Discover Download Garbage Transactions

DaveD2

For a long time, I have been Discover transactions that have zero in the amounts and garbage in the description.

I've seen this reported here (and the thread closed...). Also reported in other forums, such as Reddit.

An easy fix for Quicken. Remove (or have the option to remove) zero amount transactions from the download.

Hard to understand why Quicken has not picked up on this common bug.

(Don't tell me it's a DIscover problem - they point to Quicken. Their downloads to .qfx and .qbo are correct)

splasher

Quicken has nothing to do with the creation of the information downloaded from a financial institution (FI) when the download method is either Direct Connect or Web Connect.
Discover is sending the $0 transactions and you want Quicken to ignore them.
Quicken should not be judge and jury over which transactions to keep or ignore, if they would do so and decided incorrectly, you'd be mad. 
Quicken very properly presents every new (non-duplicate) transaction for the user to decide which are valid.  I sure don't want Quicken making that decision.

DaveD2

Incorrect. Discover is NOT sending bad transactions. This can be confirmed by examining Discover downloads of .qfx and .qbo transactions. Quicken has a problem receiving them. Discover technical support has confirmed this.

[Removed - Disruptive]

Chris_QPW

DaveD2 said:

Incorrect. Discover is NOT sending bad transactions. This can be confirmed by examining Discover downloads of .qfx and .qbo transactions. Quicken has a problem receiving them. Discover technical support has confirmed this.

[Removed - Disruptive]

And how do you explain that out of thousands of financial institutions, only Discover has this problem?

I'm positive if someone that actually knows about the OFX standard looked at the OFX logs they would clearly see zero amount transactions.

And I totally agree with @splasher that Quicken shouldn't be changing/deleting transaction data.  Its job is to report what was sent, not make judgement calls on what is good or bad.

splasher

DaveD2 said:

Incorrect. Discover is NOT sending bad transactions. This can be confirmed by examining Discover downloads of .qfx and .qbo transactions. Quicken has a problem receiving them. Discover technical support has confirmed this.

[Removed - Disruptive]

Okay, you've looked at the .qfx and .qbo download files.  Have you looked what is downloaded with the Direct Connect download method because that is the process that displays the $0 transactions?  Show proof that Discover is not downloading the $0 transactions with Direct Connect and then I'll believe you.
If you've looked at it, how did you do that and show your results.

Chris_QPW

@splasher since you have a Discover account it should be easy to prove that Discover is in fact sending $0 transactions.  Help -> Log Files -> OFX Log,

In the data for a Discover download, just look for <TRNAMT> with a zero amount.

Here is an example transaction entry.

                    <STMTTRN>

                        <TRNTYPE>DEBIT

                        <DTPOSTED>20101112120000[0:GMT]

                        <TRNAMT>-59.63

                        <FITID>2010111255432860315000428187156

                        <NAME>ATT*CONS PHONE PMT

                    </STMTTRN>

drivera

[Removed - Off Topic/Unhelpful]

splasher

@Chris_QPW
I'd love to, but QW R38.30 is currently giving this:


when I click on Help->Log Files .

Chris_QPW

splasher said:

@Chris_QPW
I'd love to, but QW R38.30 is currently giving this:


when I click on Help->Log Files .

With Quicken stopped delete this folder, and try again:
C:\ProgramData\Quicken\Cache

splasher

@Chris_QPW
Deleting the Cache folder worked BUT my OFXLOG file does not go back far enough to include a $0 transaction.  It is one of my lower activity accounts, shame that this isn't about one of the CapOne CCs.

Chris_QPW

splasher said:

@Chris_QPW
Deleting the Cache folder worked BUT my OFXLOG file does not go back far enough to include a $0 transaction.  It is one of my lower activity accounts, shame that this isn't about one of the CapOne CCs.

Too bad.  I assume you checked the "old" OFX log too?

DaveD2

Quicken should provide the user with an option to delete zero amount transactions. It would save some users the time and effort of deleting these garbage transactions. A zero amount transaction is worthless and does not change a balance. If you don't like that option, don't select it.

Chris_QPW

DaveD2 said:

Quicken should provide the user with an option to delete zero amount transactions. It would save some users the time and effort of deleting these garbage transactions. A zero amount transaction is worthless and does not change a balance. If you don't like that option, don't select it.

You can suggest it by going to the Home page and selecting New Post -> New Idea.

splasher

Evidently you have had  some of these $0 transactions lately.  How about checking the OFXlog (Help menu) for them to confirm that Discover is actually the culprit and not Quicken?  
Save the log to a .txt file and search it using Notepad or Wordpad.  The newest stuff is at the bottom.

DaveD2

Frankly, I don't feel it is my job to debug Quicken problems. These transactions are a problem for many Quicken customers. It is Quicken's job to serve their customers. They can debug the problem and work with their Discover contacts if that turns out to be the problem. In the meantime, a simple option to filter zero amount transactions would relieve customers of this inconvenience.

ndavalos76

The transactions coming in from discover have been messed up for a long time, I just went through all of last year's transactions and half the time the payees don't match or have garbage in them. Also, a lot of transactions come in without an amount (online credit card payments) with a payee of "R" or "Apple" (using iOS app to make payments). Looking at the transactions on the website they are all correct. I had to search a ton of transactions just to get my taxes done for 2021.