Bank of America Update Problems since late April

Posted by jgrimmond on May 18, 2008, 1:56 pm

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I have been using Quicken 2007 for a few months now to manage
our accounts at Bank of America (checking, savings, CDs and
3 credit cards). Everything was going smoothly till about 3 weeks
ago. It *may* be a coincidence, but around that time BofA
decided to change the account number of one of the credit
cards. From then, it has been a nightmare.

When I did updates, at first no new transactions were
downloaded, but *past* transactions going back to nearly
a year were! It messes up not only the credit card accounts,
but all five of them and amazing amounts of money disappear
from the checking account! As all accounts were reconciled
in the third week of April, at least I have a "recent"
snapshot of accouts. I called BofAand they acknowledged some
software issues and said that they would "escalate" the
matter.

Coming back from a 2 week vacation, I find the same mess.
After more talking, one support person said that the
problem may be due to the two credit card account
numbers were somehow linked together. But, that
fix did not do anything. Another call (luckily, as
a Premier Banking Client, I at least get to talk to
a real person in a couple of minutes!) and a new,
loud, fast talking guy ended up saying that it is
Quicken's fault! And, that my problem was unique.

When I tried a reconcile the checking account
with the latest paper statement,
Quicken tells me that I have never downloaded data for this
account!! This may give a clue to what it going on.

The main question is whether any one you have
had similar problems as result of account numbers
being changed.

Given the situation, what would be the best remedy?
I have thought of quitting BofA (!) -- I mean besides
that. One possibility is "start at the begining"
again and treat the Jan-Apr data outside of Quicken.

Luckily, having greatly disliked Quicken for managing
investments, I have the really critical, long term
stuff, outside of Quicken. In the end, the only really
useful thing I get out of Quicken is that amount of
charitable contributions that I enter into the tax form :-)
I suppose that I can keep track of that on paper, but it
would be nice to have a more global picture.

Any help will be appreciated.

John

Posted by David Coyle on May 31, 2008, 1:56 pm

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I have no idea if my story will help you but a while ago I could not
download my B of A transactions going through my DSL router. When I tried
using dial-up everything worked perfectly. I changed the Linksys firmware
and was able to get B of A to work if I put in the right firmware version.
My symptoms were different than yours, but this gives you something else to
check on.

-DAC

> I have been using Quicken 2007 for a few months now to manage

> our accounts at Bank of America (checking, savings, CDs and

> 3 credit cards). Everything was going smoothly till about 3 weeks

> ago. It *may* be a coincidence, but around that time BofA

> decided to change the account number of one of the credit

> cards. From then, it has been a nightmare.

> When I did updates, at first no new transactions were

> downloaded, but *past* transactions going back to nearly

> a year were! It messes up not only the credit card accounts,

> but all five of them and amazing amounts of money disappear

> from the checking account! As all accounts were reconciled

> in the third week of April, at least I have a "recent"

> snapshot of accouts. I called BofAand they acknowledged some

> software issues and said that they would "escalate" the

> matter.

> Coming back from a 2 week vacation, I find the same mess.

> After more talking, one support person said that the

> problem may be due to the two credit card account

> numbers were somehow linked together. But, that

> fix did not do anything. Another call (luckily, as

> a Premier Banking Client, I at least get to talk to

> a real person in a couple of minutes!) and a new,

> loud, fast talking guy ended up saying that it is

> Quicken's fault! And, that my problem was unique.

> When I tried a reconcile the checking account

> with the latest paper statement,

> Quicken tells me that I have never downloaded data for this

> account!! This may give a clue to what it going on.

> The main question is whether any one you have

> had similar problems as result of account numbers

> being changed.

> Given the situation, what would be the best remedy?

> I have thought of quitting BofA (!) -- I mean besides

> that. One possibility is "start at the begining"

> again and treat the Jan-Apr data outside of Quicken.

> Luckily, having greatly disliked Quicken for managing

> investments, I have the really critical, long term

> stuff, outside of Quicken. In the end, the only really

> useful thing I get out of Quicken is that amount of

> charitable contributions that I enter into the tax form :-)

> I suppose that I can keep track of that on paper, but it

> would be nice to have a more global picture.

> Any help will be appreciated.

> John

Posted by jgrimmond on June 12, 2008, 8:37 am

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On Sat, 31 May 2008 12:56:44 -0500, "David Coyle"

>I have no idea if my story will help you but a while ago I could not

>download my B of A transactions going through my DSL router. When I tried

>using dial-up everything worked perfectly. I changed the Linksys firmware

>and was able to get B of A to work if I put in the right firmware version.

>My symptoms were different than yours, but this gives you something else to

>check on.

>-DAC

Thanks for the note. It appears that there are others with problems
similar to mine (at least according to the "Preferred Clients" help
people!). But, they did give me a way around that, at least,
works: do not do automatic updates from within Quicken, but
download the latest statement from the B of A website using
their WEBCONNECT.

The only real downside is not being able to knock off the
categorisation of the credit card expenses as they happen
(and, when one remembers what exactly one bought!). But,
it does get all the data down. I went back to a backup that was
"clean" and redid the work for a few weeks. Things are not
as current as they could be .... but what's is a few weeks!

thanks

JG