Security Concern with Quick Pay Payees

Barryng

It appears to me to set up electronic transfers (Quick Pay), instead of sending a check via USPS (Check Pay), it is necessary to give Quicken my User Names & Passwords for all the payees such as Credit Cards, Utilities, Insurance Co's, etc. This means Quicken has all my access information for all my accounts stored in their servers. Since it is a given that every business, no matter how big or how smart, is susceptible to being breached or hacked, this does not at all seem to be a smart thing to do. Is this a correct assumption?

The time for a check to be mailed and received is still much longer now than it was when Metavante provided the check paying service so electronic transfers are now even more desirable. Additionally, Metavante somehow just sent payments electronically to the larger businesses I sent checks to such as Banks (credit cards), AT&T, Comcast, electric utility, etc. by having only my account number. Why can this not be done now? Even if I did not have a concern about putting multiple account login information all in one basket (Quicken), establishing and managing login accounts for each one is a major PITA.

UKR

Nobody forces you to use Quick Pay and Check Pay if you don't like the way these services operate.

Do it the old fashioned way and you won't need to give your ID and passwords to an intermediary service provider:

You can contact all those billers who have AutoPay, Direct Debit, PAC draft or similarly named services available and authorize them to automatically debit your checking account or a credit card on the Due Date of every bill. That makes the billers' computers do all the work for you. And they usually do it on time.

If that service is not available for some of your billers, you can always write or print your own paper checks and mail them early enough to ensure the check arrives at the biller before the due date.
In Quicken all you need instead of Quick Pay or Check Pay transactions are scheduled reminders for each of these billing events. When you receive notice in the (e)mail of a new bill or statement being available, record the reminder with updated amount and due dates and you're all set.

I've been using the billers' automated payment services since the late '80s, since before the Internet and all these direct payment services were invented and I've, knocking on wood, never had a late or missed payment, not even at the height of the virus problems two years ago.

Chris_QPW

For what it is worth I don't know if Quicken servers hold your biller usernames and passwords, but for sure the third-party service servers that provide this service does.

For people that are concerned about hacking, that should be a pretty big red flag, that their usernames and passwords are being stored on an unknown third-party's server.  And if something goes wrong you have to contact Quicken Support that then contacts the third-party service, not exactly the best flow for resolving a problem.

I personally do what @UKR does and have been doing it for over 30 years.  For the bills that can be paid by credit card it holds a few extra benefits.  One is it helps with monitoring cash flow, since the bill first shows up on the credit card (and if needed can be debuted there, even though I have never had to do that), which means for these bills I only have to make sure I have enough money in my checking account for the credit card bill (which I also pay off automatically), with a reminder to monitor cashflow.  Another benefit is that I get cash back on that credit card.  For bills that can't be put on a credit card, like my utility bills I have them come out of my checking account automatically and have reminders for those so that I can monitor the cash flow using the Projected Balances graph.

Barryng

> @UKR said:
> Nobody forces you to use Quick Pay and Check Pay if you don't like the way these services operate.
> ....

And, exactly how does this answer my question or provide any useful information (That's a rhetorical question not requiring an answer)? In any case, even though the best compromise/solution for us is to continue to use Quicken and need to continue to do so, I still miss some of the features that were lost after Metavante threw in the towel. My post addressed one of the the things I now miss and does now sometimes cause a problem (much slower response in sending checks and no automatic fast electronic transfers to select payees). Nevertheless, thanks for the effort of typing your long response.