Change to Curve card price levels, and new Curve X level

[Deleted User]

Some of the freemiums were using GBIT on a regular basis and not for the occasional slip up. It's a loss leading product and they were obviously costing too much. 

GPay does everything they can (for me) and I don't lose chargeback/S75 from a real bank. 

Grumpy_chap

DUTR said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Daliah said:

Meh. That will the end of Curve for me as I am not going to pay for it. 

Well, there still is a free option and that will do for me.  My main reason to have Curve was for Garmin Pay and that should still work.  I may not be the typical customer but I only ever had one card linked, never used "back in time", never heard of "smart rule" and £1k monthly overseas is sufficient.

There are still occasional cash-back offers and I guess they'll continue.  Not a deal-breaker if they don't.

I's just say to stop and think before ditching the Curve as it still seems to have some uses.

The whole business model of Curve was never one I understood.  It always looked to me like every transaction would lose money from the difference in treatment between a debit card and a credit card.  Maybe there is a behind-the-scenes trick that overcomes that.

Help me understand, will my basic use (like yours) convert to free use?
If not I'll cancel.

I'm on the free option and that will continue to be sufficient for me.

Are you saying you have a paid version and now want to downgrade to free?  I am not sure how that can be done, but you could ask Curve Chat.

If you are already on free and intend to stay on free (reduced service) then I understand that will just happen.

wakeupalarm

I am on the free curve plan, today I received an email thanking me for choosing Curve X, with a new card being sent out to me. I didn't make any choice.

blueberrypie

If you're cancelling, be very clear with them, and ensure you have confirmation from them that they've actually cancelled your account (not just that they've received your request).

There's no way to contact them through the app (at least on iOS) so I sent them a "submission" through the website - this involved going through a bunch of drop-down options, most of which didn't seem correct for the "cancel" option, but did eventually get me to a request to cancel. I told them I was cancelling because of the changes.

Their email response, a couple of days later, opened with "sorry to hear...you'd like to cancel your account" - but fortunately I didn't stop reading there, because that was followed by several paragraphs about the changes they are making and why (remember I told them the changes were my reason for cancelling) and then, at the very end, this (emphasis added by me):

"Have a great day and please let us know how you’d like to proceed."

In other words, we've got your request to cancel, we clearly understood it, but we're not going to do it until you've jumped through at least one more hoop.

The email also talks about "you can only add 2/5 payment cards on your curve card as a standard/Curve X customer" - which does suggest to me that they are perhaps trying to confuse customers about the difference between those two tiers and/or possibly gearing up to move many customers to the paid X tier, which would, as someone has already said, be very dodgy, but that doesn't mean they won't give it a try.

Voyager2002

k_man said:

Daliah said:

Important to note that if you do nothing in the next 60 days (calendar, I assume) from yesterday, you will automatically be charged. Not sure how they will charge you, and I won't find out as I will be off before then. 

I thought that meant if you accepted the new limitations of the free version.
Changing to a chargeable level would require an assumption regarding to which level.
Curve X is described as a new tier so migrating free users to that, without explicit explanation, would be dodgy ground.

I am concerned about this. I am happy to continue with the free version and accept the new limitations, and I certainly don't want to start paying a subscription. However, I have more than two cards linked to my Curve account: does that mean that I am currently enjoying the benefits of Curve X and so will have to pay for it? Am I required to remove some cards for it to continue to be free? The killer is that since they "updated" their app I cannot manage my account and so cannot remove the extra cards.

k_man

wakeupalarm said:

I am on the free curve plan, today I received an email thanking me for choosing Curve X, with a new card being sent out to me. I didn't make any choice.

I suggest you contact their support team, if you have been upgraded without asking.

Voyager2002 said:

k_man said:

Daliah said:

Important to note that if you do nothing in the next 60 days (calendar, I assume) from yesterday, you will automatically be charged. Not sure how they will charge you, and I won't find out as I will be off before then. 

I thought that meant if you accepted the new limitations of the free version.
Changing to a chargeable level would require an assumption regarding to which level.
Curve X is described as a new tier so migrating free users to that, without explicit explanation, would be dodgy ground.

I am concerned about this. I am happy to continue with the free version and accept the new limitations, and I certainly don't want to start paying a subscription. However, I have more than two cards linked to my Curve account: does that mean that I am currently enjoying the benefits of Curve X and so will have to pay for it? Am I required to remove some cards for it to continue to be free? The killer is that since they "updated" their app I cannot manage my account and so cannot remove the extra cards.

I don't know what will happen next, but I have asked via Chat in the app.
I can't see how they can just decide what tier to move you to (I have more than 5 cards, so even Curve X does not fit)
If you can no longer manage your account, I suggest you contact their support team.

Daliah

blueberrypie said:

There's no way to contact them through the app (at least on iOS) 

Tap on Account bottom right, select Help Centre, then start a chat by tapping Chat, bottom right. Don't expect an instant answer but they are generally quite responsive.

blueberrypie

Daliah said:

Tap on Account bottom right, select Help Centre, then start a chat by tapping Chat, bottom right. Don't expect an instant answer but they are generally quite responsive.

I must have missed that - I can't check it now because my account has indeed been cancelled, but your post might be useful for anyone else who's trying to contact them. I'm kind of glad I did it through the website/email though, as at least now I do have proof of cancellation, just in case I ever needed it.

Daliah

Apparently, the claim in the email that you can cancel the Curve card in the app was "included in the email in error" 



 

blue.peter

blueberrypie said:

Their email response, a couple of days later, opened with "sorry to hear...you'd like to cancel your account" - but fortunately I didn't stop reading there, because that was followed by several paragraphs about the changes they are making and why (remember I told them the changes were my reason for cancelling) and then, at the very end, this (emphasis added by me):

"Have a great day and please let us know how you’d like to proceed."

In other words, we've got your request to cancel, we clearly understood it, but we're not going to do it until you've jumped through at least one more hoop.

Quite. Not good. They got a rather terse second e-mail from me:

I thought that I'd already told you how I want to proceed. There
shouldn't be any need to repeat myself. As I said yesterday, please
close my account.

That got a more appropriate reaction from them - a confirmation that they've cancelled my account. (I'm not sure why they refer to "cancelling" the account rather than closing it. It seems a slightly odd usage to me.)

It's all rather disappointing, because it's a good idea in theory. Having said that, I'm not really surprised by the changes. Several people have been saying for a while that the original business model looked unsustainable. Having said that, £4.99/month to have more than two cards linked is more than I'm willing to pay. It's not worth that much to me to save carrying five or six cards in my wallet.

(Yes, I know that I could use Google Pay, but that requires me to remember to pick up my phone every time I leave the house. A wallet is easier for me.)