Aura: Security & Protection Ratings and Reviews

Stolen on Vaca

I had my purse stolen while on a personal trip to see my son & wife. I had pulled my clutch and had on my wrist when leaving the airport to get on a shuttle. Unfortunately, being unaware, someone must have slipped the clutch away from me & clipped the wrist strap. Forgot I had put around my wrist, I thought the clutch was in my shoulder bag. I got into the bag to pull tip money out of my clutch to learn I no longer had my purse on me with all my ID, cards, money & my travel card passport. Thank goodness I had my cellphone on me. It was a nightmare and the most hopeless & helpless feeling I’ve ever experienced. After canceling cards & requesting new, new license, having to report my stolen passport card to the State Department & the passport number shutdown forcing me to get a new passport, i had to take the next step to protect myself from ID fraud. I had heard good things about Aura and proceeded to secure my identity. I have a stronger sense of security now. I also loaded their antivirus on my laptop as well. Froze my credit reports, too. It was an expensive & hard lesson to learn but I feel safer with Aura alongside me.

Developer Response ,

Hi, thank you so much for the review. We promise to keep working hard.

Clunky, timed-out, a big waste of time

We had high hopes for this app but after only one day, we will be canceling our free trial. Download the app and it never ever loads my account information. It just keeps on saying “loading account information”. Unfortunately you can’t access your account settings online because it just takes you right back to the app. Tried to set my daughter’s limitations but because of aforementioned issue, it wouldn’t let me change them. It does not allow for more judicious blocking either you block something entirely or not at all. Daughter’s phone would not connect to wifi while the app was on her phone, even though the restriction is for browsing in safari, not to deny her access to wifi. As a test, I asked my daughter to remove the app which would essentially give her full access to the internet. She deleted the app. No notification that the app was deleted, but still READS that her device is connected to my account. Dangerous! I tried update phones, reloading the app, updating the app, nothing. Bottom line—google, if you can actually believe this, has more safety features that allow me access than this service, which is sorta like saying that I’d feel safer with a psycho. Absolute garbage and a total waste of time- I spent HOURS trying to get this thing to work—all for nothing. Avoid.

Developer Response ,

Oh no! We sincerely apologize for the troubles you've had with the parental control feature. We'd be happy to take a look into this for you, please contact us at +18335522123 or email us at app-support@aura.com . Thank you.

4 Star App 5 Star Service

I recently downloaded the Aura app and have been very impressed with the services it provides, especially the identity protection and constant monitoring. This has given me peace of mind knowing that my personal information is being protected at all times. I love that that it automatically opts out of any data brokers who currently have your information.

However, I do have a few minor issues with the actual app. For one, it does not have landscape viewing on iPad, which can be a bit frustrating. Additionally, the website seems to crash every time I try to login and set up MFA on the safari browser on my laptop. I would like to see the option to choose a country for VPN service. I would also like the desktop app to be more of an all in one stop and not just antivirus and online security.

Despite these issues, I am overall very satisfied with the service provided by Aura. The identity protection and constant monitoring are incredibly valuable and make up for any minor problems with the app. I hope that the developers will continue to improve the app and address these issues in future updates. Thank you for reading if you’ve made it this far hahah.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for taking out time to rate us. We are sorry to hear about the problem you are having setting up MFA. Please feel free to call us at 1-833-552-2123 so that we may take a look at the issue.

Wonderful product, but—

Aura’s easy to use and from what I’ve seen thus far apparently wonderful customer service. However the one thing that is making me give four stars instead of five is how it’s causing me to monitor too much information. My parents and I each have accounts all in the same bank, however I want to be able to have the option to not monitor their information as well as my own. I know which transactions are mine and I also understand that Aura needs access to financial accounts to work properly, but I would like to be able to monitor just my own accounts under the same bank, rather than everyone else—truebill used to provide this with the option to “hide” the other accounts and ignore them since they were not mine. Please provide this in a future update. It would be much easier for me to monitor my own individual finances that way.

Additionally; providing an option for a yearly subscription on the app store would be preferable to paying $10 per month. Less expensive that way.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for taking out time to rate us. Could you call us at +18335522123 with more details of your issue, we'd love to help.

You do too much, Aura

I am genuinely baffled at how highly rated this app is. I wanted safety features for PC gaming and filtering inappropriate content on my child’s iPhone. What I’ve gotten for my money is a pushy PC app gag wants to run the show, an iOS app that pesters INCESSANTLY to turn on the VPN that breaks other apps, and…no alerts from my kid’s gaming. She’s a good kid but there is NO way after all this time I haven’t gotten a single alert from her time on Roblox. Every time I open the app on my phone, it acts like it’s never seen me before and makes me sign in. Sometimes it firehoses me with alerts that it hasn’t seen my kid active on her phone when she’s standing there using it. Then radio silence for weeks.

This app tries to do way, way too much. Some of it is home grown, some has been added through M&A activity. This thing runs a VPN, it MITMs game chat, it operates at ring 0 on our PCs, and we hand it our PII so it can monitor for it on the dark web. (I’ve never gotten an alert for that, either, and my data is definitely out there.) We are handing the keys to our personal kingdoms to a buggy app whose supply chain gives me the ick. Can I get an SBOM?

I’m well past the point of being able to legitimately ask for a refund, but I’m cutting my losses and not renewing.

Developer Response ,

Oh no! We sincerely apologize for the troubles you've had with the parental control feature. We'd be happy to take a look into this for you, please contact us at +18335522123 or email us at app-support@aura.com . Thank you.

Pretty bad

I signed up after my mom had important documents stolen. I signed myself up and added her as additional adult. However the invitation link never worked. Everytime we went in through link it would say “server error”. Once I got through to live customer rep (btw good luck with that … prepare to hold for over 30 mins), they said it was an IT issue and that someone would call me back within 24 hours after fixing. No one ever called me. I called them again and same thing. The rep said IT issue and someone would call me back. I asked to cancel the service at this point. If IT cannot even fix this simple issue, how does one trust the company to monitor our identities online? Even canceling was a pain. The rep kept telling me I needed to call Apple Pay to get my refund back. I had to push for them to process my refund. Rep kept saying Apple pay has to do it. I didn’t even pay with Apple subscription. I had to explain again that it was through my cc saved to my Apple wallet. The rep expected me to call my cc and ask for cancellation and refund. How would Amex cancel my subscription unless I was putting in a dispute. The rep spoke to a supervisor who then cancelled my subscription and processed my cc refund. I do not recommend.

Landscape view for iPads and other tablets is not enabled.

Aura’s mission to help those who have become identity theft victims and worse in admirable. But, the app developer needs to add landscape view for those of us who use iPads and other devices that must be used with that orientation to accommodate an external keyboard.
As a victim of ID Theft, I am no longer allowed by my 2 banks to use online services. I haven’t yet found a place to register my accounts in Aura. Most of the world now uses online banking, but there is a growing number of victims for whom it is no longer safe to bank online. We need to add our offline bank accounts just like everyone else.
Other than my suggestions for improvement as listed above, the app is clear and easy to navigate, and there is no crowding of features. It has ease of use for computer beginners and intermediates, as well as those who use devices other than computers.
If the above suggestions are implemented, I will review the app again, and give it the better rating it will then deserve.

Developer Response ,

Oh no! We sincerely apologize for the troubles you've had with the app. We also value these details as it helps us to further approve the app. We'd be happy to take a look into this for you, please contact us at +18335522123. Thank you.

Tons of spam calls and customer service is horrid

Right after I signed up my spams called and texts increased from one every few weeks to several every single day. Over a dozen on some days. I have had the same number for over a decade, I have been on the do not call registry and now I am just being bombarded. I called and finally pressed one for customer service to call me back. They called four hours later! You are not supposed to lose your spot in line. Either tons of people are having issues or they are just terrible with customer support. I explained my situation. The man just kept saying they had nothing to do with it. I explained that it seems my number has become increasingly more available, he put the phone to his mouth and started mumbling “calllllllleeeerrrrr ccccaaannnn yyyooouuu hhheeaaarrr mmmmeeeee?” I said I know you can hear me because I have a perfect connection. I was on WiFi in my own home. So then I waited for a second, he though I hung up and he didn’t say anything waiting for me to disconnect. So then I said I can still hear you then he mumbled it again and started saying to call back at the 800 number. This is a total scam and I am pretty sure they are selling my number!

Developer Response ,

Hi, we're sorry to hear that and we would love to take a look at the issue. Please reach out to our customer support team at 1-833-552-2123 or email us at app-support@aura.com.

I feel better with the protection but there is a lot of room to improve

I signed up for this service and it seems to do a lot for the price. But the app can be really annoying and it seems like it should be able to “learn” over time but it doesn’t. I have to clear the same alerts every month (same paycheck every month) and it isn’t just one alert, it generates multiple alerts for the same item - very annoying. And both my husband and I have to each clear the same, multiple alerts instead of one of us being able to clear alerts for the account.

The VPN also occasionally glitches with other apps so I semi-routinely have to turn it off and restart my phone. Apps just won’t load or open at random periods of time. I have a secondary vpn that I often have to switch too until whatever bug is going on seems to clear itself and then I can switch back.

I like the concept, I appreciate having the monitoring in place, but the app makes things frustrating.

Developer Response ,

Hi, we're sorry to hear that and we would love to take a look at the issue. Please reach out to our customer support team at 1-833-552-2123 or email us at app-support@aura.com.

Lack of Customer Service

Was thinking this app was going to make a difference, but all in all it really just compiles information and gives you updates on when a company looks at your financials or personal information. Essentially it is the same thing for when someone views you on LinkedIn and you get a notification saying someone looked at you. The majority of the services this app provides are all features that your bank already has as an available option. I tried to cancel 4 days before the monthly subscription date was coming up and was not helped. Then I tried to cancel and the representative kept trying to upsell me as I was trying to cancel. It felt disingenuous as I was explaining my frustration that the response was that I should spend more money with them. I was told that it is physically impossible to be refunded and was told that they could not help me at all. While having the app, I never used it and it was just background noise. There are tons of other alternatives that are on existing apps we have with our banks. Customer service couldn’t care less. I would not recommend this app.

Developer Response ,

Hello, we are sorry to hear about this. Please feel free to email us at app-support@aura.com so that we may go over additional details and information to further assist you.