Citibank Debit Transactions - No Payee Information?

MarkyBCus

Running Quicken for Mac Version 6.7.1 (Build 607.44146.100), looking at my registers for two Citibank checking accounts, my debit transactions are no longer downloading with complete information using Quicken Connect. They all have generic descriptions such as "Mobile Purchase Sign Based 06/06 08:41p #0028," "Mobile Purchase PIN Based" or "Debit PIN Purchase." I have tested to make sure there is not an issue with my Quicken file by starting a new test data file. Citibank downloads have the same issue with this test file.

This appeared to start about a month ago, coinciding with some downloading issues I was having with Citibank/Quicken. As it stands, I now have to compare my Quicken register with my online Citibank register and manually enter each transactions description into Quicken. Of note, previous transactions, when they were properly identified showed the details in the "Statement Memo" field. It appears Quicken would identify the Payee based on the information in this field. The "Statement Memo" field is now empty, and there appears to be no information in the transaction that would show the Payee now. In one Citi account this memo field was last populated on 5/19/22, and in another on 5/16/22.

Can Quicken work with Citibank to make sure the Payee information is included in transactions moving forward? Having to manually edit each transaction (referencing my Citibank.com register) is going to get old after years of it being automated. And since there is NO payee reference information included in the connection data, there is no way for Quicken to rename them.

MarkyBCus

There is a similar post in the Quicken for Windows board that reports ongoing issues.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7914316/citibank-transactions-have-payee-pin

At first they appeared to be rules based, but if you drill down, you'll see others reporting similar transaction problems. Just recently someone reported that Quicken was aware of it and working with Citibank on a resolution. Hopefully Quicken will link to an existing issue thread that we can monitor to see the status.

jacobs

@MarkyBCus I'm curious what you see if you click on one of these transactions and then do View > Show Inspector. In the Inspector window, near the bottom, what is the "Statement Payee" Name? This represents exactly what the financial institution is sending to Quicken. So if it says "Mobile Purchase Sign Based 06/06 08:41p #0028", then there's nothing Quicken can do, because that's what Citibank is sending. You'd want to pursue this with Citibank tech support for fix their formatting of transaction data. 

MarkyBCus

Yeah, I did that in my sleuthing. Citibank does NOT appear to be providing the Payee information in any of the fields that I see. I've had this kind of thing happen with Citibank and other institutions in the past with Quicken. It seem they change their download format and the details to make Quicken work are omitted, or moved to a new field. Last time it was Citibank moving the Payee information to the "Statement Memo" field. Quicken did something that allowed it to poll that field and then it started working again. I'll mention it to Citibank, but I don't expect much traction. Quicken may have a more direct line to developers to correct it. OR, maybe it's something else? I don't pretend to know the mechanics of how it all works, but just follow logical troubleshooting steps. And from feedback on the other thread, it appears that Quicken is aware, it's a known issue, and communicating with Citibank. Though in checking ONGOING issues in the Community, it's not listed that I can find.

MarkyBCus

Troubleshooting with a Quicken Chat Support rep, who essentially said this needs to be escalated Monday to "High Level Support," (I tried contacting today, Sunday). I did note a few things that might be of value:

• Downloading directly from Citibank, the QIF, QFX and CSV files it generates all seem to include the full payee information with each transaction.

• If you manually import the QFX file it includes the transaction details in a similar fashion to how it use to do with Quicken Connect up to about a month ago (splitting it between the Statement Payee and Statement Memo fields).

The rep could not tell me which format, if at all was used for automated Quicken Connect 1-Step Updates. So, it may be that either the information is not being provided by Citibank, OR it is not being read by Quicken. I'll follow up during the work week and see if I can get some traction.

My escalation Ticket # is 9530478.

EDIT: I spoke to technical support at Citibank, and after a lengthy call, they directed me to Quicken Support to resolve the issue. They basically said if our website and app functions as expected, then that's all we can do. We can't resolve 3rd party app issues. I explained that there use to be a way to speak to Citibank Support that handled Quicken issues specifically, but the rep said they don't exist anymore. I pointed out that Quicken has to have some kind of way of communicating with Citibank in order to facilitate the backend of these Automated Updates/Quicken Connect. There must be someone who can review the issue. She said to talk to Quicken. Again, I'm trying this all on the weekend, so I'll go through it all again during the week and see if I can make any better progress.

Having been a Quicken user for over 20 years, I've gone through this in the past when formats changed and things broke. It happens every now and then. I'm not unfamiliar with it. Maybe it's just my weekend timing (because…time and all). But I'm not getting a very optimistic vibe. I just renewed my Quicken subscription too… Hopefully it can be resolved.

jacobs

What’s odd is the mapping of these fields is extremely basic in the OFX specification. I suppose it’s possible that Citibank was doing it wrong sometime in the past, and Quicken programmed a hack to put things in the right place, and not Citibank is doing it right, and the hack needs to be undone.

The problem in pursuing this from the Quicken end is that Quicken doesn’t deal with this internally; they contract with Intuit for their connectivity, so any change or fix requires Quicken Support to acknowledge and document the problem and then escalate it to Intuit to investigate/fix. And when Quicken Support sees the blank Statement Payee field, they’re likely to say this is a Citibank problem they can’t fix. 😉

MarkyBCus

Looping in @Quicken Jasmine who responded in the Windows thread that is following this.

MarkyBCus

It appears this may be resolved. I started seeing Statement Memo details again which Quicken is polling for renaming.