Cleo: $250 Fast Cash Advance

First of all- I love this app. What a fun way to track money! HOWEVER- there are a few issues I’m running into Namely Bills: I pay rent to my roommate via Venmo, however I also use Venmo to pay friends for drinks, going out, a coffee, etc. Cleo isn’t able to distinguish between individual Venmo payments, so she categorizes ALL Venmo payments as bills and will not let me manually break them up into other categories (ie.- eating out, shopping, etc.) Which leads me to the next issue: Cleo isn’t able to create more spending categories- she has basic ones (ie.- eating out, shopping, expenses, bills etc.) But to be most functional I would love for the app to add the ability for the consumer to make their own individual spending categories. For example, my puppy is a big expense category for me, but lumping her expenses in with all my other expenses doesn’t let me track as well what I am spending in each category of MY life. As I said, love this app- but these few minor changes would really take this app to the next level!

I was recommended Cleo by a friend who loves how user friendly it is and how it can roast her, and I thought it would be great for my chronic overspending problem. I downloaded it and immediately starting having problems. First it took awhile to connect my bank account and now here’s two of the same one. Second, when adding my income (which I had to do manually, as I couldn’t choose one of the suggested ones) it was in pounds, not dollars, and it would NEVER save. Third, making my own budget (as the one Cleo suggested was just not gonna work for me) was difficult because it always said I didn’t have enough money to cover my spending. I went in vacation this month and spent a lot of money, but I wasn’t hoping on starting the budget this month. I guess I’ll try again next month and see if I have any luck. Also, when I was trying to identify bills, it was next to impossible as I have multiple iTunes bills and I couldn’t specify which ones update when or choose prices. Suggestions: Make it easier to view which bank accounts are linked. Fix currency. Have a reset button for the entire app. Make a button when creating a budget on when it should start (like it will start when the next month comes around). Focus more on working on upkeep and not just making it yell at me. Let me manually input prices when it comes to bills. Right now I’m not very happy with Cleo, but I really want it to work. I will try again next time I get paid so we will see.

The app started off great and extremely useful for what I was looking for in a budgeting app. I signed up for Cleo+ and even gave them my private information for their new rollout feature to collect interest in their own savings account. I loved this app for 1-2 months and the categories and spending is great. However - I will never recommend this app to anyone purely that their customer support is non existent. I have sent over 12+ email over a *simple* issue linking the Cleo cover that they offer and absolutely no response. I then have sent in 4+ account cancelation/deletion requests over two weeks now and not received one response back. On top of that, my account has not been deleted and is still active despite my numerous deletion attempts. They also refuse to disconnect my bank and banking information. Before you ask, yes I did email support for this and big shock they have not once responded to me. If I could stop myself from ever giving my personal information to this company I would immediately. Especially considering they will not delete my account or private financial information from their app. It’s baffling to me how they have so many great reviews with a non existent customer service team. If I ignored emails at work the way they do I wouldn’t have a job anymore... and they shouldn’t either. Steer clear and do not give them any of your information.

I found this app through a social media influencer (first mistake) and thought it looked both interesting and useful. It was, for about a day, then it became the app I most hated, taking up space on my phone until I finally deleted it. What happened? Cleo happened. The voice this app adopts is... obnoxious. It’s combative, and not in a good or helpful way. You know that mean girl who sits behind you in art history who clearly feels superior to you and always has an opinion, especially about you? That’s Cleo. Cleo is also your mom when you were a teenager trying to sneak back into the house at 4 AM. It’s a weird voice to take for an app that’s supposed to be helping us, not (constantly) chiding us, but Cleo seems to think this tone may stir some people into better managing their finances. It doesn’t. It makes us abhor the app instead, so much that every time I saw a message come in from this app, I instinctively swatted it away. Also, you need to pay a subscription (of course *eye roll*) to use some of the app’s more advanced features. If you refuse to, which I did, you basically have a snarky byatch in your pocket providing the most basic account management functions which anyone of us can perform on our own sans the added lip service. I’ll take that, thanks. Bye Cleo!

lures people to sign up and immediately pay membership fee by offering the only tempting benefit that is appealing anyone to sign up in the first place which is cleo cover. it allows you to open account and hAs all the credentials it needs and account opens and charges your account instantly with no issue . when you attempt to use the cleo cover with is the reason why most people sign up for this pointless app , they say you are not eligible and make up a wierd reason that makes no sense . i am ineligible because i began a setup through the app once previously but never opted for the cover and deleted my account bc there is nothing else it does . that is known by cleo as a “ duplicate account” from their records. funny that is has no issue with your duplicated account signing up and getting opened and have no issues charged an immediate fee to this “duplicate account” . also you will never get a question answered or issue resolved as it appears the only employee that cleo app is a chat bot that repeats the same 5 stupid questions over and over unrelated to your question. emailed the “support” chat a week ago and got no reply or indication that a live person even works in this company . Beware!!!!