I’m newish to investing. Anytime I’ve ever tried before my portfolio tanked because of timing. It’s happened 3 times in 3 decades. I put money in. I watch it go down. I pull it out because I’m scared. This time was no different. I added money 2 days before the market had its worse crash in decades. 😩 But this time was different because I was able to read about trends, watch what successful portfolios were doing, and this time I didn’t get scared and pull my money at a loss. I stuck it out and now I’m up. I love this app because the info is digestible and informative. I’m actually excited about my choices. I’m making educated decisions (instead of emotional ones). Anything that is above my head, I ask ChatGPT and it explains it to me in a way I can understand. I’m loving it now. I feel like I’m learning and earning.

I signed up for the automatic download a few months in advance due to enjoying their Twitter page and thinking “Wow: that’s actually a cool idea!” I was really excited when the app first downloaded. Went in, set up my account…BAM: “You need at least $500 in your account to use”. Oh noes! While my account has several thousands in it, it only had like $60 in buying power. So over a little bit of time, I traded off some losing stocks until my buying power was around $600. Went back to the account, set up my pilot, it went to work…BAM: subscription fee to continue use. !!! “…I can’t really afford that right now…”. I’m not very wealthy at all. My stock portfolio is from YEARS of adding money and making little trades here and there. My monthly income is tight (especially in this economy). While I figured there would probably be a fee, I thought that 1) it would be disclosed much sooner than it was and 2) it would be more in line with the value of the stock trades. For someone with a lower amount in their account, I would have figured it would have been either a lower cost (because the algorithm probably won’t make many trades with smaller accounts) or even some sort of merit system (like billed a certain percentage based on gains). While I think the app is nice and I had no issues with the use, I’m just let down that I won’t be able to use it to its full advantage until I basically find a better paying job.

I would rather go through customer support for this problem, but I can not figure out how to contact them without also accepting a condition which apparently gives autopilot full access to information on my email. This is NOT EVER going to happen. I’m pretty sick of companies acting like they have any right whatsoever to have or view my information outside of exactly what they need to provide their services. Please rectify this so customers can contact you in the future. Now, on to the problem. This week, after 6 months of working flawless, my autopilot app stopped connecting to my brokerage. Sometimes I get a wrong password message (the password is input correctly), and sometimes I get a message about plaid. I have heard of plaid but never used it, and know next to nothing about it. I assume this is a change from my brokerage, not autopilot. Could you please give some guidance on what to do about this? If autopilot cannot connect to my brokerage it serves no purpose. I will wait for a week to either be contacted or see an update in the app which helps customers figure out what to do in this situation. If I cannot connect by then I will have to ask for a refund and cancel my account.