Starling Feedback

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163

I’ve just switched to starling yesterday. This weekend was the last straw for me and my Nationwide account. I’m sick to death of charges appearing days after. It’s making it very hard to budget.

I can’t really fault my experience with Starling so far. Everything has been lightning quick with setting up the account. The current account switch service works great. I went for the partial switch and it was super easy to tick all the direct debits and standing orders I wanted to bring across. Only slight disappointment is my debit card is going to be a few days yet.

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I must be that unlucky Starling customer… Got another issue! As I was flashing my phone a lot recently, I installed Starling app multiple times (not sure how many). When I tried to login yet again, I got following screen:

Apart from visiting ‘Devices’ tab when I installed it for the first time, I never opened it again, so I didn’t even know that managing devices is a thing ;( . However, this sort of warning needs to be “FYI, you won’t be able to link any new devices, unless you delete some from Devices” when you use up last available slot, not when you are locked out. Poor design. :disappointed_relieved:

In order to get my account back, I had to schedule call with Starling (later today). Email correspondence with Starling was really quick, A+. I’ll need to verify myself again, via phone, passport required. Not sure if having my email linked to the account would make any difference, I’ll ask though.

Installing on multiple devices is probably ok, because user could still manage devices from device that’s already linked to Starling. Problem happened because I was installing on the same phone over and over again and each time it was treated as new device.

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165

Call back was made precisely at the time I requested and took 2mins30seconds to:

  • get some welcome pleasantries
  • read out details from my passport
  • delete old devices
  • ask a question about email (it helps to identify customer, but not much else, my issue wouldn’t be solvable by email)
  • say bye bye

-1 point for bad UX decision and +1 point for good customer service then. :wink:

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166

I have to say I am not impressed with Starling at all so far, Monzo works much better for me.

I signed up to their beta program a few months back and I received my pass two weeks ago.

The signing up process wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked it. They needed to do a more enhanced check and instead of being able to do it in-app I had to contact them by email. They then replied asking for my passport pictures. The process took I would say six hours (beginning application on app+ my email+waiting for reply etc). After that I had to register the akward video and my card was on its way.

It took 5 days for me to get my card as I did the application on a Monday the card would have been shipped on a Thursday and took 2 days to reach me but I wasn’t fussed because I was on holiday with my Monzo.

The card arrived and I have to say I find it a mild improvement if compared to Revolut’s design but I my very modest opinion it’s just ugly. I’d muuuch rather have a hot coral card in my wallet. Even in corporate meetings!
I then unexpectedly had to change phones during a genius bar appointment at apple and thought nothing of it because I assumed redownloading and setting up the app would be easy. Well I was wrong! Very wrong!

With Monzo all I had to do is download the app, imput my email and whoosh my access email was in my inbox. With Starling it turns out that the fastest way to access your account again is to pair it through your old phone-,- couldn’t do that as I didn’t have the phone.

So the other way to do it is to re-send them your phone number receive the activation code and then the app should recognise your account and prompt you for your password. I say should because the app is glitchy. It didn’t help that I had forgotten my password. I wanted to reset it but the reset page froze and caused the app to crash! Several times!

After deleting and redownloading the app again it still wasn’t working so I had to contact Starling through my laptop (wouldn’t work through the phone) so they could call me, verify my identity and send me a temporary password.
The whole process took approximately an HOUR!
After going to all that trouble I decided to give it a try. I wanted to top up £25 but the minimum was £50 so that’s what I did.

I then withdrew £20, didn’t receive any push notification (they are on) and once in the app it took it close to a minute to update the very awkwardly shaped (and overly complicated) graph.
I then had a coffee and on my graph it shows “Chiswick”. Not very helpful. Yes I bought the coffee in Chiswick but I am not going to remember a month from now what £3.15 Chiswick means.
After that I decided it wasn’t for me so I transferred the rest of the money into my Kerv ring. Well or as close as I could get. I still have £1.7 in there and I am not planning to add anymore.

The app didn’t feel progressive in any way: I can do the exact same things in my barclays app especially with the “new” pending payment tab. Also the app looks very dark and glum, I could have gone over it if the service was good but for me it really wasn’t.
In my opinion Starling is not really a competitor to Monzo

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167

I have been lucky, gaining a Golden Ticket from a kind person on here yesterday and today a Starling pass from a lovely guy who sent me one within 3 minutes of my request. I hadn’t heard of either Monzo or Starling prior to yesterday :sunglasses:

I opened a Monzo account yesterday and a Starling a/c today. One major thing that led me to open a Starling a/c - it’s currently a full current account and they have your name on the bank debit card. This is a must in my opinion. I learnt the Monzo card would be ‘nameless’ after I’d applied, through reading more on this forum.

I joined First Direct many moons ago and so far they have remained the best bank ever. I also run 2 other major bank current account (all legacy banks) alongside having their credit cards etc. I’ve also banked on my iPhone since pussy was a kitten and started using internet banking since back when people were wary of it. I like to embrace new technology, that’s why I joined both these ‘new’ banks.

I’m still waiting for my Monzo card and other than opening the account being seamless and very speedy, I can’t say much about it - other than I want my name on my card as soon as possible please!

Starling, I’ve had a great experience so far. Application via the app took me no more than 5 minutes. I was verified almost immediately and offered a 2.5k overdraft. I moved,the slider down as didn’t want one that big! But its nice to see them rewarding me for my excellent credit rating. That fact alone gets my vote from the get go. Don’t have to ‘apply’ it was offered and I could take it, decline it or reduce it via a slider to a figure I was happy with. I have a large OD facility with FD if I want to use my OD. It glad they offered me too though.

I like the fact I am told and received an alert that my card is on its way …and when it should be delivered by. I was very pleased to choose my own pin rather than having to go to an ATM after its arrival to change it.

Adding my initial deposit to the account was instantaneous and I would happily recommend this bank to anyone. I do wonder how long Monzo will take to go to a full current account, as at the moment it’s just. pre-paid MasterCard that I need to load money onto and doesn’t even have my name on it. Who knows, when I start using it, when it arrives, maybe it will win me over. I love the colour and design of the Monzo card but not having my name on it doesn’t seem very good to me at all! I doubt I’ll use it in public, will look weird without a name on no? Maybe use it at self-service tills in Tesco lol

I like Starling. I used their switch service today too … I’ve had a Santander account for the last year but since increasing the monthly fee and reducing the credit interest, I no longer wanted it, so used opening Starling as a good excuse to dump it. I’d never leave FD, I hope Starling wow me continually as FD always have done. Another excellent feature of the switching service was I could do a full switch and close the account (option I chose, Santander are pants) or select which DD’s I wanted to transfer, leaving the legacy bank a/c open.

I really like Starling!

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168

To be honest, I’d forgotten that my Monzo card doesn’t have my name on it. Thinking about it, I rarely take it out of my wallet, as I normally just tap and do contactless. But even when I do, I put it in the machine, it doesn’t get seen in detail by anyone else. Never had anyone comment about the name (but have on the colour!). Give it a try when you get it, and see how you find it. As I say, in use it’s not been noticeable to me that it lacks my name.

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169

I will, thanks for your reply. I’ll comment when it arrives and I give it a go. Surely you want your name on it though, if you had a choice right now I mean?

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I’d rather get the card quicker unpersonalised than have to wait longer if it was to be personalised.

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171

Fair point … but Starling are personalising my card, full name and all that jazz and it’s to be posted out Thursday, will prob arrive Friday or Saturday latest. That makes it 4 or 5 days max to get a personalised named card from Starling …only 2 days longer than it takes Monzo to get my card to me :sunglasses:

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172

I don’t feel particularly strongly either way, to be honest (for the prepaid card). But I haven’t had any acceptance issues. I understand from this forum, that there are places (or countries like the US?) that won’t accept a card without your name on it.

For the current account, I agree that the card needs to have my name on it. There are rare occasions where I need to use my card as ID (e.g. picking up a parcel), and I don’t want any acceptance issues. But at this stage, I don’t really have a preference. That’s just me, I can understand why you and others might want the name. :smile:

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173

Thank you. I totally agree with your post, every word of it.

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174

Just to add a bit of context, the debit cards will have user’s names on them & they’ll take 3 days to deliver as they’ll be sent from the manufacturer so still quicker than Starling :tada: users will also have the option to request a namless card if they need the card sooner though -

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175

Yes. Due to the inability or unwillingness of Monzo to incorporate a simple PIN in their Android app to secure the privacy of my personal and financial data I am currently unlikely to make Monzo my primary account and will probably opt for the competition. While their app may not be as fully featured at least I know anyone borrowing my phone does not have free reign to view my balance and transaction history

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177

If any another users are interested in discussing PIN protection for the Android app, please share your thoughts here -

https://community.monzo.com/t/android-app-security-and-privacy/6218/54?u=alexs

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178

This isn’t anything to do with Starling but is there a reason why some posts on this topic (and the France discussion topic) aren’t arranged by order of posting? For example, a post from 3h ago comes before a 16h post. Or is it just something to do with shifting topics about that means I’m seeing it out of order? Since a post that was made last year is now being reflected as one made 3h ago.

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179

I think it is where topics are manually merged by Monzo staff and Leaders

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Yes when a post(s) are merged into a topic, the first post in the thread is created again by Discourse so it’s timestamp shows the date & time when the merge was made. The rest of the posts that’ve been moved keep their original timestamp, which is confusing!

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181

Starling have just updated their app with spending insights (yay!). I’d post a screenshot but its broken for me at the moment.

Edit: Contacted support and fixed already.

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182

Can’t add Notes yet so I need to remember that Lifestyle is a PSB preorder.
Bars go from left to right as it’s Spending rather than the right to left Targets in :monzo:

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184

PSB

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