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Show HN: Tired of reading NerdWallet to see the best credit card? I automated it

savewithtrove.com

48 pointssaurabhsharan39 comments

As an avid miles & points enthusiast, this does sound like an interesting tool to make CC rewards easier to digest.

Couple questions/concerns:

1. BIG red flag: You sidestep the monetization question in your FAQ. Monetization in this space is generally some combination of: spending data repackaging/selling, card affiliate links, subscriptions (least likely?). You should be up front as each one of these methods has privacy and or agency concerns.

2. You should help the user understand what they are getting into when signing up for credit cards. CC rewards to save money is a great thing but not when the user doesn't understand the consequences of doing so and the overhead of management (e.g. lowering scores while you're prepping for a refi would cost you $$$$).

3. The site generally needs more information. If I'm going to trust a site with read access to everything I buy every day, I need to trust you.

4. Doesn't look your tool takes into account issuer limits on card signups or current portfolio? Could cause issues where you are recommending cards but the user is unable to sign up due some issuer constraint

5. Is googling NerdWallet really the pain point you're addressing?

1. Right now, we're not monetizing this at all. The current plan (which we haven't implemented yet) is card affiliate revenue. I can definitively rule out repackaging/selling spending data - we would never do that. Subscriptions would likely be the next best option if affiliate deals don't pan out.

2. Great idea!

3. Totally understand - we know it's a big ask to request your transaction history. Out of curiosity, what information could we provide would help you trust us more?

4. We do not.

5. Yes, this is the pain point we've heard repeatedly from our users. Since you mention you are a "miles & points enthusiast", I can see why the value prop of Trove might not be as compelling. Our goal is to help people get most of the same rewards as a credit card enthusiast would, without having to become an expert on this stuff.

1. Cool-that would be a good thing to put on your site somewhere. Since you're thinking affiliate fees, how you will avoid the agency problem? e.g. A ton of businesses push the premium cards (Amex Plat, CSR, etc) with high commissions but almost no one pushes cards that have small affiliate fees but that would generally be great for the majority of people. Think Citi Double Cash and the various limited 3x cards.

3. Personally, a blurb about your data deletion policy, putting it in your TOS that you will never sell transaction history/personally identifying info, and making Plaid (or VISA) more front and center moves the needle. I trust Plaid more than I trust some random entity with "bank level encryption." Not sure if I'm the right one to ask about this one as I'm not your target.

5. Cool. Didn't realize CC signup decisions were weighed so heavily by people. IME people just generally went with the marketing (think store cards and/or cards with big marketing budgets like Cap1). Maybe I'm desensitized after doing this stuff for so long.....

1. There isn't an easy answer for this, and I think part of it will be slowly building up a reputation as a trustworthy brand. The other part is improving our UI to be much more transparent about why we made certain recommendations and adding ways for users to customize what type of recommendations they see. (These are all features we're working on.)

3. Yup, making Plaid more visible is a great idea!

If the "Get Started" button - the first thing you see on the website without scrolling - does nothing but yield a white page that asks for an email address, you're alienating a lot of interested users.

I left at exactly that point. If you can't show me something other than Marketing info before I enter my email address then its a no-go for me.

You need to give something in order to get something from me. For all I know there is nothing behind the email wall. I'm frankly tired of email marketing and I don't want my email collected and sold off.

Looks like this site tries to give you informed choices. Choices that can only be informed with personal data. I'm not giving up my personal info in exchange for sorting credit card offers. I can find and sort the offers on my own without becoming a source of revenue.

I backed up at the email request and scrolled down to the FAQ. This was the part that made me leave:

> Trove is just a passion project right now.

Right now. But maybe tomorrow they’ll change their mind?

> Trove is just a passion project right now.

I left here as well

Appreciate the feedback. Could you clarify why that part was a dealbreaker for you? What would we have to do differently to earn your trust?

I also left on seeing the email screen - I believe the OP of this thread had it right - I was unsure what was going to happen.

I went back and then started scrolling down and probably figured that it wants my CC purchase data to do this. I did not continue with signup mainly because of trust although the value proposition sounds good.

No one wants to give their intimate financial details to a "passion project."

Yup.

I clicked the link before clicking the HN comments. I clicked Get Started, saw the e-mail prompt, and immediately went "meh" and closed the tab and came to the HN comments to see if anyone had signed up to see if it was worth my time.

It doesn't verify the email address -- jeff@amazon.com wants another credit card -- But then the next step is mandatory linking of bank accounts! Yuck...

Also, how is "We never see, store, or use your credit card information at any time" consistent with "We analyze your spending"?

Plaid does all the storing.

Why should I trust Plaid any more than Trove?

To clarify, we do get access to your credit card transaction history. We do not get access at all to your bank username/password, credit card number, etc. - that's the part that Plaid handles.

Thanks for the feedback!

We only ask for your email address so you can sign in later to see your results. I agree it's a bit unintuitive that we don't "verify" your email, but that's because it's ultimately linked to your bank account.

"Credit card information" in this case refers to the fact that we don't have access to your CC number, credit limit, etc. One of the early feedback we got was that people were worried we would have access to their CC number, so we added that bit in to clarify. I agree that the wording could be clearer.

Why not let me fill out a form that says I spend x on food, y on travel, z on gas, and optimize my results for a combo of up to two-three cards, without having an account?

Even as a demo of how it works and the interface. Then if people want to automate that part, they can make an account and feed their bank data over.

You should also look into the features apps like MAXIVU have. I tell it all the credit cards I have, then if I cant remember my rewards, I can check what card I should use at what store.

This is definitely on our roadmap. For the initial version, we wanted to provide the fastest onboarding experience, which meant letting people connect with Plaid.

Bank Level Security != "256-bit SSL encryption and read-only access."

At least it doesnt say "Military Grade Encryption" like every other site on the planet.

From the stories I've read, military grade encryption is a flat file structure on a USB drive.

For most people with >$100k across investment & savings accounts Bank of America Premium Rewards card is hard to beat. 2.62 Cashback on everything.

If you only want 1 card, sure. But why not have many? I have one that does 4x on restaurants and groceries, one the same on hotel/airfare, one 3 or 4x on utilities, etc, all of which beat 2.6. Especially since 2 of the mentioned above cash out at 1.25, effectively making them 5%.

Feedback: I registered, connected 1 card via Plaid and am now getting a 500 Internal Server Error.

Thanks for trying us out. Could you please email us at hello@savewithtrove.com from the email you signed up with?

This is an interesting game, but we do not have credit cards in France, unfortunately.

Only debit cards (usually deferred, immediate for children). Some you still need to pay for, most free. But you get nothing in return (except for shop issued ones which bring some fidelity points but nothing substantial)

This is great marketing for NerdWallet.

When someone is so adamant about being better than one specific competitor, that typically means the competitor they mention so often must have something good going for it.

I'd recommend stopping mentioning them, and just state what problem you are solving.

@saurabhsharan Signed up; my account page is blank and I am not getting any result. I am not getting any way to unlink my accounts or check what is being done with my information. Seems a little fishy so far.

Unfortunately we unexpectedly hit our API limit for Plaid (the service we use to handle bank logins), but hope to be back up soon. Feel free to email us at hello@savewithtrove.com from the email you used to sign up and we'll delete your account right away.

This is great! But how do you get away with giving general credit advice without a license!? Have you confirmed you don't need one as I'd be very surprised?

I don't believe there's any 'authorized credit advisor' license anywhere in the United States. A state-level Fiduciary license would probably be the closest thing.

Putting aside the name of the specific licence, don't you need a licence to carry out this kind of service?

So now I need to register an account to see it? That seems like a bigger hurdle.

Nice landing page though!

Thanks, we put a lot of work into the landing page :)

The account registration is just so you can see your results again later. We appreciate the feedback though, in the future we may have a way to use this without having to enter in your email.

No access to Canadian banks that are supported by Plaid ? What's up with that ?

Amex is always best, done.

If you can reconcile the benefits with the (large on some) annual fees, perhaps.

Yup. I pay USD380 yearly fee.

Cashback with frequent flier miles allows me to take my girlfriend and me on trips around the entire world on business class. Paying only for Airport taxes.

That leaves me with the following costs: Yearly fee USD380 Airport taxes 2 pax USD600

Total USD980

For these 980 dollars I get air tickets that retail at USD9000.

Conclusion: Amex is great for when you have a structural demand to use whatever the cashback on offer is as good as this.

Of course it also has insurance and concierge service, but I never use neither.

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