They say customer is king, but some new age companies don’t seem to have got the memo.
Fintech app Fold has been endlessly trolled by users after it appeared to admonish a user for reporting bugs in its beta release. “Fold money has turned out to be such an empty burger. A ton of banks not supported, fails to fetch transactions half the time and doesn’t fetch them frequently either. Really fell for the invite hype,” X user Dushyant wrote.
But instead of clarifying or asking for more information, Fold money’s official X account came up with a snarky response. “Maybe research a bit before signing up for an app that’s in beta?” the account said.
The exchange didn’t end there. “Aw shit I’m sorry I didn’t read your blog post before pressing the install button,” Dushyant replied. But Fold Money became even more aggressive. “Yup dragging the hard work of a team in public, especially the one you didn’t pay for, without understanding how the product works is much easier than reading a blog post,” the official account replied.
Now this is a conversation that one doesn’t see everyday — a brand slugging it out with a user on a public platform. X, though, seemed clear which side it was on — Fold’s last post had 9 re-posts and a staggering 221 quote posts, most of which were critical of the company’s response.
“In poor taste @foldmoney_ why release an app if you can’t take the feedback,” wrote former Paytm executive and Indiagold founder Deepak Abbot.
“He’s literally a beta user.. Someone who is testing YOUR product for FREE … Sharing his data, time, and opinions to help you become better. YOU should be thanking him, for helping you out for FREE when you have 0 standing or trust built,” wrote Madhur Chadha.
Some said this was a masterclass in how not to respond to customer feedback.
Others said that they’d wanted to use the product, but weren’t so sure any more.
Some existing users even began deleting the app. “PR101: don’t be stupidly aggressive for no reason. Deleting @foldmoney_ just for this one tweet,” a user said.
“This marks the moment I lose faith in the product. If this is what you’re thinking about your ‘beta’ users who are taking their time out and testing your product — the leadership had to rethink their approach. I’m uninstalling. I’ll wait for this attitude to change,” wrote another user.
Others pointed out Fold Money’s hypocrisy — while it didn’t want feedback in public, the app itself had appeared to criticize SBI and Kotak Mahindra Bank on X.
And soon jokes around the entire situation began.
It’s a pretty sharp reaction, and indicates how strongly people felt about Fold’s response. Many of the world’s best companies are famed for their customer focus — Jeff Bezos used to monitor customer complaints on his personal email even after Amazon was worth a trillion dollars, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has also personally helped out customers who reached out to him. But instead of even bothering to understand the user’s issue, Fold Money seemed to attack them for raising it in public. And this might not be the best look for a new app, especially one that’ll be involved in something as critical as handling its users’ money.