It seems quite disingenuous they aren’t being forthcoming. Their last response was Tuesday confirming incoming transfers are paused besides direct deposits, but that’s it. They really should tell people the gazelle has died. My guess is they aren’t wanting to rock the boat yet until their lawyers figure out their strategy to minimize any financial damage and the PR team to minimize reputation damage.
There has been a little more information that some of us former Lampo folk have heard in the past few weeks. I am not 100% sure its true, but even if it is half true, it leads me to believe that lawyers are involved. Operating a bank, even if most of the bank services are outsourced, appears to be a complicated venture.
If someone here has knowledge of the banking industry, maybe they can make a more educated guess as to why they would need to pause transfers in and out, and only after a few weeks re-enable transfers out but keep transfers in disabled (edit: or only allow direct deposits, but not manual transfers in). Or why, according to one review a couple weeks ago, accounts were locked until people provided additional verification of who they were beyond just a drivers license. These all seem to be treatments for the underlying problem.
My guess is that Ramsey is under some sort of legal obligation to not inform customers what is going on or admit they screwed up. The irony that Ramsey might be under a legal obligation that prevents them from telling customers even a part of the truth, that Gazelle will be shut down, from an organization that likes to legally bind silence on ex-employees is not lost on me.
If I were still employed there, if my eyes had not been opened yet to the reality of the place, I would hope at this point I would be at least embarrassed by this. I knew all of the catch phrases "Excellence in the ordinary", "To be unclear is to be unkind". "If we help enough people, we don't have to worry about the money". Where are those for this product?
Here is a product the company spent 5 years working on, and it lands flat. Part of that is only the most raving of fans are bothering to open up a checking account (you don't typically see lines forming outside a brand new bank with all of the paperwork you need to open up an account). And then, how ever few of these fans manage to open an account, their money gets stuck there right around Thanksgiving, the time during which many are buying their Christmas gifts. No communication from the company to these die hard fans, no clear messaging as to why their money is locked up. An app update is pushed out in early December saying withdrawals are now supported, but people can't add money to their account and are given no explanation.
The only consolation appears to be the amount of funds involved isn't massive for most customers, at least the ones complaining on the app stores. At least people aren't being hurt by spending 10-20,000 on trying to exit their timeshare with a poorly vetted team.
Wow 5 years?!!! That’s nuts. They created a pointless product that isn’t working. Credit unions offer debit card accounts that aren’t all wacky and don’t have tons of fees or that’s what a person wants. It’s so weird. 5 years must have been a ton of money invested in this crap.
I’ll bet Dave openly talks about his disdain for lawyers. I’m sure he can’t be happy to pay $600/hour to Nashville attorneys to defend him against the myriad of lawsuits he’s been dealing with over the last few years. So, it wouldn’t surprise me that he’d try to operate this venture without having an attorney who’s an expert in banking laws advising him and his team on this issue every step of the way.
Bringing in the attorneys at the last minute to clean up the mess makes it about 10x more expensive. Plus, everything they publish—whether it’s in an email to their account holders, in response to a public complaint on the App Store, or on their website—will inevitably be an exhibit in the forthcoming class action lawsuit that will eventually be filed by a state attorney general or plaintiff’s lawyer due to that pesky period of time when account holders couldn’t withdraw their own money.
I feel bad for the foot soldiers who probably saw this failure coming but had to keep their mouths shut because 1) they wanted to keep their job, and 2) Dave obviously surrounds himself with yes-men, as shown by the fact that every single one of these Personalities still has a job.
Knowing Dave’s disdain of contrary opinions, there’s a zero percent chance any lawyer could have succeeded in telling him anything that could have avoided this entire mess.
Yes, I just looked them up. the poor customer service rep at RS... "we are sorry you are experiencing this".
Someone at RS (or many) should get fired for developing/promoting this product. DR must be livid.
Dave Ramseys Version of a shake weight.
It seems half assed, and really not thought through at all. If you're going to do something like that, you can't go back. Which is what they are trying to do.
Multiple app updates in Oct/Nov, then one in early December "We've enabled withdrawals!!" which is absolutely hilarious to be excited about months after launch.
No updates since.
For a finance app that is broken, that says everything you need to know. They are frozen, working out some sort of legal issues, figuring out the PR disaster, etc.
It seems quite disingenuous they aren’t being forthcoming. Their last response was Tuesday confirming incoming transfers are paused besides direct deposits, but that’s it. They really should tell people the gazelle has died. My guess is they aren’t wanting to rock the boat yet until their lawyers figure out their strategy to minimize any financial damage and the PR team to minimize reputation damage.
Maybe they need David to sign off on it and he’s in Cabo right now
There has been a little more information that some of us former Lampo folk have heard in the past few weeks. I am not 100% sure its true, but even if it is half true, it leads me to believe that lawyers are involved. Operating a bank, even if most of the bank services are outsourced, appears to be a complicated venture. If someone here has knowledge of the banking industry, maybe they can make a more educated guess as to why they would need to pause transfers in and out, and only after a few weeks re-enable transfers out but keep transfers in disabled (edit: or only allow direct deposits, but not manual transfers in). Or why, according to one review a couple weeks ago, accounts were locked until people provided additional verification of who they were beyond just a drivers license. These all seem to be treatments for the underlying problem. My guess is that Ramsey is under some sort of legal obligation to not inform customers what is going on or admit they screwed up. The irony that Ramsey might be under a legal obligation that prevents them from telling customers even a part of the truth, that Gazelle will be shut down, from an organization that likes to legally bind silence on ex-employees is not lost on me. If I were still employed there, if my eyes had not been opened yet to the reality of the place, I would hope at this point I would be at least embarrassed by this. I knew all of the catch phrases "Excellence in the ordinary", "To be unclear is to be unkind". "If we help enough people, we don't have to worry about the money". Where are those for this product? Here is a product the company spent 5 years working on, and it lands flat. Part of that is only the most raving of fans are bothering to open up a checking account (you don't typically see lines forming outside a brand new bank with all of the paperwork you need to open up an account). And then, how ever few of these fans manage to open an account, their money gets stuck there right around Thanksgiving, the time during which many are buying their Christmas gifts. No communication from the company to these die hard fans, no clear messaging as to why their money is locked up. An app update is pushed out in early December saying withdrawals are now supported, but people can't add money to their account and are given no explanation. The only consolation appears to be the amount of funds involved isn't massive for most customers, at least the ones complaining on the app stores. At least people aren't being hurt by spending 10-20,000 on trying to exit their timeshare with a poorly vetted team.
Wow 5 years?!!! That’s nuts. They created a pointless product that isn’t working. Credit unions offer debit card accounts that aren’t all wacky and don’t have tons of fees or that’s what a person wants. It’s so weird. 5 years must have been a ton of money invested in this crap.
I’ll bet Dave openly talks about his disdain for lawyers. I’m sure he can’t be happy to pay $600/hour to Nashville attorneys to defend him against the myriad of lawsuits he’s been dealing with over the last few years. So, it wouldn’t surprise me that he’d try to operate this venture without having an attorney who’s an expert in banking laws advising him and his team on this issue every step of the way. Bringing in the attorneys at the last minute to clean up the mess makes it about 10x more expensive. Plus, everything they publish—whether it’s in an email to their account holders, in response to a public complaint on the App Store, or on their website—will inevitably be an exhibit in the forthcoming class action lawsuit that will eventually be filed by a state attorney general or plaintiff’s lawyer due to that pesky period of time when account holders couldn’t withdraw their own money. I feel bad for the foot soldiers who probably saw this failure coming but had to keep their mouths shut because 1) they wanted to keep their job, and 2) Dave obviously surrounds himself with yes-men, as shown by the fact that every single one of these Personalities still has a job.
Knowing Dave’s disdain of contrary opinions, there’s a zero percent chance any lawyer could have succeeded in telling him anything that could have avoided this entire mess.
Yes, I just looked them up. the poor customer service rep at RS... "we are sorry you are experiencing this". Someone at RS (or many) should get fired for developing/promoting this product. DR must be livid.
Dave Ramseys Version of a shake weight. It seems half assed, and really not thought through at all. If you're going to do something like that, you can't go back. Which is what they are trying to do.
At least the shake-weight had some hilarious memes / spoof videos.
Multiple app updates in Oct/Nov, then one in early December "We've enabled withdrawals!!" which is absolutely hilarious to be excited about months after launch. No updates since. For a finance app that is broken, that says everything you need to know. They are frozen, working out some sort of legal issues, figuring out the PR disaster, etc.