For a couple of years now, I’ve been using some stealth services to squirrel away savings without me noticing. They were free, backed by fairly reputable companies and FDIC insured, so I figured I had little to lose. I started with Digit.co and really liked how after a 3-minute set-up, I had a system set up to save a few thousand dollars a year.
Then Digit started to charge fees for the service and I had to move on.
Before Digit started to charge fees, Dobot contacted me and essentially said, “We’re like Digit, but we’ll help you save towards one or more goals.” I’m really looking to get this 65″ OLED TV from LG (yes, I’m a bit obsessed) so I set that up as one of my goals.
I’m about 50% of the way to my goal of $2500 saved (Amazon doesn’t seem very competitive in this case. That’s a story for another day.) When I moved on from Digit, I created a goal in Dobot with the name “emergency fund” to replicate what I had with Digit.
Unfortunately Dobot is charging fees, so I’m going to have to kick it to the curb too.
Part of their email that I got on July 19th is as follows:
“It is vital that we are able to continue providing the services you’ve come to trust, so today we are sharing important news about our relationship with our Dobot savers and how we make money. Dobot will begin charging a small monthly fee for the services we provide. The fee, $1.99, will begin on July 31st for all accounts created before July 1st. For new users of Dobot, there will be a 30-day trial period.”
They aren’t giving a lot of people time to get out. In looking at the Dobot app, there isn’t an obvious way to close your account either. I did a quick Google search and it seems like contacting them and asking is how they recommend canceling. I hope they have a large staff of people dealing with their email.
It’s not that $2/month is a big deal. It’s less than $25 a year. However, I don’t see the value of that $25. I could set up my bank account to transfer $100 on the 5th, 15th, and 25th of every month to a saving account for free. People have been doing things like this for years and years. It seems to me that banks should offer a Digit/Dobot service for free. Maybe some day they will.
I’m looking into one more of these services that some friends of mine have been talking about. I don’t want to say who it is or give any kind of recommendation until I know how it works and can properly review it.
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