possible.

UPDATE: Other than the issue discussed below, this app was working great and I was happy with it. Until some similar happened yesterday. I have thought of Chime as a reputable company until I feel for this shady stunt. This is from my correspondence with Chime:
The wording in the app for the Pay Friends option is very deceptive. It states “send money to anyone, even if they are not a Chime member..” I did this, thinking if there were restrictions they would be made clear before any transaction was made. Instead you “sent” my money to someone who is not a member so that they have to become one before getting the payment. After a a few minutes online I realized the scam, called customer service and was told you don’t cancel transactions even when the questionable retailer is you. Nor is there a way for me to cancel it. Then, though the woman was very polite, I was told it could be anywhere from 7-30 days (hopefully, she added) before the money will be refunded to my account. It was a substantial amount. 7 days is too long to wait for you to refund money that was sent through a service you offer and I mistakenly trusted. To wait more then that without any reassurance that it may or may not happen even further out, is unacceptable. And disappointing as I have had nothing but good to say about this company until now.

REVIEW FROM A YEAR AGO:
I’ve had Chime for over a year now. It worked well until I had to order a new card because of suspicious activity on my current on. I ordered it that day and was told 3-5 business days to get it. I was told I could transfer money thru the bank info on Venmo. I don’t have Venmo and can’t open an account because they do not accept Google Voice phone numbers. When I called 9 business days later the only option was to mail a new card. I waited 4 business days later and was told that the 2 nd replacement was sent a different mail priority and would take 4-7 business days to arrive. Unless you can survive a month without access to your funds, find another option

I was very happy with this Bank until one day I was not able to log in, I called and was told that they saw suspicious activity on my account and suspended it, I was asked to provide proof of my identity address and proof of transactions, which I did. I sent them copy of my drivers license and copy of my passport, sent them my utility bill and credit card statements to show proof of my address. I sent them my pay slips and statements from my acorn account as I was using Chime for loading my acorns investment account. I have sent them copy of receipt from loading cash to my debit card in Walgreens which I found by chance in my car, as I could have never thought that I would need them. I was getting replies once in a week when they are suppose to reply within 24 hours and each time they will write and ask for something that was already provided, they don’t read emails as I understand and don’t bother to check previous mails. I requested them to close my account and to send balance from my account by check to my home address that is registered with Chime but I got respond that they have nor closed but suspended account and unless they remove suspension they can not close my account so they keep my money more than a month now. It is impossible to go to bank as they have no branch and over the phone also They don’t let you talk to team who has suspended it and are in charge of removing suspension, I am just stuck with this bank can’t open my online banking as I am not able to log in and to look what else there is that I could send them, they also don’t tell exactly what do they need. So of one day they decide to suspend your account you will also be in same situation when you can’t do anything just loose time sending them emails that nobody will read and you will not be able to withdraw your money. Nobody even tell exact reason what they see suspicious just have to guess what they might be suspicious about. I will never ever open account in bank where I can never walk in and at least have a chance to complain face to face.

Firstly, I had heard so many great things about Chime.
They were ALL false.
1. Disputes: I have been arguing with them for over a week regarding my payments to my apple credit card which they “claim” were not on my transaction statement while apple received the payments and somehow they were “returned” due to an issue which now apple fraud is involved in. CHINE HAD BEEN A WASTE OF MY TIME WITH THESE INCOMPETENT PEOPLE THAT JUST MAKE EXCUSES.

2. Chime to bank transfers: ARE YOU KIDDING ME? 7-10 DAYS!

3. Paying friends : REALLY? They have to open an account? This is ludicrous.

4. Direct deposit expedition claim?
Every bank does this as when they release the funds for payroll obviously we get our deposit first rather than an old school check. Ridiculous claim to rope people into their scam of a “bank” which frankly is just a dumb app that serves no purpose.

5. TERRIBLE, INCOMPETENT CUSTOMER SERVICE. And their “chat app”? HA.
Utterly Useless.

6. DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE. Get Paypal you can set up direct deposit with them.
Or goto a TD, Bank of America and open accounts. They all have really amazing apps and are always there with cohesive answers to any concerns, disputes and issues.

7. AGAIN. Your bills you pay with this card DISAPPEAR WITH NO RECORD ON THE APP and the payments are not processed
Apple credit card, T-Mobile, etc...
CHIME IS A SCAM!

Sorry to ramble but this so called bank is such a load of lies that I had to break it down by number. I am in shock that I was stupid enough to fall for the so called hype which resulted in me losing money. Apple is investigating on fraud allegations as is the FDC. They said that span calls also occur as a result of this app they are finding. I had 45 in 1 hour which I got a fantastic app called robokiller to handle and that did the job it’s fantastic to rid these insane robocalls.

I have never written a review but this was just such an unbelievable terrible experience I had to. I hope this helps people when trying to find an appropriate, trusted app.
DO YOUR RESEARCH!

I’ve used chime for over 3 years loyally and honestly. Then Last week Chime inexplicably closed my account with no explanation. One day I merely tried to log in to my account, just to find out that my account was closed, with a error message saying that “you’re account has been closed, if this is a mistake, please contact member services, showing the member services email address.
I casually emailed member services asking for an explanation because I just knew that this had to be a mistake. I then get a response saying “ I apologize for the inconvenience of this situation. Unfortunately, for security reasons, Chime is unable to disclose further information about the closure of your account”.
I tried to call their customer service, but to no avail. I keep getting forwarded to their email. Where I keep getting the same generic responses. So I am unable to discuss what they did with my account to a human being.
Then my job sent my usual direct deposit to chime and now my money is just in limbo.
So what kind of a financial institution does this with someone’s account with no explanation? As well as not wanting to give their client an explanation? I will never use Chime or any other fake online bank again in my life, and I will never refer any to chime should they ever ask me about it, because they will hear my story. Then they expect to file an IPO/Go public to be on the stock market. They will have so many problems while engaging in these type of practices and inconveniencing the lives of their loyal customers. So please, I know that getting paid your direct deposit two days early sounds enticing, but there’s a down side to anything that sounds good. Use chime at your own risk, but trust and believe me, you will have problems later down the line. I guarantee it! Stick to using a real bank, credit union etc etc etc. At least they will take ownership for their mistake, work with you to resolve existing issues, and you will be able to talk to a human being instead of receiving generic emails with no coherent answers. Thank you, and please take my advice! Do not do it, or do it at your own risk.

I got a check for $1500, the issuer put my name as Nick, not Nicholas. I had them correct the name issue and initial it, something I’ve had to do before. After submitting it to chime they refused to accept it because it had been altered. I’ve had people make corrections on checks multiple other times and never had a problem with any other bank. Chimes advice to me was to deposit it to another bank. However, I was required to write “for chime mobile deposit only” on the back of the check before I could do the mobile deposit. By their logic I can correct their mistake and another bank had to deal with the correction but Chime will not deal with a check that has a correction. When I explained this to customer service they told me that I didn’t need to write “for chime mobile deposit only” on the back. This is completely ridiculous, the app literally will not let you submit the check with out first checking a box to acknowledge that you wrote “for chime mobile deposit only” on the back of the check. Chime has no accountability and refuses to help me. They told me to just get a new check. The person I worked for is now hundreds of miles away. There is literally nothing forcing that person to write me another check for $1500 and chime voided my check by forcing me to write “for chime mobile deposit only” on the back of it before they even rejected it for a correction that any other bank would take. This app is a complete joke.

Update: My bank account has now been hacked and my money has been drained. I have been on the phone tryin to get ahold of Chime all morning but their system is down. Email is now the fastest way to get ahold of someone. This bank app is a joke.
Update 2: I finally got ahold of them via email. They told me their is nothing they can do about my stolen money because the charges are still processing. Apparently they can’t do anything until they finish processing which could take 7-10 days. They told me I can still access my money but literally all but $1.37 was stolen out of my account. I’m now left with no money and no way to access my money for possibly the next 10 days. I don’t even have a way to put gas in my car to go to work 20 miles away. This bank is going to make me lose my job and I can’t pay bills until this gets resolved but they don’t seem to care.

I opened up an account with Chime bank in September . Everything was going great until I was offered a job in another state that involved a company paid move and that's when things got crazy. I moved from Georgia to Tennessee in December . I set up direct deposit for my relocation bonus and my direct deposit for my payroll checks. After I moved, I received a few deposits with significant amounts of money from my previous employer, the relocation company and my new employer, all very reputable businesses. I spent money paying bills and normal spending not thinking anything until a week before Christmas they suspended my account, saying I violated some policy which I should've known about when I first signed up. At the time I had roughly 4500.00 in my account. I was forced to send in documentation supporting my deposits, and an explanation in order to open my account back up. It took 3 days for my account to be opened again and I thought everything was fine since I provided them with the information they asked for. Cut to a month later, January 16, 2 days after my payroll check was deposited, I just signed a lease on my new apartment, my account was suspended again! Citing, I violated some policy which I should've known about when I first signed up. I was told by their customer service team, who reads off a script and lets you know they are only following the guidelines of The Bancorp bank who owns them and they can't give me anymore answers. I was told to submit the same documentation that I previously submitted a month earlier and the next day, I received a warm response saying to refer to the agreement which basically says they can suspend/close my account if they feel I've violated their policy which I've yet to get an answer on which policy I violated. Needless to say, at the time my account was closed, I had between 2600.00 - 2900.00 dollars in my account and I have no access to my money. The only answer I received was if they investigate and find I did in fact violate some policy, my monies would be forfeited. If they did decide to refund me my money it would be by check and it would be 30 days. In the mean time, I've had 3 bills including my car note bounce and be rejected because the account is no longer in service and here I sit borrowing money from family and friends to sustain until I get paid again a week from now. This is totally unprofessional. Chime is a fraud and I plan to follow this through until I get my money back and they are held accountable.

The absolute worst customer service ever! My account is locked up because of a transaction were I was trying to transfer money into my chime account. The transfer did not go thru, so they locked the account for security reasons, which everyone can appreciate. But now they want proof for both bank accounts which I have provided that the bank account I was trying to transfer money from is mine, as well a photo ID and even a bank card photo to show its me but they are saying it is not enough. I have almost $3000 in this account and all I want at this point is to unlock my account to I can access the money. I do not care that the transfer did not go thru, so simply do not credit me the money and unlock the account! The customer service is giving me the run around and saying I have not submitted sufficient documents to verify and in the last email they put final notice! How does that work? You will just not answer my email request to unlock my account with my money? ... unbelievable and that in these times were you need your money. I was using this account and a few other small ones because they were free ans linked them to use them as an “automated dave ramsey envelope method”... do not do it just use any big bank like USAA or Bank pf America and have a few accounts with them, way easier. I guess if the next email will also be not “sufficient” I have to take legal action.

I am all about security and making sure that peoples money is save, but this is nothing like it. This seems like a scam now where you get rin around till you give up, so they can hopefully keep your money! They ask you to understand during this COVID crisis, how about chime understands that they have your money and ensure to unlock your account, but as i read thru the reviews this seems a common issue! Run!

So my issue got resolved, but after 9 days! I did not need the money right away in this account, but what if someone would have, especially in this time of the corona crisis? The most horrible customer service ever, and if you emailed them the documents 30 min after they said “sorry not good enough” for the 3rd or 4th time, they would not respond till the next day, no sense of urgency! I have forwarded their emails to the Better Business Buero, their customer service acted like you owed them something like you are guilty of something. And on their corporate website bankcorp.com it says not to send sensitive information which chime asks for so makes no sense at all! Good bye chime, lesson learned from a banking app...