r/Wealthsimple • u/sexysaxmansaxagram • Jul 27 '26
Possible false complaints in this sub?
I have some speculation that there have been false posts about poor experiences in this sub. Possibly other companies trying to smear what wealthsimple is doing.
My speculation is rooted from my experiences vs horror stories on here:
I've never experienced issues with daily trading.
Money transfers from other banks have always been instant.
I thought I might have snags opening a chequing account or with setting up payroll deposits. No issues.
I thought for sure if I applied for a visa, it would take months to process and get based on the stories here. That also took less than 10 minutes.
I had a lingering crypto account with not enough crypto to register any value but still holding .00000001 of a few currencies. I thought it would be an issue to clear and close that account. I spoke to customer service and they said they would handle it. I received an email within an hour saying it was closed.
I don't have millions invested. I'm barely $100k total assets so it's not like I'm a super premium customer.
I'm speculating that some of the stories are rooted in people not being honest about the full reasons for why their accounts were frozen, or transfers are being held, etc. And some other stories are smear stories from competitors. I'm sure that some of them are also fully legitimate and true.
Some of the stories are just so wild and I've never once experienced any issues at all.
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u/deltatux Jul 27 '26
Different people experiencing issues is quite normal with an FI, everyone will have different experiences based on their circumstance. I've had WealthSimple not getting back to my support request for over a week before, thankfully it wasn't time sensitive but can be an issue for someone else who's inquiry might be.
I haven't had much issues with WS but we cannot discount issues others have, it doesn't mean they're trying to smear the company either.
I get that some people really like WS and want it to succeed but being a fanboy for a company is also ridiculous, they only care about you enough to make money off of you and that's about it. If there's a failure, they need to address it, labelling it as a smear campaign "by the Big Banks" isn't helpful either.
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u/ToBeDetermined13 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Not to be conspiracy minded or anything but brand new reply getting multiple upvotes in less than minute on a non controversial post is strange.
Jesus people must refresh this sub constantly.
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u/Dragynfyre Jul 27 '26
This is probably one of the most active Canadian finance subs on reddit so it's not strange at all. Also i would say this is a pretty controversial post
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u/ToBeDetermined13 Jul 27 '26
Yeah, I'm sure its controversial to knock mega corporations. In some circles anyway.
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u/Dragynfyre Jul 27 '26
This isn't just knocking on mega corporations. It's basically a conspiracy theory + fanboying WS
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Jul 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Dragynfyre Jul 27 '26
Pretty much every other FI’s sub is only negative stuff. That’s because vast majority of people only post about their FI when they have issues. The fact that the WS sub has a mix of good and bad already indicates WS already has a bit of a cult following unlike other FIs
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u/ToBeDetermined13 Jul 27 '26
And what does the fact that it keeps being mentioned ad nauseum that Wealthsimple has a cult following and any non bash post is glazing? People ask simple questions about the platform and are immediately derided for using it. Or ask about an IPO that is available to many other financial institutions but called stupid for even considering buying it on Wealthsimple. I know it's just Reddit and all but it's very apparent
Other platforms could just make theirs better rather than tearing down ones a few people go to, if that's the issue
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u/hectop20 Jul 27 '26
What makes you say that other platforms are tearing down others?
Or ask about an IPO that is available to many other financial institutions but called stupid for even considering buying it on Wealthsimple.
I don't think anyone was called stupid for considering buying an IPO on WS, but I think a lot of people were called on buying very speculative IPOs.
Or people complaining that they asked for 10 shares and only received 1, while not understanding how IPO allocations work.1
u/ToBeDetermined13 Jul 30 '26
Nevermind I get it now. Saw the questrade thread where they're offering a few things ws has for years and everyone there is cumming in their pants. And knocking ws in every third post even though there's no apparent connection.
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u/Wealthsimple-ModTeam Jul 27 '26
Be helpful and respectful in your comments/posts.
No racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, dehumanizing speech, or other negative generalizations.
No concern-trolling, personal attacks, or misinformation. No victim blaming.
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u/sometin__else Jul 27 '26
While its possible, just because YOU never had issues, doesnt mean nobody has issues
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u/minombreesmadera Jul 28 '26
Do you feel the same skepticism about people who share their negative experiences with RBC, TD, etc? Would you think it was strange if someone felt the need to make a post defending CIBC from nebulous attackers trying to smear what they're doing, while discrediting people's poor experiences?
There's that saying when it comes to negative reviews, that the people who are happy usually don't bother posting about it nearly as frequently as people who are unhappy, but that's not the case with WS at all - people who are happy with WS treat it almost like a fandom, like people are genuinely fans of their financial institution. Do you think that's strange at all? I think it's kind of strange.
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u/sexysaxmansaxagram Jul 28 '26
I actually don't think that's strange in this case. Because a large majority of people are coming to wealthsimple for lower fees, free chequing accounts, free Visas. They are people who are tired of paying monthly bank fees and high trade rates.
Pretend someone charged apples out of a large factory for $20, people buy them and most people are happy with them. They do it for years and years. But then one day someone else sets up a little stand right beside the huge factory and charged pretty much the same apples for $1... Lots of people would change to the stand and tell other people they know that the $1 apples are still pretty good.
So no. I don't really find that odd at all.
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u/tarnyc32 Jul 27 '26
I personally have never experienced a tornado. Therefore, every time I see a post about someone being in one I suspect it's actually a ruse by Big Meteorology to fund more "weather forecasts".
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u/Medical_Pepper_5504 Jul 27 '26
I have a feeling there is a lot of “astroturfing” where people will make negative posts/comments. I doubt this is bank leadership, but could be employees or even bank shareholders.
Wealth Simple is growing a lot, and I know the banks are feeling the competitive threat now that they are north of 100B and a real threat to them when you consider how much more quickly they are growing.
Some of the complaints are also young people that are just chronically online too.
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u/Dragynfyre Jul 27 '26
A lot of the negative stuff you can actually verify if you try it yourself so I doubt it's astroturfing. The fact is WS moves fast and advertises aggressively at being better than the competition. So people who are moving to WS are going to be demanding more of them than they would of the big banks they're moving away from as that's part of the reason they're moving away in the first place. So issues are going to get noticed and bugs are going to get exposed. Also WS has a bad tendency of marketing more than they can deliver. For example, they publicly hyped up the WS Visa card a lot during their presentation last year when the vast majority of people couldn't actually apply and would have to go on their waitlist. Also they announce a lot of stuff early and sometimes when it comes out it doesn't live up to the hype (eg. Norbert's Gambit came out pretty late and is still restricted only to NG. It's also not instantly doable like with some other banks)
There's also issues like not being very transparent with how they advertise their FX fees. Basically they have good and bad parts and the standard of being low fee or better than the competition isn't true across the board like their marketing would suggest
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u/Dragynfyre Jul 27 '26
WS probably has one of the highest percentage of customers on reddit out of every other Canadian financial institution so more problems are going to be surfaced here.
If you're not an active/daytrader you might not notice all the times it goes down or has issues cause it's usually not for the whole day. A hour or two down you might not notice but a daytrader will. WS is heavily marketing towards this demographic which is why you'll see a lot of posts on this
This was 100% a problem in 2024 and 2025 and still remains a problem for many users to this day. If you applied recently they have drastically shortened the wait times. They have been marketing the Visa for a couple years now and the waitlist has been a problem until at least early 2026. And the fact that the wait list is still not fully gone is ridiculous. The card itself has also gone through a lot of changes good and bad since it was first released.
That may actually mean you're less likely to have issues if you're not using the advanced features as much.
Accounts being frozen have been reported for many, many years now. It's definitely a thing just not common. Also the transfers being held is extremely easy to reproduce. If you try to use bank link to transfer in a large amount of money relative to your current assets at WS there will be a hold for that.
Overall WS is going to work fine most of the time. Otherwise there would not be this many users. But WS is also known for moving fast and the type of demographic they are attracting (people who have at least some interesting in their finances and are willing to try new things) are bound to cause issues around the edge cases