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WealthSimple's "UnReal Deal" Promotion (😠😤😡😾) (lemmy.ca)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by bluejade@lemmy.ca to c/personalfinancecanada@lemmy.ca

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I'm sure there are members using WealthSimple, who have seen the promotion. I personally moved all of my registered funds from other banks and firms in order to get the most of it. At this point, I'm feeling it was a huge mistake, requiring a checking account to receive the funds.

I had already previously looked into registering a checking account with them, the advertised interest rate is appealing. However, the terms and conditions were royally offensive to me. It's just more data broker BS. To be fair, I'm sure you can say this about any financial institution, especially any under the "fintech" umbrella. But I'm extremely pissed about it, we deserve better than this. The norm needs to be moving in the opposite direction.

I just wanted to vent about it, hopefully get other people planning for their future in the increasingly vain hopes that we get to experience one at all, on board with being enraged by the entire business model of building profiles on everyone and selling them to whomever.

If you have any suggestions for funds that would make good alternatives after I pull everything out of WS, I'd be happy to hear about them. What I don't want to hear is any self promotion, family-promotion, employer-promotion, or any "oh just buy Dimensional ETFs every week yourself and pay $9.99 to TD every time".

😠😤😡😾

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[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

No suggestion but I just closed my one and only WS account that I was forced to use from a previous employer as a group RRSP.

I was never a fan of WS. They pulled some stuff which I am not entirely sure was legal and then made a giant mess of my RRSP which was a pain in the arse to deal with due to a mistake my employer at the time made.

Employer was matching my contributions but accidentally deposited twice as much as they were supposed to. When it was noticed wealthsimple just removed a couple thousand from my RRSP without even notifying me or providing and explanation so I had no idea where all my money went.

Then at tax season I get the surprise that they wanted me to pay tax on the thousands of dollars that were "withdrawn" from my RRSP and sent straight back to my employer.

It was not fun to deal with, especially since they have no physical branches and it was all over email and phone which they rarely answered.

[–] ellisk@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago

Had a similar issue a couple months ago with sending money to my WS TFSA in a way that required a chequing intermediary account, and I also remember being boggled by the conditions attached (and ended up cancelling the transfer instead). Fortunately I don't have much over there yet, just been testing the waters. Aviso's Qtrade is probably next up for me to try.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Sorry, what was offensive to you?

I have not tried that deal or looked into it

[–] bluejade@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

In order to benefit from their promotion, it requires registering for their checking account, which itself requires agreeing to their terms and conditions, which include language about collecting and selling information like where you shop, or what you buy, or how much you spend. Which, I'll admit, is likely an issue with every bank. But it needs to become less of an issue, this should not be permitted. We should not be allowing ourselves to be profiled like this.

[–] observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago

I fully agree, but you don't have to use that chequing account. As you wrote it's not a WS-specific issue and needs industry-wide regulations.

[–] MacroCyclo@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

I use Questrade for everything investment wise. They have no fees on buying and selling etfs.

[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca -2 points 3 days ago

Put your cash under your mattress.