Very annoying, data hoarder, and privacy invader
Very annoying. Lots of data collection. Never in my life have I seen a credit card or debit card provider ask for a selfie, and most of the time not even ask for full SSN only last four. It's a card for teenagers, the parents only are cosigning what's all this nonsense for, selfies and ID uploads. Pathetic. Had no issues going through step.com with no selfie / ID upload, but Modak Makers had to be the problem. Nor did Cash App ask for it and Cash App / Step have stock purchases allowed. Hoarder of data collection. I don't care if it's Plaid or whatever, who uses Plaid anyway for anything other than linking bank accounts. Use Stripe for verification, you can upload ID, but they won't ask for a selfie. Horrible violation of privacy. In the United States, in a lot of states you don't even need photo ID to vote and to make a credit card I need to give them a selfie too? Skip and get the same credit building experience for your teenagers through step.com. I'm surprised people even invested in this. Discord server as the staff calls it is totally dead, verification broken. Ouch. First review and it hurts to be bad on TrustPilot. I have only given 1 one-star review out of the 14 now that I have written and this is the second one, so you know it's bad when I come with 1-star given I have experience here.
Edit: The reply from the team fails to illustrate multiple aspects of the review, for example, the selfie. Why do you need a selfie? Who is taking this data? You pride yourselves in data hoarding? If big companies fail to store our data safely, how can we expect Modak to protect our data from breaches. Other companies have taken steps to ensure the wrong people can't make an account on another person's name and they don't include taking a selfie. If it is said that a selfie is required to ensure fraud isn't taking place is a overstatement. As I've mentioned even voting in lot of states don't require photo IDs.
Reply from Modak Makers
We value your feedback and understand that you are frustrated. We cannot go into the specific details of your case given privacy restrictions. Some of our users experience a longer sign-up process than others do. These extra steps occur when any “yellow flags” are raised due to a fraud risk. Our onboarding process is stricter than most financial technology companies - something we pride ourselves on. For example, we don’t just use the last four digits of an SSN, because fraudsters can scrape that data off the internet. Sometimes we require uploading an ID during the verification process to ensure that each user is who they say they are and not, for example, a teenager trying to sign up as their parent. The safeguards ensure we follow the rules and regulations properly, and that our security and fraud prevention mechanisms are the best in class. Our 4.8/5.0 ratings on app stores and tens of thousands of families loving Modak speak to the trust our users have in us. Hopefully, as we grow, we can keep upgrading our systems so fewer new users have extra steps in their sign-up process.
- The Modak Team