Scarry

I'm new to Quicken, but a long-time user of MS Money. I've seen this happen several times, when a payee changes their address, or their name. I believe this is a function of your BANK, not of your finance software, and I'd consider it a feature of online banking. You don't have to manage such changes yourself, it's all done on the "backend".

It's your bank and the 3rd party making the changes.

Got direct deposit? Ever have them depost an incorrect amount? They go right into your account and withdraw the mistaken amount.

Lets see: My software located in my house had its program modified to reflect these changes. That scares me as if my bank can do that some thief can find a way. Its not just changed at the bank but directly in my computer. Mel

You need to get a grip on yourself.

The changes occurred at your billpayor ... then were downloaded when you did a One Step Update (online billpay has always been a two-way process, consisting of both uploads to your billpayor and downloads from your billpayor). There was no modification to your software, but to your data: modifications that do, or can, occur every time you do a download ... by your own agreement.

Your software did not have its "program modified". Your Quicken software serves as an "interface" to the bill payment mechanism at your bank, much like your web browser does for the Internet. When you use Quicken to initiate an online payment, the information for that payee is stored in two places - at the bank AND in your Quicken software. The bank stores the info so that it doesn't have to be retransmitted every time you make a payment, and to help with payment accuracy. If a payee notifies the bank that the payment address is changing, the bank updates that info on their end. The next time you sync, that address change will be reflected on your local copy of that payee. That's how MS Money works, and I assume Quicken does the same thing. It's nothing malicious, it's a convenience.

I respectfully disagree. You use the online banking features to speed up, simplify, and increase the accuracy of your bill payments. If the bank finds out today that my electric company has changed their payment address, and I have a payment to transmit tomorrow, I consider it a HUGE benefit for my bank to update my payee info immediately. Why would you want to wait a week for a letter to arrive instructing you to manually change that info?

Point taken...however I'll stick to my original statement. Your 1 day before payment change of address situation would not effect me, and is one of the reasons I don't auto bill pay thru quicken (or any other service). I have been doing this for 10+ years, without any problem, is to have all my utilities automatically drafted from my credit card. Sometimes I forget, sometimes I am out of town etc and it all happens without the need to be in front of Q to do it. When my CC billing cycle ends, I immediately confirm an auto pay thru them to be taken out on the due date, (usually 2-3 weeks away), waiting the day before, as in your example, is too risky IMHO!

We're in agreement... I do the same thing, only three of my monthly payments are done manually, everything else is a direct debit from my checking account. I was simply arguing how this payee update is a feature. That was just the first example that popped into my head.

Don't want to get way OT, but direct debit from checking is "scary" to me, once it is gone...it is gone. Auto charging to your CC would at least give you a period to fight/argue and not pay if it were in error. My bank states that errors in debits to checking is not an issue....but I do not wish to test it!

Not true.

While there may still be a TINY fraction of the old adege about possesion is 90% of the law available, the concept is pretty much dead.

If you owe the money, you owe it; if you don't owe the money, you don't owe it: and the law is fairly clear on this, I believe.

In the case of allowing your payees to take the money from your account via EFT, the laws seem very clear to me: once you tell them they can no longer do that ... they can no longer legally do that ... even if you still owe the money. You may not be able to prevent them from physically taking the money from your existing account (though you can prevent them by closing the account and opening another) - but if they are not owed the money, they will not be able to keep it.

So in the end it comes down to matters of convenience.

It is VERY convenient to allow your payee to do all the work to take the money from your account. And it is very inconvenient to have to fight your payee to get back money they took wrongly. But the first situation is probably 99% more likely than the last ... assuming you do not have criminal intent and that you keep accurate records (such as Quicken can provide).

[I had a payee take money from my bank account over a year after I had closed my account with them. But they noticed the problem within a day or so (before I did), and sent me an email saying that the mistake would be corrected automatically within 48 hours ... which it was.)

I suggest you pressure your financial institutions, AND your payees, to make "ebills" a valid method of paying bills. If ebills are properly implemented, I believe, the problems being discussed here will evaporate.

Ebills are not yet quite ready for prime time, but I think they are conceptually close. I think pressure from potential users of ebills is necessary to make them viable.

John Pollard First initial underscore Last name at mchsi dot com Please reply to newsgroup

No John I actually have a tight hold on myself. When I do a one step update all my transactions are made available for me to accept. If I see something in error I am at least now aware of it. In the case of a changed payee ,not just the payee address, I had no idea who or why it was changed nor even was made aware of it prior to looking at the transaction in the register and spotting the change. This is a open invitation for thieves to get into my account by supplying incorrect information directly to the bank. You have your view. Its convenient. I have mine. Its convenient but not properly implemented. Maybe unrelated but having had a CC card stole then fighting false charges dated 2 weeks BEFORE it was taken I am cautious. Mel

Apparently you do not understand. That is your perogative.

Your reply proves that you did not pay attention to, and/or understand, what I said: quoting my response out of context will not help your case. I explained what "once it is gone" means: now I will say it explicitly: once it is gone, it is not gone forever. Just as I said in my previous post.

You will have to provide proof of your statement, you will have to provide evidence that anyone has ever lost any money this way ... or you will have to accept that you are wrong.

You will have to provide legitimate evidence that someone who did not owe money has ever lost any money they did not owe due to any EFT withdrawal from their account.

Step up to the plate.

[And by the way, a credit card account is more risky in this respect than a bank account: even if you close a credit card account, that will not stop previously authorized EFT charges from being made to it; while if you close a bank account, no one can ever withdraw money from it using EFT.]

Quicken was updating the financial institution data, which you allow it to update.

Having said that...

In principle, I agree with you.

Quicken should present a dialog box to you, informing you of the pending change, give you the reason why, and wait for your decision to allow or cancel.

/m

I don't have to do anything ....especially for you! A credit card is a "buy-now, pay-later" tool, a debit card draws funds from your checking account. Try quoting me correctly I never did say "forever" ,i.e.( You or your bank or both have to get it back) apparently you did not understand!

I d>>> to me, once it is gone...it is gone.

What you said is just plain WRONG.

[And it doesn't matter whether it is a credit card or a debit card or an EFT: you're wrong.]

Thank you for getting my point rather than giving me details of how the system currently works. Mel