I’ve been an Upgrade customer for about a year and a half. I had been working on raising my credit score by paying down my credit cards for YEARS! But I finally needed to get serious as my retirement was anything but easy! I looked into Upgrade and they had a very attractive rate for a personal loan that would pay off the credit cards in 3 years with a much lower interest rate than I had expected! Paid off all my debt, but now needed a new car! Got a great hybrid that was just 3 yrs old and with low mileage and because of my good credit score, was able to get nearly the same rate on the car on a 5 year loan. Then, a big surprise… my credit rating went up again! And now I needed a short-term bridge loan to help me finish remodeling my house after a fire and was able to get another personal loan to help with that! I’m still paying all my bills on time and my credit rate keeps rising as I have not used my credit cards to solve my short-term cash crunches! And each month I can see my personal debt going down! And my credit score keeps rising! I recommend Upgrade to everyone!

The first time I added money to the app, there was an option to add money with a debit card and I was like oh cool being able to add money from a debit card to a bank account with no minimum amount requirement and no fees it’s going to be an exceptional tool. I did it once and then it disappeared so I called them and they told me it was only a one time feature, which shows that they have the technology to do it, but they choose to withhold it. Being able to add money from a debit card is an essential part of a banking technology for me. If I can only find one legitimate bank that has a branch that offers that feature, I will be extremely pleased. I am writing this a one star because when I use the feature, it didn’t mention it being a single used feature and I had to call to figure it out. I just think if it’s an available feature that works and they can use it. They should put it on there and leave it on there for everybody and until they do, I will not bank with them. It is so hard to move money in and out of things without either having to waste money in fees or having to wait multiple days on end and it’s just ridiculous when the technologies is there to be able to instantly add money with a debit card for free so why not offer it? Especially when you use it as a one time feature to bait people in it just seems predatory and wrong.

I held a live chat with Stephanie on 9/13 through the app as I had added a new checking account for my auto pay but it wouldn’t let me select it as the default account and I’m in the process of closing the old account. She told me it was all set up with the new account and that my old account had been deactivated. She lied. On 9/17 I checked the app and it still looked like the payment was coming out of the old account. I live chatted again with Rachel who told me once you add a new account the old account is deactivated but since the payment had already started processing out of my old account this too was a lie. Finally I called and talked to a rep I did not catch his name and while he was nice and disabled my auto pay for me (so far the only rep to actually do anything). I was told that they would not reimburse me for any fees my old bank would charge me even though I would only be charged those fees because of their mistake. He double checked to see if he could get me reimbursement if I am charged NSF fees (hopefully I won’t because as soon as I found out about their screw up I started a transfer from my new account to my old account) and was told a firm no that they would not. This is egregious to admit they are the cause but then make no amends for their mistake is unbelievable to me. Customer service is dead.

I used Upgrade from approximately 2017 to the end of 2021. Whenever I needed help I was typically able to get through to customer service, I appreciated that their customer service spoke very clear English without foreign accents. That is not intended to offend anybody, but some people struggle to clearly understand if accents are too thick. Anyways, during 2020 as a business owner we certainly felt the squeeze and Upgrade was there to offer us numerous options to reduce our payments to help us through tough times. Through all of it we were able to complete our loan with a 100% payment history as well as gain great credit benefits for the service we received. Ultimately, if you take a loan for the right reason and can make more money from it than the interest your paying your making a good decision, but life sometimes needs money for things that do not make any returns, but either way, if you run into trouble this lender may be able not work with you so it’s a good choice if you need a loan.