Wachovia lies about their support of Quicken

Can't help you with Wachovia ... but is AmSouth bank in your market?

Free checking (for age 50+), free Direct Connect, free bill pay from within Quicken ... need I say more?

I'm extremely satisfied with them since I dumped Union Planters/Regions a month ago.

AmSouth is a really good choice. Have never had any kind of problem. They go out of their way to be helpful. Bob

Don wrote in news:12mp81p0i3j9k9ldp9duokauis1nd5gtjv@

4ax.com:

I've been a customer of Wachovia ever since they bought First Union, which bought First Fidelity, which bought the local bank I've been using for 30+ years. Quicken works seamlessly with all my Wachovia accounts -- checking, money market and home equity line of credit.

The one problem I've had with them is that sometimes the staff in the local branch isn't up on the latest technology. More than once I've asked a teller or branch manager a question and received wrong information.

I'd suggest that before you abandon Wachovia you call their main support folks at 1-800-WACHOVIA. I've always had very good luck dealing with them, including technical issues related to Quicken.

Many people are ignorant about the Internet. People working at financial institutions are particularly ignorant IMHO. Often when you say "Online bill payment" they hear "... through our web site". No, no, NO! I want it through Quicken - without having to go to a web site, relearn anything that they've changed (happens often), find the login page, remember my username and password for this institution, login, relearn anything they've changed here, create payees as needed, deal with the limitations of this bank's website design, etc. and then have to repeat this for each and every financial institution that I deal with! What a bother!

So one needs to be very careful and very specific about their desire to use online banking from directly within Quicken without having to side step into a browser. I am always very clear about this and when the bank rep stares at me like a deer in the head lights I move on to the next, hopefully more intelligent business. And I always make sure that it's clearly known why I'm leaving.

I would call back the people you talked to and get their promises applied to your parents account. Keep escalating your issue until you get satisfied resolution.

On Thu 19 May 2005 02:16:11p, danbrown wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Same here, try also Bank One (being changed the Chase) and National City if they are in your market.

You are absolutely right about their complete lack of knowledge. I even had a manager of their online support group who simply couldn't understand how paying a bill through quicken is better than logging onto their website and using their online bill pay. I guess I've raised enough hell at Wachovia that a "regional service leader" called me and said she found out the reason I can't use quicken for paying bills is due to some big merger with Sun Trust and that they aren't sure when it will be done. Does this mean that thousands of Wachovia customers used to using quicken are about to find out all this? Or does anyone at Wachovia actually know what is going on.

Don

My suspicion: Given that 1) people don't understand exactly what the Internet is and 2) often feel if it ain't a web page then it's not the Internet (wrong!) and given the popularity of designing web sites and using/learning new technologies such as WebLogic, Java Server Pages, SOAP, C#, etc it's been my experience that financial institutions tend to want to make web applications and feel that that is a good way to provide service to their customers. However, they think with the mindset of only their customers. But customers may very well have many financial institutions that they deal with. I know I do, perhaps you do too. The key to making them understand your situation as a customer is to let them know that while a web based banking site is perhaps cool, try multiplying that, along with all of the little steps required, etc 10 fold!

And as has been noted here banks buy banks buy banks and not all banks do things the same way. I suspect that providing truly integrated and truly direct connection between a bank and Quicken, while better integrated and convenient for the customer, is probably harder to do and more expensive for the bank. So I gather that many of them opt out of that solution and instead implement their own web application with the myopic view of only their customers who, of course, only bank with them (again - wrong!). Another reason they might do this is to be able to say "me too" when a potential customer inquires if they support "online banking" - IOW a check off item.

So then bank 1 buys bank 2 they are faced with integrating their new acquisition they may be facing integrating two different web apps or perhaps an direct connect style of online banking with a non-direct connect style of banking.

Although banks and other companies like to think they are Internet savvy and attempt to prove so by using the "latest and greatest" there are tried and true methods to "doing it right" and alas they don't have enough vision for that. The right way to do such a thing - integrating dissimilar back end systems - is to come up with an agreed upon standard and then stick to it! This is, after all, how email, the web, news, etc works - through standard protocols. This way the back end (i.e. the banks systems) need only produce their data in the standard protocol and the front end (i.e. Quicken, MS Money or whatever) need only consume the standard protocol. Intuit, Microsoft and others attempted to do this with OFX but although OFX works and some use it their vision has failed largely because instead of providing standard OFX the bank reinvents the wheel in the form of a web page.

-- Note - Remove the X from my e-mail address for direct replies

I'm actually on the phone with them once again trying to work this out. Now this guy tells me he can turn it on where I can pay bills through quicken ..... but that was taken away from new customers in March. After I explained that the Wachovia clearly states you can pay bills either through quicken or through their website and that both are fully supported. I got him to look at that web page and he has now had a change of heart and is getting me set up. I guess if you beg and scream a little someone listens. Hands down this is the only person I've talked to today at Wachovia online support desk that seems to know what he is doing. Unfortunately it isn't taking the new pin and he thinks it has to wait until the updates are processed later tonight. So I'll start this process again but I think Wachovia may in fact give us what they promised. But make no bones about it they are going way out of their way to stop new customers from paying bills through quicken. Glad I was persistent.

By the way Andrew I couldn't help but burst out laughing when I read your last post. It is so true that I just had to laugh.

I'm sure you are right. But as of March 2005 they aren't allowing quicken customers to pay their bills through quicken. Just their online bill pay at wachovia.com. Getting this turned on for my parents is like pulling teeth but I am making progress.

Be forewarned: It is very possibly that Wachovia is headed in the direction of only web site banking. Why else would they be shutting off the new customers? As such do you really want to stay with them?

I am the way, the truth! ;-)

WTG! Persistance certainly does pay off.

BTW, when we set up our online banking access (at work) it took 24-48 hours for the access to actually be enabled.

This has been reported here about Wachovia before ... as pertaining to new customers. And it is also true for USAA, except, as far as I know, USAA no longer allows any customers to initiate bill-pay via Quicken.

I have no problem if a bank doesn't want to support bill pay via quicken. But they shouldn't tell me they do after I asked the employee to verify that with their boss. Both of them said they do. Their website says they do. Then when you open the account you find out the real truth. Wachovia should do better than this.

Can you provide a link to where they say that they support bill pay via quicken? I see their free bill pay statement but no where do I see quicken even mentioned.

No problem. If you go to

You will see the following bullet point:

"One-time payment instructions are shared between Wachovia Online BillPay via the Internet and Quicken Windows. Wachovia?s Online BillPay is one convenient service with two access channels. "

Note: The two access channels they are talking about is payment of bills online through their website or via quicken.

If you go to

You will see where Wachovia tells you how to set up an online payee in quicken.

"Step 1: Set Up an Online Payee

1. Choose Cash Flow menu > Online Payees List. 2. Click New. 3. Enter the name for this payee. 4. Enter a note for this payee (optional). 5. Enter the account number for this payee. 6. Enter the phone number for this payee. 7. Click OK.

Note:

• You must set up a payee before you can send an online payment to that payee. * Compare your payee information now and then with a recent statement from your payee to make sure that you still have the correct address and account number."

For those who are watching this tread:

After spending most of yesterday on the phone with Wachovia and calling all the way up the food chain near the top of the company I now have the ability to pay bills through Quicken. I'm not happy that it took this much effort to get the result I was promised verbally and online.

Note: Wachovia's online support center is hands down the worst I've dealt with. Between my parents and myself we are dealing with over 12 financial institutions. Wachovia wins the prize for the worst support I've seen. It is so bad that I had to explain at times the difference between paying a bill through quicken and paying a bill through their website. With that said I got VERY lucky and found one guy in support who totally got it. He got me all fixed up even though he said he wasn't supposed to be doing this with new customers. If and when Wachovia turns this ability off I will move on to another bank. The techie said they have no plans to turn it off for existing customers but that they didn't want new customers using it when they have a website that does basically the same thing. Like Andrew said in an earlier post ..... banks seem to think they are our only bank and that we don't use others. I'd hate to have to log onto 12 websites to do all this when one click in quicken will do the same thing. Time will tell what happens with Wachovia going forward. As a test to make sure things truly work I sent myself a $20 check from my parents account. It is due on 5/26. We shall see.

Don

Those not watching this thread are probably not reading this thread! :-)

I must question you: Why then deal with this financial institution at all?

With most financial institutions that I've dealt with you have to explain that. If we could liken website banking to Windows and online banking directly through Quicken with Linux it could be said that the assuming is you are running Windows.

Why wait?

If it is really essentially similar why should they care which method you choose to use? It seems clear to me that eventually they will shutdown direct connect 'cause "you can do the same thing on the web site".

Personally I'd write up my experience with Wachovia in the form of a letter to the president then I'd dump their ass for a financial institution that has a commitment to provide me the sort of service I expect.