Bad experiences with Cynergy bank app

friolento

Qyburn said:

Angelica123 said:

I haven't had any issues with Cynergy personally. The app is clunky but much easier now that I can choose to authenticate via notification on app (where I log in using biometrics). Withdrawals used to be slow but recently they have been almost immediate. 

I found i had to disable notifications otherwise the app is an absolute battery hog, presumably talking to Cynergy 24/7 to see if it needs to pop up.

How did you do this? My battery is always emptying at the rate of knots.....

The Cynergy app doesn't even appear in my list of apps in Settings, and I can't find anything about notifications in the actual app. I have an iPhone.

Qyburn

friolento said:

Qyburn said:

I found i had to disable notifications otherwise the app is an absolute battery hog

How did you do this? My battery is always emptying at the rate of knots.....

Open Settings, then Notifications. Scroll down to the app which is called "Authenticator" (not "Cynergy"). Deselect "Allow Notifications".

Set like this you have to authenticate by scanning the image. It doesn't receive notification even if you open the app manually in advance.

samtaylor99

Similar experience to OP. The funding window timed out a few days ago but I had already given up and opened a similar account with another provider. I'm OK with authenticator apps usually, but this one just wouldn't accept their codes despite numerous calls, reinstalls and resets. On  the last call to them they said they were extremely busy and would call me back - they didn't. 

friolento

Qyburn said:

friolento said:

Qyburn said:

I found i had to disable notifications otherwise the app is an absolute battery hog

How did you do this? My battery is always emptying at the rate of knots.....

Open Settings, then Notifications. Scroll down to the app which is called "Authenticator" (not "Cynergy"). Deselect "Allow Notifications".

Set like this you have to authenticate by scanning the image. It doesn't receive notification even if you open the app manually in advance.

Thanks, found it . It was already off.

klsaigal

Why bother with them if its so much hassle.Most banks are loathsome, especially Barclays, so give this one a miss as well.

DisappointedApplicant

whostolemyname said:

This is just a heads-up to anyone considering opening a Cynergy bank account (currently featured in the top Savings Accounts listings), to say you might want to check other users' experiences before doing so. In my case it ended in a frustrating, bad experience and me abandoning my newly-created account in favour of a different bank.

When going to dowload the app I saw that it had 1.4 stars - yes, 1.4 stars, out of 5 - and a wealth of reviews telling of awful experiences and warning new users not to use the bank - ranging from people having trouble setting up their accounts, to customers spending 30 mins on the phone every time they wanted to check their balance, due to the app de-registering them each time. But by then I had already opened the account, and being tech-savvy and experienced enough (having used apps from several other banks) I thought I might as well try to get it set up.

The resulting experience did not fail to live up to the reviews. The app was initially difficult to set up (refusing its own passcodes), then failed to work, then stopped working altogether. Starting the setup process afresh (as instructed) resulted in my getting locked out of my account. This led to a long phone call trying to get my account unlocked, which was difficult, frustrating, and slightly bizarrely unsuccessful - and ultimately led me to decide I would rather simply open an account somewhere else.

To be clear, there are some reviews for the app from people who have no problems at all, and are wondering what all the fuss is about. But it is clear from the vast majority of reviews that I am far from the only one to have such an experience, and I have to say that this has been a worse and more unprofessional experience than I've ever had with a bank.

Re: MSE itself, it would be great some day to have a customer satisfaction rating next to the banks in the Money sections, like there is when browsing phone/broadband deals. It would help readers to know which banks are highly thought of and which are widely panned. In future I would happily take a 0.1% interest loss for a good, reliable bank, rather than a 0.1% interest boost trying to battle an atrocious bank app.

I had a very similar experience with Cynergy Bank and I abandoned account opening. The ID verification itself was flaky and errored out in the middle of the process. Calling in to customer service was no better and I was unable to clear security for an account that I just applied for.


I think MSE should present a view of how good /bad the customer service and online banking channels. Quality varies across providers and some of these providers should be called out (dropped from lists of top savings accounts) if the lists are to remain credible and useful.

mebu60

DisappointedApplicant said:

I think MSE should present a view of how good /bad the customer service and online banking channels. Quality varies across providers and some of these providers should be called out (dropped from lists of top savings accounts) if the lists are to remain credible and useful.

That would be all of them at one time or another! Just this morning YBS logged me out twice! Bit inconvenient but not something to damn them over. Personally I've had no issues with Cynergy (yet!) and quite like crystallising my interest into the next issue when rates go up. 
Also, how would you measure quality objectively? And over time?
The only institution I would completely avoid based on feedback read over time on this forum is the Post Office. But if we're all shunning it how would you know if it's improved? Every provider has had mis-steps and will continue to do so.

lusitania

Nothing but problems with Cynergy Bank. I opened a new ISA to transfer the money in from Virgin Money. They only transferred over the £20k and left the interest back in the Virgin account. I have been trying to get this sorted for almost a month still with now answers from Cynergy about why this has happened just promises that they will contact me. Just cant get any response from them. Going to contact the FOS new week.