Aspiration Digital Bank Review

Aspiration Digital Bank Review

Jun 20, 2020 | Review

Genuine user review and personal experience.  I recommend you STAY AWAY from this bank. I have a credit score of 790, very good relationships with all my banks.

I first joined the Do Well Do Good company back in 2018.  I wanted to be a part of a company with a great vision and great purpose, so I joined Aspiration.  At the time, I actually was consolidating my bank accounts as I had many, and Aspiration wasn't on top of the list for me simply due to the lack of physical locations that I can walk in, so the account was not utilized.

Fast forward to 2020, during all this time I had been using Chase as my main banking service, and I've been paying $40 per international wire so I thought I would shop around... and all of the sudden I remembered Aspiration and looked up their fees.  And to my surprise, their international wiring is only $15 !!

With Chase, I simply add wire recipient, schedule the wire.. and it's all taken care of on their website.  With Aspiration, however, I have to call them first, and then fill out a form online, and wait for approval.  Granted the process requires me to call in, I thought to myself, for $25 dollars, I will make the effort to call.

Little did I know, it took MORE than just calling in... WAY MORE... First, their ACH limit is $5000 a day, so I had to split the ACH into 3 days and it takes a few days to process.. so just ACH over to Aspiration took over 1 week..

Secondly, after calling in, filling out the form and everything, I was notified that I cannot wire with Aspiration as I do not have enough history with the bank.  Which I totally understand.. so I started to ACH back the money back to Chase bank... You'd think right?  NOOOO... After scheduled ACH, I noticed that my account balance was -$5000, then +$5000 which looked really odd.. So I had to call in to verify the situation..

And guess what the agent told me?  "oh, it looks like  you have canceled the ACH" I assured the agent that I did not do that and asked him to look into it.  After few minutes of holding, I was told that the Chase account that I linked to is a business account and Aspiration is personal banking only so I could not ACH to the business account.  I mean.. I totally understand if that's the case, even though Aspiration took ACH from an business bank account, outgoing ACH may have a different set of rules.. I mean what can I do right?  So immediately I linked my Chase Personal account with Aspiration to fix this issue.. but guess what?  I could not ACH to my personal Chase account either.  The agent on the phone could not tell me why, but simply instructed me to initiate ACH from Chase's side... as I told the agent over the phone, I can do that no problem, and I will, but this process is starting to get me frustrated.

Adding an external account to Chase takes a few business days as Chase makes couple small deposit and to verify.. while I wait for Chase to verify the ACH connection, I thought to myself why not use sofi to link to Aspiration that way I don't have to wait for Chase.. In the process of adding sofi, I have realized that I have been locked out of all Aspiration website functions, I cannot add links to different banks, cannot even use their support ticket system from the banking website.

To summarize:
I was denied wire due to insufficient history with Aspiration
I was denied to send money back to the original chase account
I was denied to send money to my personal chase account
I was denied to link sofi account
I can't even use their support ticket system as it seems I have been locked from all functions

All I wanted was to use their wiring service and save some money,

But instead, Aspiration has caused me 2 weeks of time and headaches already.. who knows how long this will end up taking. At this point, I don't even know how I am going to get my money back or when I will be able to... now I am even scared that they will just hold my money indefinitely.. ​I mean is what Aspiration doing even legal?

AVOID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Genki Switch Covert Dock

Genki Switch Covert Dock

May 25, 2020 | Review, Technology, Unboxing | 0 comments

After full 8 months of waiting, I finally received my Genki Switch Covert Dock.  This is the longest I had to wait out of 6 of my kick starter campaigns.

Periodically I would contact and email Genki, although Genki was very good at responding, they never actually gave me a date or informed me promptly.  Last email I asked about my shipping and tracking number, and 3 weeks later this shipment came as a surprise.

Genki Covert Dock and Stand

I did add $10 dollars to buy the portable stand and to my surprise this stand is very good in quality.

First thing I noticed was how heavy this stand is.  And initially my thought was that I wished it was lighter and I would probbaly not carry this due to its weight.  But after examining the stand, I changed my mind as I have a 11 year old and a 7 year old, and this metal construction is probably better and can take more abuse.  Kodus to Genki for making the effort to use metal.

The stand opens up to a triangle.  There is no adjustment needed and depending on which leg you chose to use, you can shoose from 2 height settings.

The picture does not do it justice.  The two angles in the pictures looks very similar, but in reality the difference is very noticeable.. it is just the bad angle of how I took the pciture.

Okay, let's move on to the main event - the Covert Dock

Nothing fancy about the packaging, and there are only 4 items inside. The covert dock, a travel case, 1.8m USB-C cable, and manual.  Because I travel quite frequently so I already have different world travel adapters so I opted to buy the two prong version without any adapters.

The quality is really solid and the two prong is not flimsy at all.

The size is really small, and as far as I know, it is the smallest Nintendo Switch power supply that money can buy.

It feels top quality, very well made, solid and heavy. The logo is a nice touch, it really is a beautiful product.

It also comes with a nice case, the case is padded and fits the dock very well.  The dock is of very high quality as well and the case is a very nice touch because after you play around with the nice dock, you start to appreciate the craftsmanship and you definitely would want to put it in a nice case to protect it like I did.

The case looks a lot bigger then the dock in the picture, but after you put the dock in, you will see that this case is nicely made and the size is just right, and the added padding is really nice touch.

The Genki Covert Dock only has 3 I/Os 

1x USB C port

1x USB A port

1x Full size HDMI port

The charger is rated at 30 Watts but don't expect 30 full watts coming out of this charger on either port.  The wattage is split amongst the two ports.  The USB A port is rated at 5 Watts, and the USB C port is rated up to 24.9 Watts.  This should not be of concern at all anyways because it is more than powerful enough to use with the switch and 25 watt USB C port is a really nice touch that you can charge your phone / laptop etc.

USB C cable is 1.8 meters in length and on one end it is 90 degree which is ideal for switch, espeically when you play it on a stand.  The quality is nice and it is also made by Genki. Came with a very nice velcro organizer, this cable is easily the best USB C cable I own.

It also came with a sticker.  At first I though I can put this on the Genko covert dock, but the size is clearly not designed for the covert dock, but rather for the Nintendo Offical Dock... so bye bye sticker, trash can it is.

My daily battery that I keep in my bag is the ankor powercell 26800. Last time I went to my friend's house I brought and used the C-force adapter along with the battery.  The adapter is quite flat and thin but it doesn't come with a power supply.  

We played for may be 3 or 4 hours, and we barely used the battery (only 1 out of 10 LED was off, so at the most we used 10% of the battery) and the switch stayed 100% full battery.

So in my use case, it is probably easier for me to take the c-force adapter instead of the Genki covert dock because I carry the huge ankor battery as my daily power pack anyways.  However, this use case only works if I am around and thus doesn't apply to my kids or wife.  For them, the Genki Covert Dock is definitely the right choice.