Include the ability to turn off notifications/and or features for the New Expensify Card

ScotMosley · January 22

Also, after reading through the posts (especially those from Expensify Team) you can call it a feature, or a product, or a widget, or an offering. I don't care what you call it, it's something that I do not want my employees seeing because it's only confusing them. I've made the decision for the company already.

It would be different if I had a lot of employees emailing and saying that this would make their life easier and this is something we should definitely consider. But I'm not telling you I want to ignore my employees requests. What I'm telling you is that they are NOT requesting it. Instead, they think I've already mandated the new card as part of our corporate culture...which is the exact opposite.

Anything is possible with technology...so you can't use the excuse that this cannot be turned off in Concierge/Inbox. You're the ones the built it to force the aggressive promotion, which means you also have the power to stop it.

So let's see it happen because some of your larger, long-term customers are demanding it.

Kevin Sullivan · January 23

Hello everyone!

We appreciate your feedback, and apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused when sending the wrong message to your employees. The Expensify Card is a feature that we’ve released to our customers for no additional cost that streamlines our expense management product. We aren’t attempting to upsell our customers, rather we’re giving employees the option to let their preferences be heard. The ability to enable the card is totally up to the admin though, and until a limit is set for a user, they will not receive a card.

With that said, we want to make sure we’re listening to the issues you’re having and providing the best experience possible. We have changed our notification settings so that users can turn off email reminders for the card by going to Settings > Accounts > Preferences and unchecking “Relevant feature updates and Expensify news”. This will stop any email reminders related to requesting the card.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6030147/uploads/editor/8c/n8q6m3h2zubv.png

Thank you for your patience!

bgo_555 · January 23

@Kevin Sullivan Thanks so much but would there be a way for admins to control the flow of information rather than have this notice delegated to users? I think many in this community would agree with the principle of that notification structure.

cparsons · January 23

@Kevin Sullivan I am a little confused as well as to why this cant be set at admin level for all other users, maybe having a tickbox by user. Even more unsure why you have chosen to add in report update and rejection notices into this, these are helpful notifications and helps to ensure reports are done and submitted in a timely manner and should not really be configurable at end user level.

Kimberli · January 23

The last update I see says we can turn off notifications but that is only for ourselves, correct? We need to be able to stop the notifications to all users. I are being inundated with the email below. Then I have to respond to each one explaining that we don't use the Expensify Card. Make it stop!

***********************************************************************************
I'd like to use the Expensify Card to manage my work expenses. It will remind me to scan receipts when needed and so much more!

---
xxxxxx has requested an Expensify Card, click here to set their card up!
If you haven't heard yet the Expensify Card is the world's smartest corporate card with the highest spend and safest limits, guarded by our industry-first daily settlement and realtime compliance features.

Julia · January 23

What is Expensify's email address for invoicing? I'd like to bill you all back for the countless wasted hours across our organization this has caused.

And, no, I'm not joking.

KatieScoular · January 23

@Kevin Sullivan wasn't that already a setting? Did you actually do anything here?

To echo everyone else, this is something we want turned off at the admin level, and should never have been something that our employees were opted into automatically.

I don't understand why you keep framing it like this is something the employee should be in control of. It's a card that's linked to our business account, and requires company approval - therefore this is a feature for your business customers, not the individual users that use Expensify to track their personal budget. So why are you advertising to the employees and harassing them about it with messaging in their Expensify inbox?

WooHooWu · January 23

@KatieScoular I do not know if this was an existing setting or not but I have no confidence that Expensify will make that setting an option for admins to turn on and off for everyone. I say that because I have never seen an application that does not allow administrators to change First Name, Last Name, or Email address for their employees...

ScotMosley · January 23

@Kevin Sullivan
I think this line is the one that proves the Expenisfy is over-stepping their bounds - "We aren’t attempting to upsell our customers, rather we’re giving employees the option to let their preferences be heard."

It's not Expensify's job to make sure I'm listening to my employees. I've got that covered. My turn-over rate is low, employee happiness is high. We're listening loud and clear.

And as many others have already stated...the employees are not demanding a new card, they are confused believing that the company has already implemented a new card and is wanting people to signup/request a card.

I have heard my employees...and this is exactly what they are telling me. The problem isn't the my company isn't listening to it's employees, the problem is that Expensify is not listening to the people that pay them. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. As many have mentioned, this issue with the credit card promotion along with extremely slow customer service responses (more than 24 hours?) aren't good for business.

Thanks for listening.

One more thing - I'm not just talking about emails either, I'm talking about the "tasks" in Concierge. They don't even have the ability to hide it. Instead they are just given an option to promise that they'll "tell their boss in person"!

Zany Renney · January 24

Hello everyone!

Thanks for sharing your candid feedback with us.

Whilst most of what has been raised here has been covered off earlier in the thread, I would like to clear up the wording of the Inbox task as that seems to causing the most confusion!

When you click the “I’ll ask them in person” option to hide the Expensify Card Inbox Task, you are not actually agreeing to anything, you simply are opting to hide the task.

If we make any further changes to these notifications that are related to the requests in this thread, we’ll be sure to update everyone right away.

Once again, thanks for being active members of the Expensify Community!

bgo_555 · January 24

Thanks for the response @Zany Renney but I think what we're really looking for is admin level rights to prevent mail/notifications like these? I believe that was more eloquently covered by previous posts above.

Sonia Liapounova · January 24

Hi everyone, thank you for your feedback on how you would like the notification to be managed! I will share your insight with my product team.

bgo_555 · January 25

Hi Expensify Team. Sorry to be a bother but I literally unchecked the box for receiving Expensify news and alerts yesterday and the first thing I receive today is an incentive email for $500 if I convince my admin to use Expensify Cards... It would appear as though even the software features @Kevin Sullivan discussed are not enough to prevent ad spamming. What more is it going to take to turn these gratuitous communications off?

Julia · January 27

Expensify, why isn't this thread showing towards the top like all of the other idea threads based on when the most recent activity occurred on the idea?

BiL · January 27

I was researching how to turn off Expensify Card notifications to end users when I discovered this thread. I was expecting to find clear and concise instructions I could email to our finance team, but instead I found that there is no such setting. We are paying customers, we should have the ability to disable marketing messages, especially to our users.

The correct response from Expensify would be to immediately discontinue sending unsolicited email and notifications to our employees while you work on adding an opt-out setting ASAP, and/or offer to disable Expensify card marketing to employees for us.

Honestly, the card sounds like it has a lot of useful features, but the way it's been pitched to employees has tarnished the launch. As a financial services company, it's in your best interest to build trust with your customers. Instead, this launch builds suspicion.

coltonshaw06 · January 28

I've already voted but would like to add that we implemented the Expensify card in December and ever user still gets emails about implementing the Expensify card with some kind of gift card. So, I get emails frequently that say "How can I get my amazon card?"

The disappointment comes in when we realize that we don't qualify for any of these, but they're written in a way to make it appear as we qualify.

Keep in mind, the below email was sent to 15 users WHO ALREADY HAVE the Expensify card in their hands.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6030147/uploads/editor/rl/4ct67j8iaokg.jpeg

WooHooWu · January 28

Did anybody else whether it's you or a user from your company get an email about "You can now request Karma Points"? Just another new e-mail that we don't want...

Amanda DeWitt · January 28

Hey @bgo_555 and others who have disabled the notifications!

If you are still receiving emails, it's possible the emails were already queued to send when you disabled these particular notifications. Unfortunately, if the emails were already queued to go out, disabling notifications won't prevent the already queued items from being sent.

Though, this should stop emails moving forward! If you notice that emails are still being received within the next 24 hours after disabling, let us know and we can investigate further!

khallvensure · January 29

Here's a thought....If Expensify refuses to give the Admins permission to turn off the unsolicited emails, lets just ask our employees to email it back to Expensify Concierge and to David Barrett, CEO of Expensify. Maybe they will tire of the emails being sent and clogging up their accounts.

I do not understand why they cannot or will not give us the ability to 'opt out' of something that we are clearly not wanting. We pay for the service of scanning receipts and approving expenses. Nothing more. It is not up to Expensify to make the decision to solicit our employees without our permission. Your Success Coach's insult our intelligence by putting this garbage statement out - "We aren’t attempting to upsell our customers, rather we’re giving employees the option to let their preferences be heard." You have had Admin's and Executives alike ask you to stop sending this garbage out. Hello Expensify...….is anyone listening????? Either stop, or give the Admins the ability to turn it off globally. Is that a clear enough request!!

Cortney Ofstad · January 29

Hi @khallvensure — thanks for taking the time to share your input on this. I apologize for any continued hassle that this has caused. While there is not a way to turn off the notifications from your employees at this time, your feedback and concerns have been shared with the team for future consideration and updates.

khallvensure · January 29

@Cortney Ofstad You just made my point.....again. Expensify is NOT listening, and they do not intend on listening. It is time for action, and NOT sharing my feedback and concerns. You and the rest of the Expensify team have seen the requests made by me and many others and have refused to do anything about it. Shame on you!!

JBrannon · January 29

Perhaps if Expensify does not want to listen, we all need to posting reviews online. If other companies are made aware of the issue of SPAM emails going to their employees AND not have the ability to turn them off, then they may decide to go elsewhere. May I suggest Google reviews and Yelp to start. If our company would have known this was going to happen, they would have looked elsewhere.

Julia · January 29

@khallvensure I tried emailing the CEO, along with a few higher ups in Marketing at Expensify.

They have a filter on that automatically blocks emails and sends them back.

Currently I've taken to twitter out of a lack of other options. I'm considering contacting their angel investors and venture capital firm, although I'd rather not because it'd involve calling in a few favors that I don't want to burn.

Julia · January 29

I guess what's most concerning to me, is that some of the tactics and behaviors used seem to go against the FTC's CAN-SPAM act and guidelines.

Aside from being transparent and ethical as a company because it's the right thing to do, there are also certain legal obligations a company has to uphold when marketing it's products. I'm not a legal expert, but some of this is definitely tip toeing in the murky gray area. Curious as to other's thoughts and perspectives.

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

· Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.

The message on the Expensify landing page is confusing for our employees, and makes it appear as though we are asking them for their information so that we can give them the new Expensify card. In turn, these actions (which only allow the user to email the admin, or ‘ask them in person’, no clear opt out at all) trigger an unsolicited email to the administrators of our Expensify account. The header information is misleading because my employees don’t even have the option to opt out, and don’t realize they’re emailing us.

Here are a couple examples of dozens of the types of emails my employees are inadvertently sending:

___________________________________________________________

From: (redacted for privacy)

Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2020 4:02:48 PM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

To: Expenses

Subject: Please stop advertising your credit card. I...

Please stop advertising your credit card. I simply want to submit my expenses. Thanks!

---

(redacted for [email protected])has requested an Expensify Card, click here to set their card up!

If you haven't heard yet the Expensify Card is the world's smartest corporate card with the highest spend and safest limits, guarded by our industry-first daily settlement and realtime compliance features.

_______________________________________________________________________________

From: (redacted for privacy)

Sent: Friday, January 17, 2020 9:59:57 AM (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

To: Expenses

Subject: dont need one

dont need one

---

(redacted for [email protected])

has requested an Expensify Card, click here to set their card up!

If you haven't heard yet the Expensify Card is the world's smartest corporate card with the highest spend and safest limits, guarded by our industry-first daily settlement and realtime compliance features.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

· Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.

Where should I send your Expensify Card?

This is extremely deceptive. I didn't receive a lot of the marketing directly, but I'm curious as to what others may have received?

· Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.

You are not clearly displaying this as an ad, which makes our users believe we as a company are asking them to take action.

· Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. Creative use of type size, color, and location can improve clarity. Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.

There is no option to opt out, only to unsubscribe from some emails. But we continue to get barraged with ads on the site and emails from users under false pretenses. Some of our users continue to get emails even though they opted out. Expensify says that some of the emails are already queued up and can't be stopped.

· Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request. Once people have told you they don’t want to receive more messages from you, you can’t sell or transfer their email addresses, even in the form of a mailing list. The only exception is that you may transfer the addresses to a company you’ve hired to help you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.

We've all sounded off here on the community. Given Expensify's support model, this is one of the only ways to communicate clearly with Expensify. Our feedback is consistent and united, yet it has fallen on deaf ears with minimal action. It has been over 10 days since we requested a way to opt out of advertising.

What are everyone else's thoughts or experiences with this? What action are you expecting from Expensify?

maasj · January 29

@Julia - I agree that much of the marketing around the Expensify Card has been deliberately manipulative and misleading to end users. You expect that from advertisers, but not from a vendor that you're already paying handsomely.

Spam accusations probably won't go far because the emails aren't unsolicited in the sense that they're being sent to people who are already using the system. The users (or the users' employer) initiated a business relationship with Expensify.

But the fact that you and others feel like the relationship with Expensify has turned adversarial should be a wake-up call to them. It's not a good long-term business strategy to pester, annoy, and fight with your paying customers.

Ironically, the Expensify Card does sound like a legitimately nice product as the Expensify support reps are quick to point out. It's too bad that they've botched the roll-out with enterprise customers so badly. They should treat us admins at enterprise customers as partners to work with, not as budget managers to be strong-armed into buying something we don't need or aren't ready for.

It's pretty clear from this thread that Expensify has a whole class of customers that are companies, not end users. And the free-wheeling early days method of convincing low-level employees to beg their company leaders to start using Expensify is not helpful to that class of customers. In fact, it's distasteful and bothersome to those customers. We're paying Expensify in order to make our lives easier, not harder. Don't screw up job #1, Expensify.

M_W · January 29

I don't have much to add to this thread that hasn't already been said. The customer frustration and tone deaf responses from Expensify speaks volumes. Also, I've already wasted enough time fielding questions from employees.

In addition to not using the card, this underhanded marketing approach came at a time when we're upgrading our entire Ops/Finance stack. While Expensify was in the "works fine" category. It always had problems but it worked well enough that I wasn't inclined to change things. I'm now actively looking for a replacement as I simply can't trust Expensify to not create work for me going forward.

The most disappointing part of this experience, aside from the bad-faith marketing tactics, has been the defensive, condescending and, at times, comically rude responses from the Expensify CS team. Most recently I was told that their botched outreach to my employees provided me with a "chance to re-think" my decision to not use the Expensify card.

We are certainly not the largest enterprise on the platform, so maybe Expensify doesn't care, but I will be moving ~200 users off the platform this year as a direct result of this roll-out and, more importantly, Expensify's abysmal response.

NKP · January 31

This is the first conversation about Expensify Cards that has made me feel sane.

I briefly considered the cards, but was appalled by the lack of documentation and controls and the inability to talk about the product with a human and ask probing questions about approvals, controls, etc. I decided against using the cards given that I work in a highly regulated industry and Expensify Cards basically give employees access to spend without approvals.

But what's been the most troubling to me is that as the COO I am not able to turn this feature off and continue to get requests from employees. It seems insane to me that Expensify gets to control the narrative with my employees more than I do.

I imagine you don't want each of us emailing Expensify executives daily to implement change (that's why you've created conversations like these). To demand change and product adoption through the manipulation of a client's employees is just irresponsible.

NKP · January 31

https://community.expensify.com/discussion/comment/13487#Comment_13487

This level of engagement with client users and the collection of user data seems highly suspect. I will be forwarding this on to my compliance team for vetting.

kels · January 31

What makes this issue more concerning is the fact that this post has over 900 views and almost 90 comments, it does not sit anywhere near the top of the list of "hot" or "top" discussions.... despite the frequent activity on it, much more activity than the posts that are at the top.... That just makes it all so much sketchier. Like you are trying to hide this from other users who aren't yet aware of the marketing nightmare that is the Expensify card...

Julia · January 31

Just because I know this post has a lot of like minded individuals who are subscribed for notifications, I wanted to pull an Expensify and Shamelessly plug my own post I just created.

I really don't have the time or energy to find a new expense solution, so this is my last ditch effort to be heard and for Expensify to DO SOMETHING.

https://community.expensify.com/discussion/6163/an-open-and-honest-manifesto-to-expensify-if-you-care-to-listen

Include the ability to turn off notifications/and or features for the New Expensify Card

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