Review: We tried Varo Bank here’s why you shouldn’t make the same mistake we did

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Varo Bank is a bank (formerly fintech company) offering a wide variety of services — though as per our review consumers should check this out.

Final Grade: F

Customer Service

Rating: F

Varo Bank by far has one of the worst customer service teams. Recent communications with the bank suggest that they’re heavily relying on AI generated responses or automated emails.

If you do manage to get a human it’s usually someone overseas who repeatedly asks you to repeat yourself or doesn’t understand what they’re doing.

Disputes

Rating: F

During our review, we made a valid purchase that we did not receive in full. Varo never investigated the claim and instead provided an automated e-mail with the following line.

In accordance with Section C(6) of the Varo Bank Account Agreement (https://www.varomoney.com/privacy-legal), Varo is not responsible for quality, safety, legality, or any other aspect of any goods or services purchased using a Varo Debit Card or Bank Account.

Varo Bank 10/8

This is very concerning because Varo above states that it is not responsible and outright refused to investigate the dispute. After careful review, Bazaar Daily discovered that there are a host of consumers experiencing identical issues.

Account closures

According to Trust Pilot, scores of consumers are also dealing with random and unexplained account closures.

Note: for this reason extreme caution should be considered using this bank. Don’t find yourself without your money.

Email support

There does not appear to be an active email address for Varo.

False accusations of money laundering

During our review, we also spoke to 13 other customers who also had a similar experience. We found that by utilizing Zelle on this bank’s platform falsely triggers red alarms behind the scenes. Varo repeatedly claimed we were committing money laundering by sending money to the dog walker.

Note: Money laundering is a very serious allegation in any form even a hint of it. We stopped using Zelle midway through our review of the bank due to concerns that they were falsely accusing us of abusing the Zelle platform.

Seal of Trust

Bazaar Daily cannot ethically recommend Varo Bank for the reasons listed above nor can we issue a seal of trust on this review. As always, we only review products or services that we’ve actually used or tried. Our trust seals are digital rubber stamps or ‘certifications’ of our reviews indicating favorable reviews.

Check out even more REAL customer reviews not paid advertisements on Nerdwallet by tapping Consumer Affairs.