Purchased Quicken Deluxe from Sams - entered Activation Code. Says expired.

Bobandia

I see now that it is the 2019 version. On my iMac. What can I do to start using quicken?

Quicken Francisco

Hello @Bobandia

Thank you for reaching out on the community and telling us about your issue. I do apologize for the issue you're having. It sounds like we may need to put in the activation code. You should be able to do so by going across the top to Quicken > Enter activation code. From here see if you're able to activate your version of Quicken. 

Let us know if you're able to activate the program afterwards! If not let us know and we'll take another look.

Thanks,

Quicken Francisco

Bobandia

I did enter the code. It then said that it had expired and I needed to renew. Now I see that it is the 2019 version. I think I need to contact Quicken next week.

Quicken Francisco

@Bobandia

Thanks for the update. In that case it would be best to  Quicken Support when you do get the chance, I'll leave our information down below so you can find a time that works best for you. 

Click here to review Quicken Support's hours of operation.

Thanks,
Quicken Francisco

jrich75

You should probably take the program back to Sams.  If they sold an outdated product they should make it good.

jacobs

@Bobandia  Don't get tripped up that the box says 2019. Since 2018, Quicken is basically just "Quicken"; the years are marketing, but don't affect what's the in the box because you're purchasing a subscription to use the software rather than a specific version of software. Typically, you'd get started and immediately update to the most current version of software, and have a year until you need to renew your subscription.

My understanding is that Quicken creates timed expirations for the activation codes -- two years after the code was created, I believe. (My guess is they don't want someone buying up old boxes from retailers and selling them below retail cost.) I fault Quicken here, because I think expiration dates are fine but only if displayed prominently on the box… which I don't believe they do. I think (and hope) Quicken Support will activate your subscription for a year upon you supplying proof of recent purchase. You can contact their chat support today (Sunday), or phone or chat support during the week. (Make sure you have your browser set not to block pop-up windows when you click on the Talk To Support button, or it will appear not to work.)

Ps56k2

[EDIT] - had updated topic title to better reflect actual Q&A -
no idea where "downloading" came into the discussion

jrich75

@jacobs & @Bobandia
Two points to consider.  First, a 2019 labeled box could easily have been produced in late 2018 so it may have expired in 2020.  I don't see why Sams (Club?) would still be selling them.  Second, even though the expiration may not be printed on the box, Quicken notes the 24 month timeframe on their web site.  I be surprised if support will consider the date of retail purchase as a basis for activating the program.  After all, the purpose of expiring codes is to prevent old product sales.
I'd suggest that returning the unusable program to the seller would be more appropriate in this instance.  If not for any other reason than to alert them that they are selling outdated product.

jacobs

@jrich75  I suggested pursuing it with Quicken because many retailers will not accept returns on opened packages of software. It's also likely to be faster and easier. If Quicken refuses to activate a subscription because the activation code is too old, then the user's other recourse is trying to return to the retailer. 

"Even though the expiration may not be printed on the box, Quicken notes the 24 month timeframe on their web site." So you expect consumers to be standing in a store with product in their hands, and stop to do extensive research about it on the manufacturer's website? Would you be okay with other products doing that? "Oh, that cheese you purchased was moldy and foul? You should have checked our website to see our cheeses go bad after 90 days."  Besides, how is a consumer supposed to know when an activation code -- inside an undated box -- was generated? If it was sold in 2019, it may have been produced in mid-2019 and still be younger than two years old. Or not. How is a consumer (or even a retailer) to know if the manufacturer doesn't display an expiration date on the box?

jrich75

jacobs said:

If Quicken refuses to activate a subscription because the activation code is too old, then the user's other recourse is trying to return to the retailer. 

And what is your point?  I agree that Quicken should put the date on the box but to expect them to agree to honor an outdated product is just wishful thinking.  I think it's more helpful to suggest that spending time dealing with Quicken Support is not the best course of action.

jacobs

jrich75 said:
And what is your point?  I agree that Quicken should put the date on the box but to expect them to agree to honor an outdated product is just wishful thinking.  I think it's more helpful to suggest that spending time dealing with Quicken Support is not the best course of action.

My point to the user was to contact Quicken Support about this first, as there might be a quick and easy resolution. I have read similar cases on this forum which have been resolved by Quicken Support. 

There is no way a user can tell from the outside of the box that the product is "outdated" and won't work. (Just because the box says Quicken 2019, that doesn't convey that it's outdated and in fact won't work; many people buy a whole host of prior-year retail products because they're available for discounted prices.) Unless the activation code was previously used, Quicken should honor it. I don't know for certain that they do, but I think they do. And since a quick call or chat with Quicken Support may get it resolved, I feel that's easier than getting in a car and going back to a retail store to try to get a refund -- especially since many retail stores won't refund software packages which have been opened -- and then going home or to another store to purchase a new copy.

jrich75

It might be worthwhile for @Bobandia to read through this recent post:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20160927/#Comment_20160927

jacobs said:

Unless the activation code was previously used, Quicken should honor it. 

I don't agree with that.  They have no obligation to honor a code for a 2019 product.

Edit: perhaps in this instance, if the original purchase receipt is provided to Quicken so that they can contact the retailer to advise them that they are selling an expired product then going through support will be worthwhile.  If that isn't the case, then it's important that Sams be made aware so that other members/users are not similarly impacted.

[edited to update URL link]

smayer97

Quicken Sarah has stated recently on a thread involving someone buying a copy via eBay that Quicken DOES honour codes IF the software was purchased from an authorized seller.

Not sure how a buyer is supposed to ascertain that nor why it should matter. After all, the only thing that should matter is if the code is legit and unused. If so, there is no reason to good reason to not honour it, since it is a valid published copy.

(BTW, there are legitimate and even big chains that have sold via eBay, so selling on that site does not automatically make it unauthorized).

jacobs

@smayer97 eBay isn't involved in this user's case; I'm not sure why you're bringing eBay resellers into this thread. The user purchased from Sam's Club. Sam's Club is an authorized Quicken reseller. The user should be able to get the account activated by talking to Quicken Support. End of that story.

The broader issue is that Quicken has expiring codes, yet doesn't spend the money in manufacturing to print the expiration date on each box. Quicken is trying to prevent old copies from being bought and sold on the cheap. Nothing wrong with that. But to enforce that limit, they are obligated to print the expiration date on the boxes, not on a slip of paper inside the sealed box -- such that a buyer (or retailer) has no way of knowing whether the box contains valid software or not. Many other manufacturers print expiration dates on products, and Quicken could, too. For some reason (which has not to my knowledge ever been explained), Quicken has taken the money-saving step of not labeling its boxes with expiration dates. That's wrong. It's deceptive. It's unfair to consumers. They should fix this. End of that story.

smayer97

I brought up eBay simply as context for the reply by Quicken Sarah if anyone wanted to track down that recent thread, and to highlight that Quicken has acknowledged that at least they would honour such codes, but only from authorized sellers.

I have no idea if SAM's Club is an authorized seller or not. Just because they are a big chain does not automatically mean so... and how is a consumer supposed to know away? And as I pointed out, why should it even matter, as the seller in no way should invalidate a valid code (other than if it were used before sale).

Now if SAM's club is truly an authorized seller, then at least the OP has an officially acknowledged recourse.

So my point is that I agree that Quicken should honour these codes, and my further point is that it should not matter the source, though in this specific case, the latter may be moot.

jacobs

Sam's Club is an authorized retailer; it says so in the very post you quoted from Sarah.

And authorized dealers do matter, and are pretty normal in the retail world. It's not relevant to the original poster in this thread, whose purchase will be validated by Quicken, but for anyone who's interested, here's a long-winded explanation of why authorized dealers are an important part of the sales ecosystem...

Let's start with an example other than Quicken software. If you want to buy a Nikon camera, you can buy one with a US warranty from an authorized dealer, and the prices won't vary much because Nikon establishes a minimum retail price which all authorized retailers must adhere to. If you shop around, you can find the product cheaper from some seller who is not authorized and is selling equipment from overseas which does not come with a US warranty. Buyer beware; if you go for the cheap price, you should know there's no Nikon warranty, and that Nikon won't repair the camera in the US. (You can get third party warranties and have it repaired elsewhere, and as long as you're okay with that, there's no problem.)

So now back to Quicken. Authorized retailers buy from Quicken, and Quicken sets retail pricing guidelines to prevent significant discounting, which used to be prevalent. (Typically, manufacturers require a certain volume of sales, or may offer the retailer lower wholesale prices the higher their volume of sales.)  Quicken doesn't want those retailers turning around and re-selling their copies to other parties at discount prices to clear their inventory, or to pump up their sales volume that Quicken requires -- because then the market becomes awash in under-priced copies, and consumers buy less from Quicken and the authorized retailers. In the old days, they probably didn't worry about this too much, because each year there was a new version, so they didn't lose much in sales to old versions at discounted prices; the older boxes were inferior to the new ones, and most people would want the new ones. But in the subscription era, every copy sold is just a license to use the software for a year, so there's a risk in having copies sold to non-authorized retailers -- the gray market -- who sell them for less.

So to prevent this, Quicken started putting an expiration date on the licenses. (It's the digital equivalent of Nikon having US versus non-US serial numbers on their equipment.) It makes it harder for retailers to dump discounted copies which show up on eBay and other no-name retail sites. Additionally, the dated codes make it impossible for consumers to find Quicken on sale somewhere and buy a 10-year supply of subscriptions. 

Because boxes can get buried in a warehouse, Quicken also adopts a policy to say if a consumer buys an old box of Quicken from an authorized dealer with an expired code, Quicken will honor the sale and make good on the license -- any everyone comes out whole.

But the flaw in Quicken's approach is that they didn't print the expiration date on the boxes. I'm guessing it's because it would add to the cost of manufacturing and distribution, so they skipped it to save money -- and that's where they went wrong. There's no way for anyone to know the validity of the code inside. (If this seems like a problem now, with someone who bought an old copy of a 2019 box, imagine how much worse it will become when none of the boxes have a product year on them anymore.) If the boxes were dated, and if an authorized dealer sold to gray market retailers, everyone would know how long those copies remained valid. And if an  eBay seller sold a box past its expiration date, the customer would be entitled to a refund from the seller per eBay's policies. The eBay seller, who bought the copies under the table, is the one at risk of getting stuck with unsellable copies if they don't sell them in time -- not the consumer nor the authorized dealers.

If Quicken dated their boxes, and put notices on the boxes and their website about the expiration dates, and listed on their website their authorized retail partners, no legitimate users/buyers or authorized dealers would have problems. Until they do, this will continue to be a problem as users unknowingly buy expired copies from unauthorized sellers. In the current system, it's the consumer who gets the short end of the stick, not the unauthorized seller. 

smayer97

My point about SAMs club is NOT what Sarah states in her reply but rather how is a consumer supposed to, or even need to, know...

I do not believe the analogy of the camera (or any hardware) is comparable. As you point out, Quicken's control is the expiry date.... so regardless of authorized reseller or not, there will always be a limited supply that will run out.

Sure Quicken is free do only use authorized resellers but I think that with the use of expiry dates, it is a wash... with no significant benefit.

That said, in the end, the more immediate issue is that the date is not on the outside and therefore creates and exacerbates the problem. And still... Quicken should honour the purchase until they address this issue.

After all, it is still a win-win for Quicken.

WST2

NOTE: I just bought a copy of QuickenDeluxe (3/19/21). NO WHERE on the inside on the card does it show an expiration date. All is says is 2019?!? Is this two years from Jan? Then it is already expired!! If it is 12/31/2019, then I have the rest of the year. But there is NO expiration date on this product, even inside, so they must have changed the card.
I'm sorry, but if they don't tell you on the outside, or on the inside, I don't see how it is legitimate to have a 24 month expiration. What if you buy TWO copies and set aside the 2nd until 6 months before your next expiration? Why isn't that ok?

WST2

As a follow-up: I looked all over the outside of the box. On the edge, guess what it says: Copyright 2020 Quicken Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable law. (More boilerplate disclaimers...). There is nothing else on the outside with a warning about two years. AND, the 2020 is misleading if the card inside is actually 2019!! They really need to put a date on the outside.

WST2

Sorry for the 3rd post (I don't see a way to edit my earlier ones), but I missed saying that this copy was purchased at BestBuy, an 'authorized retailer' according to some other post.

jacobs

@WST2  Did you contact Quicken Support? They will supposedly activate a recent purchase from an authorized dealer with proof of purchase. 

If you read the thread above, I think all of us in the user community agree that Quicken is in the wrong for not putting any expiration date on the outside of the box. (The copyright date is something completely unrelated to expiration fo the product inside.)

Out of curiosity, on the card inside with the authorization code, is there anything at the bottom which states an expiration date? According to a Quicken representative, the card looks like this ad shows a date at the bottom:



It would be interesting to know if your card is different.

(Again, I have argued repeatedly that an expiration code on the inside without being on the outside of the box is extremely problematic. The consumer can't tell that the box contains expired software, and even the retailer can't tell which boxes are expired.)

WST2 said:

I don't see how it is legitimate to have a 24 month expiration. What if you buy TWO copies and set aside the 2nd until 6 months before your next expiration? Why isn't that ok?

It's certainly legitimate for a manufacturer to have an expiration date, as long as the consumer can know before they purchase (and retailers can know before putting the boxes out for purchase). Your example is a reason the company likely imposed the expiration dates: retailers would buy a boatload of copies at wholesale prices, and later resell them at cost to unauthorized resellers, who would then sell the copies for less than Quicken's retail price. Think about the fact that they are selling a subscription, and today's prices are not protected for year shinto the future. Can you pre-buy your Netflix subscription for three years into the future? Can you buy a multiple magazine subscriptions now and apply them in the future? Quicken doesn't want a user to be able to buy 2, 3, 4, 5 or more subscriptions now to use in the future. (Nor a retailer to buy 100 or 1,000 today to sell years in the future.) I see nothing wrong with them imposing that rule -- as long as a consumer can't get ripped off by unknowingly buying an expired copy.

WST2

I didn't say it wasn't legitimate. [Redacted - Sarcasm/Disruptive]

What I said (and I cut it from above) "I'm sorry, but if they don't tell you on the outside, or on the inside, I don't see how it is legitimate to have a 24 month expiration."
Notice, there are commas in my sentence, so you shouldn't cut only the last half as if that is what I said. Again, I said, "IF THEY DON'T TELL YOU ON THE OUTSIDE, OR ON THE INSIDE, I don't see how it is legitimate...". Of course, it is legitimate to have an expiration date, but NOT IF you aren't told about it on the package!

YES, you can get ripped off, since there is no information in my package.
Again, if you look at my posts above, I took pictures of MY card, FRONT and BACK, it has NO DATE on the bottom. My card IS different than the older one you show; that one isn't current. Note: My card was PN160500 with a 2019 date. The one you show above is a 2018 card, PN160408. My copy was purchased at Best Buy in 2021.

Last Friday (3/19/21), when I chatted with Quicken, they said all I had to do was call with the code and they could tell me the expiration date. Yes, you have to OPEN the package to get the code, which means it can't be returned after you do.
Today, I chatted with Quicken again, and the CHAT person was NO help and said that they had NO WAY to tell me when the code expired. They also said that Best Buy was a third party retailer and I would have to contact them for help if the code was expired. (It wasn't - see below).

Since I had received conflicting information from the two different chats, I then called instead of chatted, and to Quicken's credit, it only took about 5-10minutes to get connected. The Quicken representative on the phone was much more helpful/knowledgeable and agreed with the Friday chat, that if I gave the code, they could tell me when it expired. I rattled it off, and they said that my copy was good until January 1, 2022.
So, copies that Best Buy is selling in March of 2021 actually will expire in 9 months. And it looks like some discussions have said Best Buy is legitimate, and some sources (like the chat today) say it isn't.
I'm saying all this to give more information to those who buy a DVD at a store front retailer. It doesn't look you have much of the 2 years left, so use it soon, and buyer beware.
I wouldn't be surprised if Quicken goes to a future model where you HAVE to purchase the program by download only.

jrich75

I pulled out the copy of Quicken Deluxe I purchased back in December.  I did not realize it before now but there is no date, other than the copyright, anywhere. My activation card footnotes looked just like the ones @WST2 showed. I will say that I had not noticed this before and that I had no trouble activating my subscription extension.  Interesting that there is no longer even a program date on the box.

Footnote 2 says that the 1 year subscription starts upon activation (no limitations)

jacobs

@WST2  I'm sorry I copied only part of your sentence out of context. But the overall gist of my post was agreeing with you. No need to get up in arms about it.  

The first thing I wrote was that you should call Quicken Support because I thought they could easily resolve it. I'm glad you did, and they did.

Then I wrote "I have argued repeatedly that an expiration code on the inside without being on the outside of the box is extremely problematic. The consumer can't tell that the box contains expired software, and even the retailer can't tell which boxes are expired." 

In your case, you had a "Quicken 2019" box; in @jrich75's case, it's a newer "Quicken" box -- still without any expiration date mentioned on the box. But I wonder if they've changed some policies behind the scenes. They said your code in the 2019 box is good through the last day of 2021. I'm guessing your code wasn't created on exactly December 31, 2019, so it seems the old "2 years from date the code was created" might have been tweaked to allow "2 years after 2019", to avoid just the sort of problem discussed in this thread. But then, what about the newer boxes with no year as part of the name, like the one @jrich75 bought? If they're not printing the expiration date on the card on either of your packages, it seems like the 2-year policy has gone from bad (expiration date not on the outside of the box) to worse (expiration date not on the outside or inside, nor even mentioned anywhere). Or maybe they plan to drop the two year limitation with some other wrinkle down the road? It just doesn't make sense to never have the expiration date on the box, then remove the expiration date from the card inside the box, and yet have the expiration policy remain in effect. I think there's got to be another piece of their evolving sales program that hasn't yet been revealed.

Bobandia

If you just call quicken like I did they will activate your copy. No problem! They may ask for you to use your credit card but there is no charge.

WST2

@Jacobs, I figured you were just trying to make a point, but I felt like it made me look like I didn't understand. Sorry.
Actually, my box had a Copyright date of 2020 on the edge with no other date on the outside. My box is actually NEWER than the one Jrich75 shows above. I know that has nothing to do with the expiration, but only the card INSIDE says 2019. So, someone purchasing this box on sale might think they have plenty of time to activate. Perhaps Jrich75's code expired at the end of 2020 and they activated in December, just in time for no hassle.
Also, I had no trouble using the code inside the box on the card to add to my subscription, I didn't have to insert the DVD. I never had an issue, I was just curious if my copy on sale at BestBuy was 'old'.
Interestingly, when I mentioned the problem with not having the date printed anywhere outside or inside to the Quicken rep I called, he said something like, "Believe me, we have heard that complaint..." Here's hoping that Quicken will be more obvious about this issue in the future. Maybe they want to drive all sales to their website.

jacobs

There are definitely changes underway with the way Quicken sells. For the first few years of subscriptions, they sold both one-year and two-year subscriptions; now I believe they only sell one-year subscriptions via retailers. They allowed Amazon to sell special subscription packages with bonus months, but those Amazon specials are now gone as well.

Perhaps more significantly, it seems Quicken has implemented changes in the retail channel which have drastically cut back on price discounting, except for the periodic sales Quicken themselves offer. And more retailers are now selling a box which states bluntly that it is only for new subscribers:

If this is the new trend, they'll allow retailers to sell to new subscribers, but require all renewals go through Quicken -- at 100% full price. Will retailers want to give space to sell Quicken when their volume of sales will plummet? Online maybe, but will it still get shelf space in retail stores if no existing customers can buy a retail copy to renew their subscription? And might this mean that activation codes in the future will not expire after two years -- but instead will not be able to be added to existing subscriptions?