I can no longer sync my USAA checking and credit card accounts with Quicken. A message from Quicken itself informed me that USAA has changed its communications methods.
Some instructions were offered which failed. A call to the USAA toll-free phone number also failed, but not before I spent several minutes navigating a maze of computer voices. This is the worst USAA performance to date.
Anyway, does anyone know if USAA is switching to the bad communications method? I don't remember the Quicken terminology for this, what I mean is that you give out your login credentials once, and then unknown service providers retain it for use later, and forever.
Per my other post, the process is cumbersome, but does work. Points to keep in mind - your new Quicken credential is NOT the same as your web logon credential. USAA, like many other companies, has moved to an application specific credential.
Basically
- turn off online access for ALL your USAA accounts.
- Click on the link to request a Quicken access key and PIN. You will need to log into USAA with your regular USAA credentials
- Reenable online access using your new USAA Quicken credential
- Link your USAA accounts to your Quicken accounts
It would have been nice if USAA had created a help page or banner with a link to the Quicken credential page.
Considering that the problem only lingered for a day or two before having a solution, I'd say both USAA and Quicken did a pretty good job. It might have been possible to reduce the downtime, if USAA had gotten with Quicken a bit earlier, but that's just conjecture on my part as I have no idea when they did get together.
The instructions that were originally offered in the Quicken Community did work (I had no problem at all deactivating/re-activating my USAA accounts using those instructions) - nor was I the only one. There is a subtlety or two that could trip a user up, and Quicken could have made the instructions a bit clearer for those subtleties.
One subtlety which seemed to stump many users who had problems (but which should not have) was that the fix required using a new financial institution name for USAA.
The original USAA financial institution name was, "USAA Federal Savings Bank". The new USAA financial institution name is, "USAA Federal Savings Bank - New".
Users seemed to assume that they could simply click on the USAA icon in the Add Account dialog without checking to see what specific financial institution name that icon utilized. After one of those icons in the Add Account dialog is clicked and the user gets to the subsequent dialog that asks for the user-id and password, the actual name of the chosen financial institution will be displayed. The users who did not carefully note which financial institution name they were entering logon credentials for, typically ended up trying to re-activate their accounts with the old USAA financial institution name ... which clearly was not going to work.
Given that there are only 10 financial institution icons in the Add Account dialog - while there are some 14,000 financial institutions who allow some type of download to Quicken, most users should already have been aware that when there is no icon for the desired financial institution, the user must locate the correct financial institution name by keying text in the Add Account "Search" box. Doing that (keying "usaa" in the Add Account search box) for this problem would have displayed both the old USAA financial institution name and the new USAA financial institution name, allowing the user to select the correct financial institution name and continue the process of re-activating their USAA accounts.
Another subtlety overlooked, was that the OL-220 problem only affected accounts using the Direct Connect Connection Method. Loan accounts do not (can not) use the Direct Connect Connection method, so they should not have been de-activated.
You can safely assume that when you re-activate your USAA accounts, they will still be utilizing Direct Connect (the best Connection Method available).
[Actually, I believe that all USAA accounts currently ONLY utilize Direct Connect, except loan accounts. USAA once allowed Express Web Connect for all their non-investment accounts, but I believe they no longer all Express Web Connect ... it is too unreliable.]
[There may have been other difficulties involved, I'm not claiming the two noted above constitute an exhaustive list.]
The USAA icon in the Quicken Add Account dialog has now been changed so it chooses the new USAA name (USAA Federal Savings Bank - New) instead of the old USAA financial institution name.
There is a newer set of instructions for the USAA OL-220 fix found here:
formatting link
[FWIW: The instructions in the above link call for the user to blank out the existing financial institution name in the Edit Account Details dialog for the deactivated accounts. I'm not certain that is necessary; I never blanked out the old USAA financial institution name when re-activating my USAA accounts. But blanking out that name should pretty much guarantee that the re-activation will not fail to solve the problem due to an incorrect financial institution name.]
USAA users may also want to read, and bookmark, this Community announcement:
[Actually, I believe that all USAA accounts currently ONLY utilize Direct Connect, except loan accounts. USAA once allowed Express Web Connect for all their non-investment accounts, but I believe they no longer ALLOW Express Web Connect ... it is too unreliable.]
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