CitiBank Shell Mastercard : Quicken (2009 Deluxe)

Anything from Citibank will not surprise me.  I no longer have a Shell
Credit Card, but I have a MasterCard issued by Citibank that does NOT
EVEN HAVE ONLINE access.  The card is Citibank and it is not affiliated
with anything.  When I call they say, "the series of cards do not have
online access available and we will let you know when it becomes
available".  So basically, I never used the card and I guess they will
eventually close it for no activity.

Oilcan

-----Original Message-----
From: PeterH [mailto:PeterH@noname.com]
Posted At: Monday, March 02, 2009 8:52 AM
Posted To: alt.comp.software.financial.quicken
Conversation: CitiBank Shell Mastercard : Quicken (2009 Deluxe)
Subject: CitiBank Shell Mastercard : Quicken (2009 Deluxe)

Evidently Shell (or CitiBank) has eliminated the ability to use
one-step update to download transactions to this account as of this
weekend. I have talked to four different people and gotten at least
three different answers, two of which indicate that this service is no
longer available. I keep getting an OL-301-A error.

Can anyone verify this for me? I cannot believe that Citi and/or Shell
would cut out as many users as Quicken must have.

They do tell me that I can go to their website and manually download
transactions... or manually enter transactions.

Just doesn't seem right to me.

TIA for any further info...

Peter

since the take-over of Citigroup by the US gov't I would expect more
problems, not fewer.

scott s.
.

I don't have a Shell card, but I do have a CitiBank MasterCard. I tried
it, and it just updated with no problem.

When I've had 301 errors for one FI, I've disabled online services for
the account, then enabled the service again. That has cleared up some
problems. The other solution is wait a few days, and see if it starts
working again.

One other alternative.... For gas purchases, I use the Discover Gas
Card. It gives a 5% rebate on gas and auto purchases. It works fine on
One Step Update.

--
Jim

QD 2009 downloads transactions from my Citi Diamond card just fine.

That said Citi can adjust the features associated with a given type of card at
any time. Given that Intuit does charge Citi for this feature and the financial
state that Citi is in, it wouldn't surprise me...

Why they hell would Intuit do that?  It seems backwards to me.  Intuit gets
the business for this service, not the CC company.  It seems like CC
companies should be charging Intuit since this is only a money maker for
Intuit.  Is there something about the business model I don't understand?

As for the outtage, it is affecting me as well.  I have the Citi Shell
Mastercard.  I enjoy this feature so I can spot fraudulent or incorrect
charges immediately instead of waiting until the end of the monthly cycle to
get the statement from Citi.  Yes, I know I can log into each website for
each financial institution I have to accomplish the same.  I won't because
that's too much effort.  Maybe I should consider another card.  Another
poster said Discover gives 5% back on all gas?

Scott

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009 05:41:09 -0700, "Scott Lindner"


Scott, did you, per chance, call Citi (shell) to verify that the
service has been terminated? Yesterday, before I started this thread,
I had gotten several answers from several different people. It would
be interesting if you got a different reply.

I did get the 301 error again this morning.

PeterH

No, I haven't and with my experience with Citi calling them has no bearing
on the outcome or actual policies held by Citibank.  Very long story there.
To summarize I got nailed by tons of fees when we bought our home.  I had
worked with Citi closely to ensure I understood the policies and fee
structure.  I called a second person to double verify everything.  I still
got sacked with $100s in fees because they didn't understand and Citi will
not stand by what their staff tell you.  They said I should have verified it
with a second person.  They were shocked when I told them I had and said I
should have verified with a third then.  So I have come to the conclusion
that staff at Citi are not relevant and should be fired.  They add no value
unless it is a deliberate deception to pile on fees to their customers.
That's the short version of it, but at least you know why I'm not going to
bother calling them.

It's only going to get worse now the government has their fingers in this
thing.  Only upside is it would look bad for Citi to fail with the
government's huge stake in it, so Citi is probably the safety bank to be
with these days.

Scott

Yep. Intuit uses a proprietary protocol for the one step update process. Your
bank has to buy the right to offer that protocol between the bank's computer and
your computer. That's how Intuit makes money.

Apparently Citi has decided for certain credit card products that it isn't worth
paying Intuit for the license.Since Citi knows exactly how many people have a
given card type and how many people actually use the feature, it's probably a
pretty easy call for them.

Thanks to everyone who responded to this thread.

Looks like I am going to hang up my CityBank Shell card. My Costco
Amex card gives me 2% or 3% (I can't remember which) cash rebate
useable at Costco at the end of each year... and, frankly, I don't
drive too much anyway.

If anyone gets better news about City/Shell/Quyicken, I'd appreciate a
heads up at thankgodforpeter at comcast dot net. (email addy given to
me by the family of the lady who has MS that I care for).  :-)

Thanks again, all...

PeterH

My ExxonMobil Mastercard (Citi Card) also stopped working for
Quicken this last weekend.  I called and they said that Quicken is no
longer supported.  They don't even have a way to do a manual
download to Quicken on their new website.

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009 14:50:17 -0500, "John"


So be it. CitiCards get put in the safety deposit box and taken out
for emergency use only!

Thanks to all who followed this thread. I just wanted to make sure
that I was given good info...

PeterH

I feel the same way.  I have caught and fought several erroneous charges
within 24 hours because of this feature, without it security has been
reduced significantly.  Soo.. I am looking for a new card.

Scott

Scott,

If you are a member of Costco, get their Amex card. It gives you 3% to
1% rebate on everything you spend (3% on gasoline & restaurants, 2% on
travel, and 1% everywhere else). It gives you a voucher each year for
the "earned amount" which is good only at Costco. Funny thing is that
I took my voucher there yesterday... bought nothing, and they gave me
my $100.74 in cold, hard cash. Will pay for an extra night in the
hotel when my significant other and I go to a seminar for a weekend in
May. And I'll get an extra 2% on that, too!

Not a bad deal, in my opinion. I have also stopped using my United
Mileage Plus card (Chase)... and will give it up next year ($60 annual
fee) as I have several round trip airline tickets "in the bank" and
can never find a flight that has an open, "free,"  seat for Mileage
Plus members.

Food for thought!

PeterH

On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 06:46:48 -0700, "Scott Lindner"

I have the Costco Amex card, and use it often.

But the Discover Gas Card (now called Discover Open Road Card) gives 5%
rebate on your first $100 in gas and auto maintenance purchases each
month. You can claim the rebate from the Discover web page whenever you
accumulate $20.00.

--
Jim

JimH said
 

Does the "Discover Open Road Card" work with Quicken Direct Connect?

Best regards

Yes. It works great.

--
Jim

I currently use the Costco AmEx but it isn't nearly as good of a deal as the
Citi on gasoline.  Plus, you need to wait a full year to get that refund
with the AmEx and make a special trip to get the cash.  Which is more time,
more money (fuel), and additional time to deposit into a bank which adds up
to the benefit being eroded due to the gasoline and lost interest earned.

I might still use the Citi because the interest earned is better for
gasoline purchases, and the cash back on gasoline and other is returned
automatically, immediately, and without hassle.  As long as I catch the
error within the month I'm fine. It just seems like they are screwing
themselves on security.  Catching things quickly helps them more than it
helps me.

Scott

d

In Quickden there is a way to update credit cards and bank accounts
(say once a week) that are not supported by Quicken web connect or
direct connect (QFX) as long as QIF downloads are still available from
the financial institution.  It is a little cumbersome, but it works
with Citi Shell cards for example.

Step 1. Create a new account in Quicken in a non-banking category such
as "Investment" or "Asset" for which QIF imports are allowed. (Click
on file>import to see if QIF is an option.  Name this account "landing
strip" or "temporary" or anything to suggest it is a "holding spot"
for imports.  The reason for creating a new account is that Quicken no
longer allows importing QIF files into banking accounts, but does
allow it into non-banking accounts.  Of course you could keep the
account in question as a not-banking account but that messes up the
proper categories of your assets as seen in Quicken.

Step 2.  Go to the web site of the credit card or bank and download
the transactions as a QIF file.  For help on this step, see "import
data into Quicken" in Quicken Help.

Step 3. Import the QIF transactions into the new holding spot.  Then
select the transactions you wish to save and move them into the
correct account with edit>transaction>move transaction(s).

Step 4.  Delete any duplicate transactions from the holding spot in
order maintain the correct total for your net worth.

While I have use this method to download Citi Shell data after direct
connect stopped working, I will soon replace my Citi Shell card with a
Bank of America Business Visa card that gives 5% discount on gas
purchases.  The downside is that you have to accumulate about 5000 or
10000 points before redeeming points.

I'll look at that. Thank you.

In the meantime, I am using my Shell card ONLY for gasoline at Shell
stations (for my car) and am making the entries manually. If I filled
my car several times a day/week such as a limo or taxi driver must,
this would be a cumbersome option. I really only fill my car once a
week at the most... my significant other is disabled and we use her
van most of the time. Guess my laziness is hanging out!

Thanks much for the info.

PeterH

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