Wachovia lies about their support of Quicken

Under normal circumstances I would dump them. But I live in Denver. My

80+ year old parents live outside Columbus Georgia. Getting them to dump Regions bank after many years was not easy. But they trusted me and felt I was doing the right thing. I manage their accounts in quicken and then move the files (encrypted of course) to their computers each week so they can see where things stand. I can't keep asking them to change banks all the time. Besides Wachovia had already started the paperwork in getting their social security auto depost switched from Regions to Wachovia as well as my Dad's NASA retirement check. I'd rather make this work at Wachovia than go through that hell again. Plus the choice in banks down there is pathetic at best. I've sent a long detailed explaination of all this to their regional director (who called me yesterday). I explained in great detail just how horrible their online support center is and why. I asked that the email be forwarded to the VP of customer service. This person was as frustrated as I was yesterday.

Don

Reply to
Don
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On Fri 20 May 2005 09:52:05a, Don wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com: Wachovia turns this ability off I will move on to another bank. The

This I don't understand. The banks I deal with, Bank One (Chase) and National City for my parents, have their Quicken direct billpay interface nicely with their web based bill pay. Customers can use either one (or both) without charge.

I also have many accounts with both our stuff and my parents. The ones that are "active" are only with FIs that offer direct connect for downloads; the others I have phased out. I use a separate Quicken fileset to track my parents' stuff. Most of our FIs are now in common and I can switch from one to the other account when accessing online with a single signon at each FI.

If I ever shop for a new broker my first priority is always that they have good Quicken support (then I look at other stuff like are they honest, etc. ;).

Reply to
Mike L

I realize that you are doing this for your folks and they are probably older (well they're definitely older by definition... :-) ) and pretty resistant to change. However I often hear of people who are resistant to changing their banks even when their banks are effectively screwing them or giving them sub par service. I can never fathom why they stay...

If deposits are auto deposited and withdrawals are effectively auto withdrawn (online bill payment) aside from ATM access (which is often just about nationwide) why would one care if they have their bank in say only Alaska (provided the bank has good online service that is)? The only time I go to the bank is when a family member who still uses printed checks cuts me one. I hate that!

OK, I admit that might be too much for your folks to handle...

It really shouldn't be hell. It might take some time - but it should be painful.

Having worked mostly in the technical fields of computers and in labs I recently had a contract back in the "business world" at Ameriquest down in Orange County. It was my first step back in the corporate world as such in quite a number of years. I was pretty struck by the downright stupidity and bureaucratic waste that, to me, seemed in much abundance in the financial sector. YMMV.

I'm lucky in that I use Union Bank Of California (UBOC) as my online bank. I have not one, not two but 4 online checking accounts with them. Some were created for business purposes, others for joint accounts (now no longer joint).

I've described this before on this newsgroup but recently I was hunting for a bank that I could set up an account for my daughter. The thought was to automate (I'm into automation) payment of my daughters allowance

- $10 a week - by creating an online scheduled transaction that cut a "check" to her account. I approached several banks as UBOC is not as prevalent up in Northern California where my daughter lives. After trying 2 or 3 of them, specifically specifying my requirements of online transaction download and ability for me to cut a check that will be auto deposited with these banks they all failed to make the grade. Similar experiences as yours of total incompetence. In the end I set up my fourth checking account at UBOC and cut checks to there.

Don't know where I'd be without UBOC. If I move outside of California I am seriously contemplating still using them regardless. Their online tech support is not as good as it use to be but it is better than most.

Again, YMMV.

Reply to
Andrew DeFaria

You/she probably mean the merger with SouthTrust that started at the end of last year. I am currently a SouthTrust customer in NC, using MSMoney for "on-line" bill paying. We are scheduled to be absorbed/converted into Wachovia next month, and have been told there will be no changes in bill paying capabilities. Stay tuned.....

Reply to
Don_Shoemaker

On Fri 20 May 2005 10:48:57a, Don wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

It was easier in my parents' case because I took over completely as fiduciary and they no longer wanted nor were capable of being involved unfortunately. But my Dad was well organized and had everything ready for me to step in.

I recall seeing one or more ads in the paper from a bank or two that said they would "take care of" switching your direct deposits for you if you would only switch your accounts to them. I don't recall the details or the name of the bank(s), but maybe this will become more widespread in the future.

Reply to
Mike L

Thanks for the links. I could not find it myself last night. It does appear that they are trying to replace the Quicken/Money functionallity with that of their own BillPay from the website. In essence they are hiding the fact that quicken/money access still exists. It should be interesting to see how long Wachovia and other banks support quicken. It is my understanding that they now have to pay Intuit for the web connect, etc. This might explain why wachovia appears to be phasing it out. But I could be wrong. Glad to hear you got it fixed.

Reply to
Laura

I think you may have hit the nail on the head with regards to Intuit charging banks. Regions bank (the one my parents are in the process of dumping) told me that Intuit charges them $8/month therefore they wanted $8/month from my parents. But considering they had over $60,000 in their checking and savings and Regions still wanted $8/month I told them to take a hike. I bank with US Bank here in Denver. Because we keep over a $10,000 balance everything is free. Regions is cheap.

My other thought about banks and customer service ..... banks have always given 90% of their employees the title of VP of something. But they pay very low wages. I think what I experienced at Wachovia is the old saying "you get what you pay for".

Reply to
Don

For that kind of money, virtually everything is free at B of A, including, I believe, billpay via Quicken. Unfortunately, I think the closest banking centers and ATM's appear to be about

25 miles away from Columbus (hard to figure why West Point, GA, 30 miles away from Columbus, with a population of 3000 has an ATM machine, but Columbus, with a population of 185,000 has none).
Reply to
John Pollard

On Fri 20 May 2005 03:16:58p, Don wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I believe that's been going on for years for all FIs and not just for billpay.

Before Vanguard even had plans to offer any type of Quicken support at all, they told me that their lack of support was because they try to keep their costs as low as possible and Quicken was just too expensive and that they would probably never offer this option.

Reply to
Mike L

Intuit

A bank marketing VP once told me (I'm a financial systems consultant) that they didn't want to offer Quicken "because it would be unclear who OWNED the customer".

The per transaction cost of ANY electronic banking (Quicken, Money, ATM, Web) is SOOOOO much cheaper than an in-person transaction (pennies vs. $2-$4) that if there was any fairness in the situation, the FI's would PAY US to bank via Quicken.

Reply to
danbrown

Isn't it funny how so many folks like to believe that Intuit is "just in it for the money" but the fi's are "just in it for their customers". Some of those who think that the banks are more user responsive than the personal financial software makers are just out to get what they want personally, and try to make their personal desires appear to be what the "market" wants ... despite the fact that the market has already spoken and said it does not want what they want ... or it does not want it just this minute or at the price the whiners refuse to believe exists).

And many of the complainers have forgotten the history of the banks-vs-personal-software-makers odessy ... the banks were originally deathly afraid that MS and Intuit would take their customers away ... but of course those same fi's are merely "competitive", despite the fact that they lobbied extensively (and successfully) to the government to prevent MS from buying Intuit.

The complainers do not understand what "competition" is.

Reply to
John Pollard

On Fri 20 May 2005 06:09:42p, danbrown wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

I don't believe Vanguard was referring to the transaction cost but the ongoing licensing (and maybe also inhouse support) costs (IIRC they required specialized dedicated hardware to supply this server support back in those times - circa 1998).

As a financial consultant you are probably aware that many FIs, like Vanguard, don't deal with customers in person, whether they offer those customers Quicken support or not. Most banks don't deal with people in person paying bills either... and if a person has a complaint, they usually don't do it via a Quicken direct connection.

I am pretty sure that if you analyzed web based vs Quicken solutions, you would find that the web based solution would be preferable to both the finance and security departments of most banks. I believe there are many more banks offering web based solutions that there are offering Quicken solutions; and some (many?) do their web based billpay through 3rd party services (eg. Charles Schwab and several of our local banks).

The ones that offer Quicken solutions are doing so more because of customer demand IMHO.

Reply to
Mike L

I opened up a new account at Wachovia a little less than a year ago, and use Quicken to pay my bills and download transactions without any problems.

Reply to
Les

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Arnie Goetchius

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