Ask HN: whither Billmonk?

Thanks for posting this question here kgrin. I'm one of the co-founders of BillMonk, and like you, am disappointed to see that the service is down without any warning or follow up information.<p>I haven't been at Obopay since late 2007, so don't have much knowledge about how BillMonk is being handled today. However I reached out the company and will be speaking with them this week. I can't promise that there will be any sort of resolution, but I will strongly encourage the company to (a) clearly communicate to users about what's happening with the service on the BillMonk blog (outage or shut down), and (b) if the plan is in fact to shut down BillMonk, to provide users with a way to export their data.<p>Please check the BillMonk blog (<a href="http://blog.billmonk.com" rel="nofollow">http://blog.billmonk.com</a>) over the next week or two for updates - hopefully the company will post an update there. I'll also monitor this post to answer any follow up questions.

Thank god for the cache.<p>If you grep through your cache files for "layout.addDataset", that line of code is what draws the pie chart of what you're owed on your dash.<p>That page is likely to have your biggest debts and loans. Good Luck.

I was an active, very satisfied Billmonk user with 9 or 10 friends. It was aggravating when Billmonk started choking; worse still when the degradation made the app more or less unusable.<p>If you're in the same boat, we've since moved to <a href="http://www.splitmybill.ie" rel="nofollow">http://www.splitmybill.ie</a> -- a service that has more or less duplicated Billmonk's use cases. Very basic, but meets our needs.

I just received word...<p>"We just received the latest word that BillMonk is targeted to be back up and operational by Monday (9/20/2010) afternoon. We have done some upgrades and modifications to the software that will make it better than before."

I don't really care if billmonk comes back up or not, as long as I'm given back my data! There are umpteen number of sites out there which provide a similar (and now I can say, more reliable) service....

Unfortunate...<p>I've noticed they've been more and more unrealiable over the last few months - i.e. random fatal errors, recurring bills going weeks without occurring.<p>I even recently started developing a clone for my flatmates and I to use in Django, shame it couldn't wait until it was ready :)

My friends and I have been happily using Mr. Moneybags for some time now. Give it a try:<p><a href="http://itunes.apple.com/app/mr-moneybags-iou/id342122272?mt=8" rel="nofollow">http://itunes.apple.com/app/mr-moneybags-iou/id342122272?mt=...</a>

Although it's not really under development anymore (due to lack of time), <a href="http://billpad.com" rel="nofollow">http://billpad.com</a> is another alternative.<p>[Disclosure: I'm one of the founders of BillPad]

<a href="http://billmonk.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/billmonk-now-on-twitter/#comment-37419" rel="nofollow">http://billmonk.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/billmonk-now-on-twi...</a><p>A comment has been posted on their blog.

It was up for a little while this morning and I was able to get a screenshot of the front page (so I know totals) but I couldn't download the actual transactions. Back down again.

I am in the same boat. Though the site has been unstable for a while it totally died today. @goberoi please convince them to let users export all the transactions. Thanks

They got bought by obopay.com in 2007, so you could try contacting Billmonk through them. Both their blog and twitter (@BillmonkFriends) are long dead.

Hmmm... I actually just loaded billmonk.com last night after a couple of years of not checking on it and it loaded fine. Today, no dice.

I would gladly pay to use this service. Maybe they should monetize it with a subscription service.