Most people had positive comments about Mvelopes Personal on my post asking What do You Think About Mvelopes? and I thought it would be worthwhile to share a few of these with everyone. Here's the first:
I've actually been trying out Mvelopes recently. I bought Quicken last year when I decided to try TurboTax for my taxes. I thought that tracking everything in Quicken would really speed things up and make it easier - unfortunately I didn't do very well at tracking everything in Quicken so I don't know that I'll see the benefit. So far, the integration between Quicken and TurboTax would be the only reason I would stay with Quicken over Mvelopes. I really like the interface, the ease of use and the ability to specify up front where the money should go rather then just tracking where it went.
Maybe I just don't know how to use Quicken as well as I could, but then that's part of the point too - Mvelopes is very easy to use. All in all, I think Mvelopes will be the way I end up going pretty soon. At this point in my financial life I have a hard time justifying keeping up to date with Quicken.
For more information, here's how Mvelopes compares to both Quicken and Microsoft Money:
Here's the next endorsement for Mvelopes Personal:
We have been using and recommending Mvelopes for more than 2 years. They have the great technology and very easy to use budgeting system that makes it very simple to track and record all of you expenses.
But a couple people had negative comments as well. here's a thought that summarizes the issues these people brought up:
I tried Mvelopes out some time ago for a review I did. While the concept is pretty nifty, and Mvelopes recently came out with a module to use on a smartphone, I thought it was expensive. I am also paranoid about putting ALL my financials on one company's server, although I am sure they must use the best encryption possible. It's just that if someone hacked into an Mvelopes account (if it's even possible to do so) they would not just have information on one account, but on all accounts the user established in Mvelopes.
To add a bit more explanation, here's what Mvelopes says about themselves:
Mvelopes Personal is an online budgeting system that makes it easy to create an effective personal budget and track every aspect of your spending as it happens. It will help you always know exactly how much you have left to spend, instantly know the impact of every spending decision, effectively manage credit card spending, and quickly create an easy to use household budgeting plan. Click here to learn more
They also offer a tour of their service: Take a tour of Mvelopes Personal
Another thing that pushed me over the edge towards recommending them is that they offer people free offers and valuable tools just to get to know them (plus they have a 30-day free trial, so you can't get burned trying them out.) Here are the offers I particularly liked:
Any other thoughts/comments out there?
If you try the 30-day trial and you decide to cancel does all your account info still stay on their servers?
Posted by: Eric G. | November 10, 2006 at 03:34 PM
You'll have to ask them. I don't know.
Posted by: FMF | November 10, 2006 at 04:05 PM
I used Quicken for years, but I switched to Mvelopes about a year ago and never looked back. You don't actually give Mvelopes your bank account and credit card numbers. You go to your bank and credit card web sites and set up online user ids and passwords like 'Frank12 / password1'. That allows you to view your bank / credit card account transactions online. When you set up a Mvelopes account, you only give it the online user ids and passwords, no account information. Mvelopes uses the user ids to suck daily transactions from the bank / credit card websites and store in in their database. Even if someone hacked into Mvelopes and got the user ids, they couldn't use them to steal your money. It's really cool because it updates daily.
Posted by: RichC | November 10, 2006 at 09:58 PM
I think this is a nifty tool to help people get their finances in order and keep them that way. For me, maybe it's the fact that I'm old fashioned, I wouldn't use this service. My husband and I do a budget every month and review every 2 weeks. We actually use cash envelopes each month and makes things sooo much easier.
Posted by: Emma | November 10, 2006 at 11:06 PM
I started using mvelopes about 6 months ago and I was very happy until my financial institution changed something that basically killed my ability to track my account, rendering Mvelopes useless to me... THat is the only drawback to mvelopes, they are at the mercy of the banks.
Hopefully my problem will be resolved but who knows..
Posted by: steve | November 17, 2006 at 02:25 PM
I don't like having to call to cancel. My belief is that a company that lets people sign up online should let them cancel online.
Posted by: David | November 23, 2006 at 01:18 PM
Mvelopes does actually support all of the institutions advertised as supported. It's a concept I had been waiting for, but was severely disappointed when all three of my institutions were not supported in spite of being listed. Customer support actually told me one of the institutions hadn't been available for over a year and likely would never be available. At the end of the trial period I still had no access and was billed for a one year subcription. When challenged with the fact I still had no access for "supported" accounts, I was more or less shown the door.
Great idea, ethically questionable marketing and management.
Posted by: Martin Green | December 05, 2006 at 09:52 PM
Martin... I am the CTO of In2M, the makers of Mvelopes. I apologize that you had a bad experience with both the technology and your account.
We use aggregation technology to gather financial transactions data on your behalf and present the data in the Mvelopes application for you to manage. Sometimes that link will break and we need to update it. We typically fix broken links within 2-4 days. If your account links were not fixed in a timely manner, an escalation of your request for refund should have been considered. Please email us at [email protected] and include "Dispute Resolution" in the header of the email to escalate the request... also, please mention this link in your escalation request.
Nick
Posted by: Nick Thomas | February 15, 2007 at 11:21 PM
Someone mentioned using actual cash envelopes for budgeting purposes - it is important to know that if you ever have money stolen, your home/renters insurance will only reimburse a small amount - in the $200 range.
This actually happened to a client of ours - they felt they would be fine because they kept everything in a home safe. Trouble is, the burglar(s) took the safe, too. There was nearly $3000, and they will almost certainly never see it again.
And BTW, if you happen to be a coin/money collector, this 'money' limit applies to the collection as well.
Posted by: AP | March 30, 2007 at 02:40 PM
Software as a service is the way of the future - no doubt. However, it bothers me that mvelopes refuses to tell me who is hosting the computers that store my financial data. Sounds like it's on some computer in an office in a strip center. Audits do not protect data, walls and guards do. If they were paying for a great data center to host my data, trust me, they would say so.
Also, I need a data backup and revivery strategy in case their computers crash, are stolen, destroyed in a fire, or go out of business. Mayge Google buys mvelope for the customers and Intuit for the technology, then kills off mvelopes. What happens to my data?
This is a great concept is executed properly. Feels like a couple of guys creating programs on a card table in a garage - not ready for prime time with financial data. They simply must provide my data to me in Excel or some other basic format, and contract with a real, third party data center and tell us who it is. Until then, sticking with the old fashioned, bloated, quirky Quicken that I hate.
Hey mvelopes, it's not the technology, it's the personal financial process, and integrity counts! Ans loose the annual subscription, it makes you look like you are trying to IPO and cash out, not provide a valuable service worth a month to month subscription.
Try harder.
Posted by: Bob | September 18, 2007 at 06:30 PM
I had a terrible experience with Mvelopes. They double-posted a bill I paid through their bill pay service and refused to help me recover the funds. I escalated this issue to the highest level I could, only to be told there was nothing they could do. I am now set to the task of dealing with this myself, although it was not my fault to begin with. I would not recomment the system to anyone and hope that others who have had similar problems are vocal enough to bring about a change.
Posted by: Elizabeth | December 14, 2007 at 05:44 PM
I've been researching mvelopes....and it's interesting that for every bad review of the company a suspicious member of the company talks about how great they are. Someone is getting paid minumum wage to write good reviews of this unethical company. The product seems fine, but their need to charge people after the free trial is over is going to ruin their business.
Posted by: heather | December 15, 2007 at 10:21 AM
I, too, got sucked in by the free trial and was signed up for a 2-yr subscription. I was having problems getting the site to work for me and made THREE attempts to change my subscription to quarterly before the free trial ended. THREE attempts, almost two weeks before the trial ended. I didn't want to cancel, just change the plan to keep trying Mvelopes out for a while.
Long story short - they charged me $189 instead of $36 and then told me it was MY FAULT because I didn't make the change in time. I disputed the charges and am now waiting 4-6 weeks for a promised refund.
I appreciate them doing the right thing and giving me my money back, but the attitude I got from them was unnecessary ("this is all your fault but we'll break our rules and give you a refund").
Their policies are sketchy.
Posted by: IPS | February 27, 2008 at 01:31 PM
Thanks to everyone on this forum and epinions. After reading the comments and considering your experiences, I will definitely NOT be using Mvelopes. While the concept is great, the legitimate concerns for security and the onerous billing practice is enough to kill the deal for me. I hope Nick Thomas or someone else at the company reads this!
Posted by: Wm B | May 23, 2008 at 08:27 AM
To the last post, I'd say consider the system separate from bill pay. I don't use the bill pay, so mvelopes doesn't do any posting, just gathering transactions. The system has worked for me. As a paid member I don't have any of the policy issues mentioned. There haven't been any security issues for me to date (more than 2 years). They seem hardline on the initialy trial and billing, but the system itself actually works great.
Posted by: Walt | July 09, 2008 at 04:44 PM
I have tried to cancel my mvelopes account for the last week, before day 29, and it does not load the chat support after I fill out the form required to do so. They have now charged my account, even though I have sent them emails letting them know of the problem!!! The phone number only leads you to a voice recording telling you to log on to the chat for help. Kind of useless if you can not do that. I wanted to check their forums to see if maybe it was a problem with my browser, and when i search "cancel mvelopes" I am conveniently logged off of the site, I have tried this over 10 times. The customer support for my emails, has been at best useless. They tell me to do things, such as sign on to chat, when my email clearly states that I can not do that.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: tebst | August 13, 2008 at 08:44 PM
I've been using mvelopes for over a year now and it is awesome. I've never had an issue in my chating with reps, they have always handled my issues quickly-which came down to the way I didn't quite understand in the beginning-but they were very, very patient and friendly. I never worry about where the money is going to come from for all my semiannual and annual bills, Christmas money or birthdays, let alone monthly bills. For the last year I've never been late and find it very easy to tell the children-sorry-not in the budget and they have learned to be frugal with their money. I moved out of state just before using Mvelopes and at the time made more money, decided to go part time, while husband full time-we are actually doing better financially than when I was full time and unfortunately blowing money. Debt free is awesome! Mvelopes is awesome. I started with a quarterly payments for about 9 months, then decided it was much cheaper to go 24 months-and budgeting for that is $7.90 per month-I can't beat that anywhere-not for what I'm getting. I love Mvelopes!!!
Posted by: cdtsn | September 28, 2008 at 09:45 AM
I have been using Mvelopes for over 4 years. While I do sometimes get a little frustrated with the computer quirks, I have found that I have a much better grasp on where my money is going and how much I actually have to spend. I have only had one insufficient funds charge in the last 4 years, and that has been great. I also have paid off my credit cards completely and have money put away for routine upcoming expenses. I have never had a problem with the chat to get help--they are pretty good and usually can resolve the problem right away. It's worth the extra money every month in what I save by not having any NSF charges, I think.
Posted by: Cinnamon Holsclaw | July 26, 2010 at 12:01 AM