Quicken Online “Support” Chat is Awful
March 17th, 2005
I recently started using Quicken. Unfortunately, my Wachovia accounts would not import cleanly into the system. Naively, I contact Quicken’s online chat support. In 55 minutes the only thing the support moron could suggest was duplicating my problem in a new file, a bunch of crap that wasn’t true about how Quicken works, clobbering my Preferences file, and restarting Quicken. I was incensed! Here’s the chat transcript. “Austin” is clearly not his/her real name. There’s just no way that someone born with the name “Austin” would speak English so poorly. Grrr.
| System | Welcome Paco Hope … | |
| 9:00:26pm | System | Cannot Find Default String |
| 9:00:26pm | System | Connected to quicken.ehosts.net |
| 9:00:26pm | System | Initial Question/Comment: Unable to import QFX from Wachovia Bank |
| 9:00:46pm | System | Austin has joined this session! |
| 9:00:46pm | System | Connected with Austin |
| 9:00:48pm | Austin | Hi |
| 9:00:55pm | Me | hi |
| 9:00:55pm | Austin | Welcome to Quicken chat. I’ve reviewed the brief issue summary you provided. Could you provide specific details to help me better understand your situation? |
| 9:01:14pm | Me | i go to Wachovia’s online site and download my transactions |
| 9:01:34pm | Me | Quicken says “Quicken is currently unable to verify the financial institution information for this download. please try again later” |
| 9:02:08pm | Me | This happens if I download many accounts’ transactions in one QFX file, or if I download just one accounts’ transactions. |
| 9:03:18pm | Me | thoughts? |
| 9:03:26pm | Austin | Thank you for the details |
| 9:03:31pm | Austin | May I ask since when you are facing this problem? |
| 9:04:33pm | Me | I have had Quicken 05 for the Mac for about 2 months. I never used Quicken before February 2005. My Wachovia accounts have always had this problem during that time. |
| 9:05:03pm | Me | My accounts with SunTrust (checking/money market) and Bank One (credit cards) have all worked all that time. |
| 9:05:24pm | Me | My accounts with Wachovia are checking, money market, and lines of credit. |
| 9:06:07pm | Me | If I open the QFX file, here’s some of the stuff I see. It looks like a sort of XML format. |
| 9:06:29pm | Me |
OFXHEADER:100 DATA:OFXSGML VERSION:102 SECURITY:NONE ENCODING:USASCII CHARSET:1252 COMPRESSION:NONE OLDFILEUID:NONE NEWFILEUID:NONE <OFX> <SIGNONMSGSRSV1> <SONRS> <STATUS> <CODE>0 <SEVERITY>INFO </STATUS> <DTSERVER>20050318015702 <LANGUAGE>ENG |
| 9:06:58pm | Me | Here’s the bits that are probably most relevant: |
| 9:07:13pm | Me |
<FI> <ORG>Wachovia <FID>WEBPFM </FI> <SESSCOOKIE>OFX_062857032570170250139 <INTU.BID>4309 |
| 9:07:26pm | Me | That’s Intuit’s bank identifier. |
| 9:09:18pm | Austin | Please create a new file ( file > new file ) there setup a new account with the bank and then download the Qfx file to desktop save it there , open the program , go to File > import > web connect and import the file into the program . |
| 9:09:32pm | Me | Ok. just a minute. |
| 9:10:44pm | Me | Same error. “Quicken is currently unable to verify the financial institution information for this download. Please try again later. |
| 9:11:10pm | Me | The “Online Update Status” dialog box is still on the screen behind that error message. |
| 9:12:31pm | Austin | Well, in that case you need to contact the bank on this as the bank is rejecting the request that you are sending to the bank sever . |
| 9:12:47pm | Me | you don’t understand |
| 9:12:51pm | Me | I’m not contacting the bank. |
| 9:13:00pm | Me | I have downloaded the transactions to a QFX file. |
| 9:13:22pm | Me | That “Online Update Status” is a connection to Intuit, isn’t it? |
| 9:15:29pm | Austin | Right .. I can understand that ….. yes the file is downloaded to the desktop from the bank web site but the main connection to the bank web sever is made when you try to get the file into the program . |
| 9:16:07pm | Me | No, that’s only when you choose “download transactions,” isn’t it? |
| 9:17:34pm | Me | Import web connect is all about importing files. |
| 9:17:50pm | Me | I’m running a packet sniffer on my system to see what my machine connects to. |
| 9:18:11pm | Me | It doesn’t try to connect to Wachovia (or Intuit…). It just immediately says it cannot process the file. |
| 9:19:12pm | Austin | May I ask when exactly you are getting this message ? |
| 9:20:11pm | Me | I click File -> Import Web Connect… The “Online Update Status” message appears. It pauses 1 or 2 seconds, then I get the error. |
| 9:20:57pm | Me | At that time, my computer makes an encrypted connection to ofx-prod-brand.intuit.com. I don’t know what goes on back and forth between the two computers. |
| 9:21:07pm | Me | After the connection is done, I get the error. |
| 9:23:46pm | Austin | May I ask if you are getting the same error in new file also , then you need to contact your bank and check if there sever are having some issue or not |
| 9:24:23pm | Austin | Since as your have correctly mentioned …… “Online Update Status after this the message appears |
| 9:24:46pm | Me | How many times do I have to tell you that it has nothing to do with the bank’s server! |
| 9:24:57pm | Me | It does happen when I create a new file. |
| 9:25:22pm | Me | When I create a new file, and I try to import a QFX file from my hard disk (not from the bank server), I get this message. |
| 9:25:40pm | Me | When my computer is doing the Online status update, it is talking to INTUIT, not to Wachovia. |
| 9:26:18pm | Me | INTUIT keeps information about the various banks, and I have to keep my copy of Quicken up to date by downloading that information |
| 9:26:25pm | Me | That’s what the Online Status Update is. |
| 9:26:51pm | Me | The problem is that, despite the fact that I’m getting information from Intuit, Quicken still cannot understand these files. |
| 9:32:10pm | Austin | May I ask what is the OS you are working on ? |
| 9:32:29pm | Me | Macintosh. OS X 10.3.8. all updates and patches applied. |
| 9:32:47pm | Me | I already said that twice. |
| 9:35:17pm | Austin | 1) Open the Users folder on your Mac OS X hard drive. 2) Open the Library folder in the Active User Name folder, and then open the Preferences folder. 3) Drag all files named either Intuit Online preferences or Quicken preferences to the Trash |
| 9:35:45pm | Me | hmmm |
| 9:35:48pm | Me | ok |
| 9:35:51pm | Me | just a minute |
| 9:36:43pm | Austin | Sure. |
| 9:38:35pm | Me | ok. I had a Quicken 2005 Preferences. It was zero bytes in size, but I trashed it anyways. |
| 9:38:44pm | Me | Now I’m creating a new file and trying to import the QFX file. |
| 9:39:32pm | Me | Same error. unable to verify the financial institution information for this download. |
| 9:40:39pm | Austin | May I ask if you have Quicken installation disk with you at the moment ? |
| 9:41:03pm | Me | I downloaded from the intuit web site. I do have the file, yes. |
| 9:42:33pm | Austin | I would request you to close and open Quicken again and check if you are getting the same error or not . |
| 9:42:59pm | Me | I did that. I closed quicken, trashed the preferences file, then I restarted it. |
| 9:43:14pm | Me | After restarting it, I created a new file, and tried File -> import web connect |
| 9:46:59pm | Me | in case you wonder, I have updated Quicken with the R2 updater, also. |
| 9:48:25pm | Me | the intuit support web site appears to be down right now, too. |
| 9:48:30pm | Me | Whee! |
| 9:49:35pm | Austin | Yes , that is fine the steps , that you are taking and we took some extra steps also … but since you are getting the same error when you try to send the file into the program. |
| 9:50:58pm | Austin | Please contact your financial institution for support on this issue. The cause and solution for your issue are beyond the scope of my access or resources. If you prefer, you and your financial institution can conference call Quicken phone support for assistance. Quicken phone support can be reached at – (800) 811-8766. We would be happy to work with you and our FI partner in resolving your issue. |
| 9:51:22pm | Me | fine |
Notice how much of the technical detail is mine. I know more about this stupid program than he/she did! The last paragraph was clearly copied and pasted because its grammar was correct and it was long. This person clearly had no typing skills and could never have typed that so fast by hand.
It’s infuriating!
The same thing keeps happening to me and when I discussed it with my bank (Citibank) and they tried everything but came to the conclusion the the software is just not reading it. This makes me wonder if the programers did this on purpose to force people to use their online service to get more money out of its costumers…. I have been trying to work around this since early March….
In all honesty, I suspect that you are dealing with a technical support person who is pressing function keys that have Macros associated with them. The messages seem very, very generic.
In a call center, most of the callers are people who don’t understand how the program works, and most of the operators are just low-wage earners who have no clue how the system works.
The trick is to work your way up the chain, however that’s often where companies end the “free” support.
This is fundamentally why I have big issues with people feeling secure that they have a corporate solutions to fall back on.
For instance, I worked at a company that produced some really fine quality software (honest!) — we made a good portion of our revenue by selling support contracts that we knew no one would ever need to collect. I can only think of two occasions we ever went to the customer site — flying there on a day’s notice was lost in the noise of all the money we raked in. Furthermore, we knew the problem wasn’t our system, but wanted to provide a stellar performance so we’d get famous word-of-mouth stories out there about us; additionally, we used the opportunity to up sell since they were so happy.
Conversely, I remember the call center at GEnie, which would field questions like “I just bought a keyboard and plugged in to the phone line, but I can’t sign on.” And the support person would ask, “what’s it say on your screen?” And the response would be “I need a screen?” Apparently the guy figured if a keyboard had an RJ11 jack, it went in the wall directly. Call centers deal with people that aren’t that bright.
So, did you ever get a solution? I am having the same problem.
Your bank doesn’t support Quicken Mac. There’s a fairly good post about this on the TidBITS forum:
http://emperor.tidbits.com/webx?14@703.81MLabYL2DS.0@.3c55bf45/22
“…Intuit charges…institutions separately for
Windows and Mac QFX certification. (Hence the lack of Mac support at
some institutions.) This despite the fact that QFX/OFX is an XML
formatted text file, and is no different between the two platforms.”
I can verify that by editing the sign-on data in the QFX that’s downloaded from Citibank Direct Access (which is not Mac certified) with a working source (for example, Citibank’s Account Online site for CitiCard users which *is* Mac certified), that the mysterious error message goes away and everything imports just fine. I’ve been doing it for months now.
The whole situation is completely bogus, and IMHO should be illegal. It’s just a big Intuit scam on the banks to get them to pay twice.
How can get quicken 2001 basic write to f drive and g drive when I am backing up my files
I couldn’t agree with you more. This is the most unhelpful company I have ever dealt with. They refuse to register Quicken Personal which I have paid for and do not answer the phone when you ring. My recommendation? Don’t EVER buy a Quicken product.
hate quicken and have gone back to excel…