Vanguard

I rarely write reviews, but in light of recent events, I think it’s time to give credit to the Vanguard Group for being one of the few who did not try to suppress the common man from participating in the “free market” during one of the greatest transferences of wealth in our history. Many other platforms participated in protecting the interests of the super wealthy, and pretending they had the interests of small retail investors in mind. It’s OUR money, we know what the risks are! (at least most of us do). Ethics and morals aside, I will say the app itself could use certain improvements, even the site itself. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to buy or sell options through the app, the actual website must be used. I also wish their platform was able to refresh market prices at a much faster rate, to execute better orders at any given moment. If Vanguard can add a touch of modern or advanced tools for more experienced traders, that would be the icing on the cake. Overall, this is a stand up brokerage firm. Give them your business, no regrets yet.

The old version of the app was quite good, easy to look at, easy to find useful information, and had lots of reliable functionality. The new version is hard to look at, hard to navigate, and is unreliable. Today, for example, I tried to perform a withdrawal to a bank checking account, but the app listed two checking accounts at the same bank, even though there is only one. This confused me and I had to double check a paper statement to see which number was the checking account (later using the Vanguard website, I found that one of the accounts was nicknamed “savings” but the app mislabeled it as “checking”). After choosing the real checking account, the app hung and indicated there was problem. There was no transaction for a pending withdrawal listed on the app but I noticed that my Vanguard account value was reduced. I therefore quit and relaunched to app, and sure enough there was now a pending withdrawal scheduled to the bank checking account. This is pretty scary behavior by the app for such a fundamental function. I’m planning to use the web site for transactions in the future. The older version of the app and website were so much better, but now they are gone and I have no idea why they were replaced with junk.

I can not agree more with all the 1 star reviews from around Nov to Dec 2021, this new interface they have is very lacking. Honestly the app before was kind of outdated looking, but it was very robust. If you’re a daily user like me, all the features you needed are there. The nicest thing about the old version was there’s always a filter button to customize whatever you’re looking at. Whether you’re looking at the cost basis, performance returns, transactions history, you can always filter it to show by fund(s), by account(s), or whatever custom way you want. You can do year to date, month to day, any random date range. YOU CAN’T DO THAT IN THE NEW UPDATE. I get they were trying to add a “modern” look to the app and I applaud them for trying but it’s missing some really basic feature. I miss being able to just use the app for a lot of my research instead of having to log into the website just to be able to filter for basic information like dividends for the year only for non-retirement accounts. If the tech team at Vanguard even cares about these reviews , please please please either give the customers the option to switch back to the old version while they iron out the new look or at the very least just add back the filter button to transaction history.

I’ve had a few issues with executing trades the last couple of weeks and I’m done. I’m leaving the platform completely. The first issue was with a trade executing twice, resulting in twice the position I wanted. To compound the issue, I set a limit trade to sell the shares I never asked for as well as additional shares because they had hit the water mark I wanted to unload them at. I also set a couple other trades that evening at 60 days to execute, the next day all the trades I put in had disappeared and the stocks I intended to sell fell back into a range I needed to hold them again locking up that capital for the foreseeable future. Later in the day had a pop up asking me to review the app come up but the submit button was greyed out and after force closing the app and rebooting it, it simply popped up again. I was essentially locked out from the app by a pop up. This platform has cost me money and enough aggravation to make me pull mine and my wife’s accounts completely. The sad thing is, I’ve spent years telling people to come to Vanguard and now I feel like I’ve been selling bad fruit to my friends and family. I’m going to spend 1000% times the effort getting people to steer clear and get the word out. The idea of Vanguard is great but a for profit company is the way to go because they have skin in the game.

I’ve been a Vanguard customer for quite some decades and I still appreciate everything about Vanguard but I will note that there’s a couple of things that need to be corrected. One of them I would say is the wait time on hold for customer service is too long. I don’t understand how it should be getting longer over the years. It seems longer than I waited when when I first joined Vanguard. Another point I’d like to make is the feature you have on your website that shows outside accounts updated automatically is not actually working and hasn’t been for me for quite some time. I have added long ago my federal government Thrift Savings Plan, which actually was updated for a time via Yodlee. Yodlee was cumbersome but actually it did update the Thrift Savings Plan account. Now instead, it’s not updating it regularly at all and I would have to go in and update it manually. However as of today, I cannot update anything since noticed edit and refresh features have disappeared. Lastly, the algorithm that used to update the outside accounts has an error in it because now includes older TSP balances, not only the balance as of today. That’s a big mistake. I have reported all these things to Vanguard today to a very kind young man whose name I wrote down and I will add tomorrow to these things would be correct, but I’ve yet to hear what’s going on. Thank you for your consideration. Ursula Rudd

I like vanguard but part of what I loved about it is seeing the growth historically and to do that, it would be good to see contributions/transaction history as well. While historical returns are on here (only in increments provided), it would be nice to see historical contributions/transactions and I can currently only see 2021 and 2022 contributions; given 2021 tax filings aren’t due, it’s basically as if you only have current year contributions on here. It seems simple but all the more reason I’m not sure why this was removed in the new version. If it’s on here somewhere, it’s not an intuitive app and I’m missing it although I don’t think I am. That’s my biggest issue but given I use the app to see balance, historical returns, and contributions, it’s missing 1/3 of what it used to have and even analyzing returns is just a snapshot (I’d suggest adding in a graph with a slider to show balance AND returns, similar to what you have for balance right now). I worked for a private firm who had better analytics on my retirement fund than Vanguard has and this is their sole business function. I’ll continue to use them but the app needs work.

It’s clear Vanguard has fallen way behind on tech and it shows with their app, site and endless technical difficulties during account creation. The app is unintuitive and requires password + 2-factor even after logging in with Face ID for many features. Inaccurate/inconsistent stats - 3 different amounts for total gains in 3 different sections of the app. I’m told Beacon app won’t be available for trust accounts. The site is from the 90s and throws you through loops and dead ends. Trying to create an account online can lead to an error message with no details which requires a phone call to fix. My husband didn’t receive his trust account application after I DocuSigned mine during a call and we had to call again to redo the entire process. His original application shows up a month later and we have a good laugh. Using my SSN as a trust EIN (common practice) somehow broke the e-delivery setup and we received tons of snail mail - another 30+ minute call. No chat and closed weekends so everything requires long phone call during the week. I’m worried about technical difficulties when pulling out our money later. My other brokerages (Fidelity, Betterment, Charles Schwab) can run circles around this. Please get out of 1995 and catch up.

After the new revamp of their app, it is such a more elegant experience. I’m a part of the younger group of investors (18-25), so I was introduced to a lot of the financial world via Robinhood. Through this update, this gives a much better experience through navigation, ease, and appearance. This is important because it attracts more people like me (younger groups) who are looking to get ahead in life or simply try and be more financially sound. At the end of the day, if financial brokerages like Vanguard wants to keep up with newer kids on the block (Webull and Robinhood) continue to advance the UI/UX, tech, and ease because we’re the ones who will be customers for the next 60+ years!

Very disappointed with my recent experience using this app. The buy and deposit functions are not consistent with each other. You can buy mutual funds but not deposit into your mutual fund settlement account. On 28 October used the buy feature to purchases $300 mutual funds for my Roth IRA. Prior to making this purchased I used the deposit button to deposit $300 in my account. Come to find out several days later, the deposit function only allows you to deposit into brokerage accounts and Vanguard sold $300 from my brokerage to cover the transaction. I received an email prior to the sale stating I needed to deposit $300 into my settlement account (email doesn’t specify that there is a separate, mutual fund settlement account associated with my account) which I disregarded because I had already deposited the $300. Customer support stated this was “client error” and would not reverse the transaction. They also did not allow me to speak with a supervisor even though I asked several times. It is extremely disappointing Vanguard does not take ownership of their inconsistent functionality in the app which resulted in this error.

Using the iPhone app, I tried to deposit my rollover check into my vanguard IRA. When I went to take a picture of the check, it would not register the front of the check with my camera and wouldn’t take the picture. I tried changing the background and lighting to no avail. I called vanguard and the representative informed me that there was a hold on my account due to it having just been opened recently, and that I should wait ten days until trying to deposit the check again. I thought it was unlikely that an account hold would affect the cameras ability to read my check, but I waited anyway. Lo and behold, I had the same issue after waiting a couple weeks. Even the iPad app gave me a similar issue - it let me take the picture only to give me an error saying it couldn’t read the check. Deleting and reinstalling the app did not solve the issue. I’m very disappointed in vanguard because I read several other online reviews citing similar issues with IRA check deposits, and I would’ve hoped that they would have fixed the app by now.

S are surprisingly difficult to navigate. I am very frustrated. Overall V creates confusion and questions. Examples- 1.disclosures for recent reorg of some V funds (total stock or total bond fund?) said trustees felt it was in the best interest of the investors, with no explanation of what that benefit is! 2. I’m having trouble finding whether monthy dividend say from mm funds or bond funds are calculated on average daily balance and how stock fund dividends are calculated. Need to know for my retirement withdrawals. 3. Safety of federal money market fund? Difficult to find. 4. Advertising stresses shareholders are “owners” with no clear description of what that means. Further disclosure is necessary to avoid misunderstanding. 5. What are V’s Conflict of Interest principles? Example. V abruptly terminated its plan in China, with no detailed explanation. Is that explanation information shared with V managers who invest in China? 6. How about quarterly and annual reports by V to its “owners” about how it is doing and what its plans are? I do realize the difficulties V has in being transparent- management compensation, political donations/ lobbying/ professional memberships and ESG. Most importantly to V is its reputation.

I knew this terrible update was coming eventually but thankfully I received a notification from a Facebook group that the old version of the app was retired. I quickly turned off automatic app updates on iPhone so i could keep my old beloved version of the app. It is still working and I refuse to update to the new app which removed all of the functionality that I loved in the old one. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to use this version. Vanguard, please allow customers the ability to choose which interface they use. As a mutual company, vanguard operates at cost and any cost savings is passed along to the shareholders. Did this app update cost more than maintaining the old app? I hope not because That cost comes straight out of our funds. Is it possible this change was made to save money vs the old app? Either way, please honor the legacy of the late, great Jack Bogle and do not turn Vanguard in to any of the modern investment management companies. We don’t use vanguard for its slick user interfaces or snazzy trading features. We use vanguard because they always act in their shareholders best interest.

I needed to move money out of Vanguard, so I decided to try, but was told my account was locked due to an address confirmation issue. I the tried to change my address, but their instructions were wrong: for example referring to menu items that weren’t even in the app. I successfully was able to change it on web, but was *then* told there was another hold for five days, because I had changed my address. Why wasn’t I notified when Vanguard originally encountered an address problem? I really despise institutions that throw up unexpected roadblocks when trying to withdraw money, and this was actually important that I had quick access to that money. Additionally, the instructions snafu and other items within the app are off. This app feels over-featured and complicated, yet at the same time, somehow lacks attention to detail from a user experience perspective. The UI looks dated. I think vanguard needs to invest more into modernizing and simplifying their digital experiences to make sure the basics all work well, which is not currently the case.

I never thought I would be one of those people who threatens to switch companies because I didn’t like the technology, but In the case of this recent update to the app, I have no choice! They’ve literally taken away all of the functionality that was useful in the previous version. Whoever gave the green light to release this app update needs to be sent packing. This will lose them business. If I don’t hear about some radical changes to this mobile app coming down the pipe asap I am transferring everything out, and I would assume a lot of people will do the same. The world of financial services is moving towards faster, easier, user friendly, and more functional platforms. They had that in the past and have gone in the complete opposite direction with this update. FYI I am writing this a week after I updated to the new version because I wanted to give it a chance. The more I look at it the more I realize is missing from the previous version and the more disappointed it get. Terrible decision!

A ZERO rating would be more fitting. I can’t think of it getting worse. It can only get better. I would give the old app a 4.7 if I was asked. There are no choices for research, only way to see what u paid for different prices of same stock is to act like your selling the stock. There is no way to weight ur stocks from most invested to least. Only which is up/down the most. If I am able to buy or sell a stick I have to log off and log back on or the stock can’t give info. Now I can get on/open the app w my password but when I’m trying to buy something it stated I have entered wrong password. Above isn’t even the worse part. In the last week it has caused trading violations to my account. I used the old app since 2017 with out one violations some how I have received 2 in last 2 weeks & if it gives me one more I will not be able to trade for 90 days. If they go back to the old app consider it. I will give a good review if or when they fix it. Otherwise if you want to trade using the app consider another brokerage.

The app has been generally useful but quite limited (I’m using it with an employer-sponsored retirement plan); its main value has been to check my account balance. I have Touch ID enabled and it has worked well until recently. Now, when I login with Touch ID, the app shows me as logged-in but the screen has a (tiny) user id/password prompt on it, and I have to re-authenticate before I can do anything. I never remember my password for this account so I look it up which requires – wait for it – Touch ID. If this is supposed to be multi-factor authentication, then the app designers are clearly not familiar with the concept. It adds *nothing* to security and it’s annoying to deal with. If this is an employer-mandated change, then they need to bone up on MFA. If there’s a fix (e.g., unset or improperly-set option), I have yet to find it. The only upside is that now I can (e.g.) see messages without going through the annoying id/password authentication a second time. Other than that, it’s just a pain.

Overall I love vanguard. I have invested money with them for literally decades and couldn’t be happier with them as a company. However the new app and website that they’ve rolled out over the last year or so are complete garbage. The iPhone app is completely useless. Many functions that used to be available are now gone and have been for months now (I’m not sure exactly how long I haven’t been counting). To the point that I’m forced to use the website for everything, including super straightforward tasks like checking my account balances. What’s more, they decided to change the website at the same time. It’s not as bad as the app, at least some of the functionality remains, but it’s all hidden behind slow annoying graphics and submenus. If I was a new investor staring out today I would seriously consider a different financial institution just because of the website and app experience. Despite vanguard’s proven history I question where they are heading.

I love Vanguard, and I’ve used the app for years, but this most recent update is really a step in the wrong direction. For reference I’m a 27 year old software engineer. This is my wheelhouse. Buying funds has been made more complicated. I used to be able to buy mutual funds straight from the bank, but now I have to buy into a settlement fund, wait for the funds to be available, then buy mutual fund shares from the settlement account. What was a one step process is now a multi step process over days. Depositing money into a brokerage account vs an IRA are separate buttons, but withdrawing from either is the same button. This is not intuitive and caused me to deposit into the wrong account, which I had to do because I tried to buy funds like normal but it pulled from an empty settlement account instead of my bank. I’ve only had problems since the update, but never had a complaint before. I would really love a rollback. That layout was much simpler and more intuitive.

This app is finally making decent progress towards replacing the prior Vanguard app which sadly disappeared from my phone about 18months ago. I get that Vanguard wanted to update the old app w a pretty new user experience, but they missed the mark terribly when they clearly released the new version well before it was a suitable replacement since it was lacking pretty much any useful functionality and it was slow and painful to use. I gave up using it and went back to using the website. However, I recently gave it another look and was pleasantly surprised to see the progress. Keep investing in improving this app Vanguard. Hopefully someday you’ll be back to where you were several years back as far as providing a useful app that replaces the need to use your website for 99% of common use cases.

Vanguard has done a tremendous job in working to stay a leader and they’re effort to modernize this app deserves respect. With that, I live mobile. So I really appreciated all the info in the older app style which provided a lot more information similar to the website. Now I find myself logging into the website on my mobile device to access information that was left out of the app redesign, such as messages, research, breakouts of each investment and parts of those investment and how they’re individually performing. I also find myself scrolling alot in the new app due to the large picture and graphs. My largest feedback would be find a way to bring all the features from the website back into the app so I stop looking at the app, then having to follow up logging into the website on my mobile device to see the rest.

This app seriously has me considering other brokerages. It reports incorrect data! I had a pending purchase and for the next 3 days it said I had an “Investment Return” of that same amount. Um that’s not an investment return that’s a pending purchase that hasn’t yet settled. Thankfully the desktop version of the site reports the data correctly! The mobile app is dated, not optimized for mobile and needs the entire UX to be revamped. Way too much effort to make a deposit or contribute more to the particular funds I’m holding. As a millennial, I value a good mobile experience and don’t want to be strapped to a desktop to manage my finances. Please look at your competition in this area and adapt accordingly. I’m a big fan of your funds but Fidelity is looking pretty attractive with the modern app/website and zero cost funds. Really considering jumping ship here. Too much competition in this space to lag behind so badly. Heck even Betterment and WealthFront have better apps and they’re the new kids on the block.

This new app is so much worse than the one that existed in 2016 when I first opened my Vanguard accounts that I don’t know where to begin. Where is the nice concise list of accounts and holdings showing the daily ups and downs? Where does one find a personal performance report (NOT a graph!!) of market gains/losses, investment returns and total returns by month? Where is a menu of options for me to edit my automatic withdrawal amount? Where are all of the specific portfolios I created to track cash and a variety of other groupings by account and/or holdings that provided useful information to me? I’m in mourning today after learning the old app is no longer being supported. It was visually pleasing, intuitive, and easy to navigate. This new one is none of that. A previously perfect app has been destroyed in the last year or two for no apparent reason. I’ll never use this and won’t hesitate to let others know how good the Vanguard app USED to be.

I have been with Vanguard for multiple years and used this app to make transactions. The old app was not “techy and flashy” but you had incredibly simple access to everything that you would possibly want to see. THIS NEW UPDATE IS TERRIBLE. You cannot do any research whatsoever on any index fund, mutual fund, or ETF. It’s nearly impossible to see any movement in your accounts other than 1 year or YTD. There are countless other things that were removed from the app that investors NEED to see! Performance data for the S&P500? Good luck finding it! I am completely blown away about how awful this update was and how it was allowed to be pushed out to all of their users. It’s almost to the point where I want to rollover all of my accounts into a different brokerage. Standing by for an adequate update. I will be sure to update my review when that time comes. If not, I will 100% be looking into other investment platforms in the near future.

Let me start with saying that Vanguard is a great company. However, this Desaster with the new app could probably have been prevented. I was exited when I got invited to review the beta version and provide ongoing feedback more than a year ago. My first feedback was „where are all the features that give me a deeper insight into how my investments are doing“? All the subsequent versions I ever looked at all had the same shortcomings and I finally got tired of giving feedback. At one point I even stopped looking at them as it was hard to find any new functionality. Now the app has been released without that functionality which means my feedback was ignored. I think that a Vanguard Investor/app user has a stronger focus on actual value provided by the app than the average customer of any of the other investment firms. Changing the appearance at the expense of functionality does not provide any meaningful value in my opinion.

What an absolute disaster of a brokerage/app. I had major issues even just creating my accounts to the point that I couldn’t even create my own accounts and had to call them and they had to create my accounts for me which took twice as long. Now, I can’t even log in to my account and nobody at vanguard can figure out what the problem is. So here I sit locked out of my trading account waiting and losing money every day. Vanguard has also now started blocking certain tickers so you can’t even buy the stocks if you wanted to. They are definitely not a brokerage that is on their customers side. It is becoming clear that vanguard is on the side of big business and not their clients. This used to be a decent brokerage but has been consistently been going down the drain for months now. Stay far away from this company!! There are much better brokerages out there that are for the people and support their clients.

I just logged on to Vanguard using my iPad Mini app, which I have not updated to the new crappy version. It was actually enjoyable to use—clearly laid out with the pull-out side menu to go where I wanted to go. And I could access an inherited IRA, which I still can’t do on my phone with the new app. Bring back the old app, which was better in about every regard. Update: still no improvement and it’s actually gotten worse. Now when I view an account I get a pop up message telling me that I need to transition to a brokerage account in order to trade using the app even though I’m just checking balances. Plus they changed the feedback options so that I can’t make specific complaints. Update: Rather than fix the problems in the phone app, Vanguard killed the feedback link. The option is still there but it’s dead. That’s one way to address complaints but Vanguard should be embarrassed to resort to that.

I think this is the new app for vanguard but it seems like it went a few steps backwards. I’ve searched the apple App Store but don’t see any other options. I think I missed the instructions or notice about the new app. I have outside accounts setup and many of them have not updated since April and July 2021. There is no way to manage them to have them update or just remove them. If you click on them you get a “coming soon” message. Wonder when that might be? Does not help to show outside account info that is so old. Viewing your positions is not good. I’m not sure who designed this but it does not feel like it was someone that is an investor. I muddle my way around and eventually find what I need but could be much better. Hopefully they will add to it to make better. I’ve used vanguard for many years and feel this app does not represent the company well.

When Vanguard came out with the beacon test app to show what their plans to update the app to, I made sure to try it out and provide feedback. The feedback; it’s near useless. The previous version that, I currently have, allows you to do so much more with managing accounts. It’s not the most attractive app, but it works well and basically functions like a website. When using beacon it showed a huge downgrade in functionality and no purpose for an app, since you would have to go to the website through an internet browser to do your most productive portfolio management. Sadly despite seeing a significant portion of user providing this same feedback, Vanguard went ahead with the update. I would recommend setting the Vanguard website as a favorite in your favorite browser or link the website page as an “app” on your home screen rather than update or downloading this new app.

The new app is absolute garbage. They took away functionality and information and only made the app more attractive to the eye. I tried to buy through the app (as I have in the past and it’s worked great), moving funds from my bank account directly to the fund. Instead I got a notification that the transaction failed. I called into support, and they told me to complete the same transaction on a laptop instead and told me the app doesn’t allow these types of transactions any longer. So I did, and it went through fine. 2 days later I get a call saying my account will go into a “regulatory sell out” to cover the debt from the failed transaction. I called in again and they told me I had to cover the cost myself and they couldn’t cancel the failed transaction that came from this app. It’s completely pointless to have this app. What a disappointment. Avoid at all costs!!!!

I have been shocked at how unfinished this latest version of Vanguard app actually is. I made the mistake of installing on both my phone and iPad. Fortunately for the iPad, the app was installed separately from the existing one so I have my earlier version to use. Otherwise, I would not have access to most functions on my app. For example, on the latest version, attempting a transaction stopped me at every turn. First, of all the tax-advantaged and non- plans I have, only a Roth and Rollover account show up. Further, as a test to trying a transaction on those, the app doesn’t accept my password - the one I used to sign into the app. As it stands now, I’m not able to do anything in this app aside from looking at balances. This would have been a real problem had I not been able to retain the earlier version on my iPad. I’m screwed on my phone. This didn’t seem ready even as an early version.

This week was a tough week on the market. However, despite a minor hit, I’ve never felt more secure that our future and holdings are in great hands, and that my family and I have a bright financial future ahead. If I need something, Whether tips, training, or options to choose from, Vanguard is there to help. There knowledgeable staff is always confident and up to date on regulation. They set the bar for “Gold Standard” service. I’m very confident that we we getting the best service possible with such and up and down market challenges and fully believe that we will (together w/ Vanguard) accomplish our financial goals! Integrity matters, and they have it, and they always have time for the little guy, even me :-)

So it has been two years since they eliminated the old app which was great and ushered in this kindergarten version. Still so much less functionality for basic things. I can’t see the same data for an estate account that I can for my own accounts. Why do so many things have to added back? They basically wiped it clean and minimal and we have to complain to get functionality we had before. I don’t understand how they think this is what anyone wants. The people giving it a good rating must not have ever used the old one. I give one star feedback as much every time. I want to be able to do everything on the app and not have to log into a desktop for other things. I’m sure I am not the only one. How is the app getting 4.7 stars and the positive reviews don’t seem to about the app, but about Vanguard in general. I doubt the algorithm of the rating!!!!

Like others here, I have been a Vanguard participant for many years. I liked the old app. The new app was rolled out well before it was ready, and that is beyond an understatement. After a half year or more of promising to do so, Vanguard STILL does not let us view individual 401k accounts other than seeing the balances in the summary page. This is just not acceptable for a couple Pant founded on the principle of empowering the small investor. This app, plus the atrocious treatment of small members -who were left holding the bag with the capital gains fiasco of 2021 when they lowered the institutional minimum amounts for the target date funds without alerting small, private investors - leads me to regret choosing Vanguard as custodian. I would have to say that the company has truly pivoted away from Jack Bogle’s original mission and their approach to updating this app only confirms it. I wish I would have gone with Fidelity.

I keep getting a message “the security service is unavailable. Please try again later.” when I try to log into the app. I’ve been trying for 3 days now and called the customer service line to get some help and the man literally told me that the app doesn’t work all the time and is unreliable so my “best bet” is to use the browser. Not sure the product team and customer support team’s relationship at Vanguard but the man on the call seemed quite defeated saying the tech team always just tells him to tell customers to remove and redownload the app. I tried this and issue still occurs…not a great customer experience and I don’t understand why a large company like vanguard has a spotty app and their team telling people it “doesn’t work all the time so use the web browser.” Lol. If anyone sees this on the vanguard IT team, please help.

I can’t believe how antiquated and inept the app is. It is seriously a joke that Vanguard would publish something like this and expect it’s customers to enjoy using. The saddest part is that this is how the application has been for literally YEARS. Not once has the application been updated in my 6-7 years of using it. Top 3 Issues with the app: 1. Never, ever saves your login. Opening the app uses Face ID, but want to navigate to any other part of the app? Forces you to type in your password. Why is it using Face ID to begin with if it doesn’t do anything? This is purely developer incompetence. 2. New message notifications are never cleared. I can open any notices that are flagged as new and read them, but for days or weeks, it still says I have a new message. When I try to clear them by trying to click the envelope icon, well, see issue 1 for why it’s annoying. 3. Everything seems to just be a wrapper for a mobile web site. It’s not actually an App, just a browser, which explains issue 1, but at that point why put out an app at all? Vanguard needs to step it up if they want to retain younger audiences. We don’t have the patience that older generations do for poor tech. I am seriously considering moving my accounts to someone with better technology if they don’t update it soon.

The app just switched to a completely new format in the last few months. It has a lot less functionality than the original app, and can be frustrating to use. You can no longer invest directly in mutual funds from a bank account - now there is an extra step where you have to add the money to a settlement account first, then transfer it to the mutual fund. What’s the point in requiring an extra step? The old app had a nice graph to show growth over time. Not available in the new app, at least not that I can see. I used to be able to research funds from the app. It sounds like that will be added later for the new app. I understand that the new version is, indeed, new. I just wish it had more of the functionality of the old app.

The old app was not modern looking but functional, with the ability to directly contribute to my IRA with mutual funds in it. The new app (which I knew about as I used the Beacon app which was their test bed app before they rolled out this mess) does NOT let you directly contribute to your funds but force you to transfer to your settlement fund first then move it over. I didn’t have enough funds in my settlement fund (didn’t use it before) and I got an error message saying that I didn’t have enough funds, even though I had Authorized The transfer in the app. I had to quickly put in more money into the settlement fund to cover the transaction otherwise it would’ve drawn money from another one of my investments without my input. In addition to my own issue, others have been complaining about the removal of charts and the ability to look at performance data which was previously present in the old app but is cut out in the new one. I agree with them and I wish they had waited and perfected this app before releasing it live. Overall do not download this mess of a app until they fix it and add features that were in the old app back in, better just to go directly to the website and do your work there than use the mobile app as it is now.

I was recommended to Vanguard Mutual fund company by a good friend of mine back in 1985 when I was 34 years old, that’s when I learned the fundamentals of saving and investing money for the long term, I stayed on course. I follow that model, I didn’t react to market swings and I only invested what I could afford. I stayed consistent and kept my portfolio balanced according to my risk tolerance, rebalanced slightly when I needed to with the help of a Vanguard financial advisor, but most important I stayed true to my goals, and I succeeded in building a nice retirement for myself. I would Recommend any one of my family members to Vanguard, they are simply the best way to save and invest money for your goals. Thank you Vanguard so so much. James, 67 years old.

This is for the app AND the website. I received a message through the Notification Center instructing me to reply by a certain date. Both on the app and on the website the reply window is very tiny and there is NO send button. So I tried composing a message from scratch on the website and the drop-down menus for the “required fields” are blank. And there is also no send button. And of course no way to report those issues unless I want to spend time on the phone. I don’t. Vanguard, both your app and your website stink and are making me want to take my accounts and move them to another provider because it just keeps getting worse and worse. I pay good money for the personal advisor program (whatever you call it now) and I don’t feel that it’s worth it anymore. Fix your stuff.

Requires password to read communications from Vanguard even after unlocking app with FaceID. Why would Vanguard allow me to trade based on FaceID but not read my messages? Doesn’t make sense. App does not allow trading certain types of securities such as T-Bills. You have to go to their website for that. Interface is clumsy. If you go to transaction history and try to click on the down arrow to show more transactions it often takes you to detail about the last shown transaction instead. There is no way to view an aggregated picture of holdings in all your Vanguard accounts - you have to look through each one individually (eg if you hold the same ETF in several accounts there’s no way to look at your total exposure to that ETF without opening each account and scrolling through it).

You need to understand how it takes time to move money in/out of accounts. I know other options are faster and more user friendly if you have multiple connected accounts or a expansive portfolio. Quite simple, and pretty much anyone can figure out, plus you get access to vanguard funds, some of which are pretty good compared to other funds performance & expense ratios, which are important for compounding growth, since less fees means you get more of your gains, accelerating your portfolio worth with reinvestment over the long run. It’s not the sleek hotrod with spinning rims that fidelity is, but the dependable box on wheels. Understand risk before investing ya dinguses.

My wife and I have a $1M+ portfolio with Vanguard and have used app for years to access VG, review accounts, and make trades. New app is an absolute disaster, and it appears your company clearly does not understand its clients and their financial needs. Where do I start? You stripped out functionality throughout and made this a nearly worthless app. What happened to the drill down charts and tables that showed monthly performance, market gains, and interest? How about a single page that shows my stock/ETF/MF positions with daily changes, cost basis, and gain/losses? Why do you think we access the app? It’s so we can quickly review our portfolios and make adjustments as necessary. And your trading page???? Whew, it’s garbage. Go back to the old trading page...it’s light years better. I could go on with pages of additional feedback, but I hope you can quickly rectify the situation.

Vanguard may have the best ETFs but when you’re thinking about an actual brokerage account to get, you should look elsewhere. Vanguard lacks basic amenities that you probably take for granted if you use just about any other firm. For example, there is literally no way to set up recurring purchases of their ETFs - only their mutual funds. There are also no fractional shares for ETFs. You will encounter a variety of other issues, large and small, too many to list here. The iPhone app itself is OK, but nothing to write home about, and has an overbearing security stance that already got me locked out once. Or check out Vanguard’s new robo adviser, where somebody thought it was sufficient to limit it to only 2 ETFs. The overall feeling is of a company stuck in 2008 that either doesn’t realize it or is so focused on keeping fees low that it won’t even invest in hiring decent people to improve its services.

App seems to focus on hyping how much your account value has changed, as opposed to providing efficient access to your accounts and facilitating trades. Not at all intuitive. But my bigger gripe is with endless layers of security that are designed to protect Vanguard as opposed to protecting and enabling Vanguard’s customers. I have been working on a change in Trustees for my parent’s accounts (both in age of upper -90s). The endless requests for legal and medical documents were met, but Vanguard threw up new hurdles. When I cleared those, they came up with still more hurdles. Bottom line is I have had weekly calls with a live rep for over five months, with 1% progress on our request. I did the same thing with their Fidelity accounts and issue was solved in two weeks with one office visit. Vanguard systems are archaic and not designed with the customer in mind.

I use vanguard only for my kids’ 529 accounts. With the recent app redesign/update, all functionality other than just viewing the balance of 529s has been removed. There’s message saying that more functionality is “coming soon”, so I gave them a few months of a grace period before writing a grumpy review.. it’s been a few months and still no additional features. I tried to use the feedback section of the app to share my frustration with the current app capabilities, but there is no option there to share anything beyond a numeric rating or to pick a section of the app where I saw a bug - not even a chance to write a description of the bug! Vanguard - you missed the mark when deciding what the “minimum viable product” feature set would be for this app update. Please bring back the features and functionality that you removed!!

This “upgrade” is a move in the wrong direction. The older version, which is being retired in April, and I wish it would be continued for those who prefer it, is much clearer and provides much more information on the opening page. It clearly shows account and holdings with simple navigation to move deeper to transaction and research. Somehow, Vanguard has been sold a bill of goods on the new app. To see basic holdings, you have to select your account, and then scroll through performance information to get to the basic holding information and there does not seem to be a way to filter this out or change the layout. I’ve been a strong Vanguard fan for decades. This app “upgrade” is a real disappointment, and not very Vanguard. I wish the older app would be left active as a choice.

Vanguard just released a new app, and honestly, it’s horrible. I really do love working with Vanguard, and have been pleased with the experience overall, but the new app is awful. Their website isn’t the prettiest, but very functional for me. Every time they try to update it, it becomes less functional and this new app is the worst step yet. It has only the most basic functions and none of the charts, graphs or performance information of the old one. I like to log in every morning and see my “Prices and Performance” page to see how I did yesterday- it’s gone. Essentially, all this allows you to do is transact and see very cursory account balance info. That’s ALL! If you’re a buy and hold investor like me, this is useless. Can we get the old version back, please?

I have had little trouble contributing to my Roth IRA on a monthly basis for close to two years using this app. However, within the last month, my home page feed no longer shows the IRA contributions widget, which shows me how much I’ve contributed, how much I still need to contribute to max it out for the year, and the big “contribute” button that makes initiating the process easy. There is a button to click where you can customize your feed, and the IRA contribution button is there, but greyed out. Why is this suddenly no longer an option when it’s the most useful and necessary part of having the app to quickly contribute towards your IRA?? Now I have to jump through hoops to find how to contribute through the app. Please bring back this widget option.

This is bar far the worst investment app set up I’ve ever seen. They make it so far to look up, track, and buy stocks, funds, etc. I had to switch from Robinhood to this because of work restrictions and overall I would recommend Vanguard 0/10. Do yourself a favor and invest with Robinhood. This app is unusable. So un-user friendly that I’ve had to stay doing all my any and all research and vetting outside the app. It’s good to do your due diligence, but Vanguard won’t even easily should a timeline. Opening, high, low prices frequently don’t populate in the app. To track your portfolio, the metrics are equally lacking. Waste of my time to a point where it feels like it is a sack. You’d think one of the largest investment companies would invest a little effort into their website or app. If even one of those were half as good as id hoped it might be salvageable.

So much functionality lost! Why would Vanguard release such a disastrous app?? The developers who proposed the changes and especially the senior management over the update that rolled this out last year should be held accountable for this worthless app. If the investors are truly “owners” then why isn’t Vanguard listening? I sorted the reviews in most recent order. Scrolling back to October 2021 I guesstimate 90% or more are rated 1-star, and there are hundreds of ratings to scroll through. Again, why isn’t Vanguard listening? Does Vanguard monitor and evaluate their own app reviews? I would say not. If they do, then why isn’t action being taken to restore functionality? If Vanguard is working on it then OWN IT and communicate you recognize the app is not meeting the needs of its owners and that Vanguard has heard the cry of its investors.