Changing email to get discount

Jill@

I recently used my husband's email to purchase a new year of Quicken to get the 40% discount. I am 15 plus year customer. When I imported my backup file to the new account, my main checking account was off by thousands of dollars. It also warned that if I transferred over to the new email account, I would lose all of my bill pay information. I feel like I am being blackmailed. I expect that I will need to reset up multiple bank and retirement accounts and redo all my bills just to save 50 bucks! After this year I am looking for something new. The automatic renew stuff is a real consumer trap.

Greg_the_Geek

You might try signing out of your current Quicken data file and then back in using your new Quicken ID/Password. Unfortunately, your Bill Pay information is stored in the Quicken Cloud associated with a Quicken ID. You will need to reenter your Bill Pay information.

splasher

Regarding the checking account balance change, check the Opening Balance, it has been known to be changed when an Express Web Connect is reset which could also change when the Quicken Id is changed.

The latest sage advice is to record the Opening Balance amount in the Memo field of that transaction as a safety check.

jacobs

Jill@ said:

I recently used my husband's email to purchase a new year of Quicken to get the 40% discount. I am 15 plus year customer. When I imported my backup file to the new account, my main checking account was off by thousands of dollars. It also warned that if I transferred over to the new email account, I would lose all of my bill pay information. I feel like I am being blackmailed. 

Wait, let me get this straight… you're trying the cheat the system to get a discount, but then feel blackmailed that it doesn't work the way you want it to?

Yes, you can cheat Quicken by using a different email address and creating a new user account. But you will have to jump through some hoops to make it work with your existing file. Is it worth the effort to save the money? Only you can decide. But blaming Quicken for "blackmail" as you're trying to finagle a discount you're not entitled to is an unrealistic expectation.

bbvas

And why dont you, Jacobs, feel cheated that they changd/forced everyone to a subscription model where there is now constant bugs, and unable to use the [Removed - Language] product . I have now been without my checking account for two days. Where is the credit for services they are not providing? [Removed - Rant/Solicitation] 

Chris_QPW

Boy, so tempting to comment, but so useless to talk to brick walls.

BK

Indeed @Chris_QPW and hence my only comment is to agree with @jacobs .

mshiggins

Wow, you can really tell who the sycophants are in this crowd. 

mshiggins

Unless Quicken Inc prohibits using a different email address in the EULA, it ain't cheating to use a different email address. It's working within the allowed processes. 

Personally, I don't think it's worth the effort. But since I'm not using the subscription version, it's a moot point for me. 

Chris_QPW

mshiggins said:

Unless Quicken Inc prohibits using a different email address in the EULA, it ain't cheating to use a different email address. It's working within the allowed processes. 

Personally, I don't think it's worth the effort. But since I'm not using the subscription version, it's a moot point for me. 

I have a "middle" ground view of this.  As in, I don't believe it is "cheating" to use a different email address since it is clearly allowed.  On the other hand, when it doesn't work as people expected because they don't understand all the ramifications, I don't think that is "blackmail" either.

And as far as the complaints about the subscription, if one doesn't like it, they are free to either do something like stick with Quicken 2017 and below or go find another service.  And that goes for complaining about the bugs too.  The business gets to decide on what services they are going to provide, and how to pay for them, not the customers.  And depending on a lot of factors the "quality" may or may not be up to what the customers want, and again they have the same choices.  If you go into a restaurant and get bad service, you can certainly complain, and you can certainly choose not to go there anymore, but ultimately it is the business that decides how it wants to run its business.

jacobs

Okay, I'll bite…

bbvas said:

And why dont you, Jacobs, feel cheated that they changd/forced everyone to a subscription model where there is now constant bugs, and unable to use the [Removed - Language] product .

No, I don't feel cheated. As a longtime Quicken for Mac user, I lived through the near-death of Quicken on the Mac when the original product couldn't be updated (due to Apples' drastic changes in the Mac operating system) beyond Quicken 2007, and former owner Intuit stumbled and bumbled in several failed attempts to develop a replacement product. I like Quicken, and was happy to see them finally introduce a modern version of Quicken back in 2014, and I've been happy to see them continue to add needed functionality to it each year since then.

I accept that Quicken is a complex program.

I accept that it takes money to have the development/programming/testing teams to add features I and other users want.

I accept that it takes money to have the development/programming/testing teams to keep up with changes in the computer's operating system and ever-changing banking security protocols.

I accept that having people pay $30 or $40 once every three or more years for updates probably didn't generate enough revenue to maintain and develop the program, and that they needed to effectively raise the price and stabilize their income stream in order to maintain the staff infrastructure needed to keep the program viable for years and decades to come.

I accept that there are bugs in most programs, and more in very complex ones. In my personal experience, I can't quantify it, but I'm not aware of there being more bugs now than in the past; obviously certain bugs hit some users harder than others. 

I accept that Quicken is a relatively small company, and doesn't have the resources that an Apple or Microsoft or Adobe does to throw hundreds of programmers at things.

I accept that Quicken faces a Sisyphean task trying to maintain compatibility with 10,000+ financial institutions which are always making changes to websites, servers, and security protocols. There is no winning in this bad game of whack-a-mole, as there will always be daily instances of financial institutions which make a change that disrupts connectivity and needs troubleshooting and programming fixes.

By the way, I don't experience the program being unusable. I've made certain decisions about how I use Quicken which trades some time for manual data entry for time spent dealing with connectivity/download issues. My approach works for me; it isn't for everyone. But most people can either live without transaction downloads for few days, or can enter things. annually for a few days until connectivity is restored.)

bbvas said:

I have now been without my checking account for two days. Where is the credit for services they are not providing? 

Almost all connectivity outages are due to changes by financial institutions, not ineptitude on the part of Quicken. When a change causes Quicken to be cut off, it can sometimes take a short time and can sometimes take weeks or even months to get fixed. And Quicken doesn't even do most of it; they pay Intuit to run the connectivity services, so they're at the mercy of the Intuit OFX team to get issues resolved. Some require just some programming changes at Intuit; some involve Intuit reaching out to the financial institution for information about what has been changed; some require work on the part of the financial institution or cooperative work between them and Intuit. (If every financial institution Quicken works with made just one change per year, there would be nearly 40 outages every day!)

So you can blame Quicken if you want, but they are the victims of a financial services industry that accepted standards only to a limited degree, and which is frequently more concerned with the security of their systems and customer data than whether they break compatibility with third-party applications like Quicken (which only a small percentage of their customers use). For these reasons, Quicken is and will likely be an imperfect solution for online transactions. Will things ever get better? Maybe somewhat, if efforts in the industry to move to new protocols gain traction and strict adherence — but it will be a long slog.

If you can't tolerate losing connectivity between Quicken and your bank for a couple days from time to time, you may be happier not using Quicken and using each of your financial institutions' websites; they also go down for maintenance or unplanned outages, but generally for much shorter periods of time. But then you're dealing with data in different silos, and for me, one of the key advantages of Quicken is pulling all my financial data into one place.

If you find another personal finance program which doesn't experience as many connectivity issues and provides all the features you need, then you can move on.  But many longtime Quicken users feel that warts and all, Quicken still has the best combination of features for them. We all use Quicken differently, so what's unimportant to me may be crucial to you, and visa versa. 

Oh, as for compensation for a connectivity outage, that just isn't going to happen. Since the outage was likely caused by your bank making some change, why should Quicken compensate you for your bank's action. (And even if they did, what would that look like as a practical matter? If Quicken were to arbitrarily say that connectivity accounts for half the cost of your annual subscription, and that the average user connects 5 financial institutions, that would amount to $50/year ÷ 2 = $25/year for connectivity ÷ 6 financial institutions ÷ 365 days a year = one cent per day per financial institution. Would it really satisfy you to get 2¢ for your two-day outage, or even 15¢ if it takes two weeks to remedy? Oh, but they'd probably need to raise the subscription price by $5 or $10/year to hire all the staff and develop the systems to apply these micro-credits and resolve disputes! As I said, it's just not going to happen.)

Chris_QPW

Very good post @jacobs!

I do wonder about statements like this one:

bbvas said:

I have now been without my checking account for two days. 

How does Quicken prevent someone from using their checking account?

The last time I checked every financial institution has a way for you to use your checking account without Quicken.

Ps56k2

I have ALL my financial data on Quicken - and ALL my history for investments as well as checking and credit cards.

Is it worth $5/month to subscribe to support this type of software - YUP -

For me, end of discussion...

mshiggins

Funny. The cost of subscription is not an issue for SUs so you guys don't have any skin in the game. 

Rocket J Squirrel

mshiggins said:

Funny. The cost of subscription is not an issue for SUs so you guys don't have any skin in the game. 

SUs donate their time here every day trying to help Quicken and its users. 

Chris_QPW

mshiggins said:

Funny. The cost of subscription is not an issue for SUs so you guys don't have any skin in the game. 

Really, you want to go there?

If people were honest, they would admit that their complaints have nothing to do with the cost.
Quicken isn't a requirement for doing your finances.  The MAJORITY of people in world don't use Quicken.
There are in fact very few people that really can claim that the price of Quicken's subscription isn't affordable for them.  And Quicken Inc has no obligation to sell their product at the price or conditions (non-subscription) that some customers want.  If a person doesn't feel Quicken provides them with enough value to make up for the price of the subscription, they can always choose not to use it.

Look at this statement:

I expect that I will need to reset up multiple bank and retirement accounts and redo all my bills just to save 50 bucks! 

"just to save 50 bucks".  I read that as "My time to re-setup my bills is worth more than $50 but Quicken that actually is used for tracking and paying those bills and all my finances isn't worth $50".  How can $50 be so trivial to a person and so nontrivial at the same time?

That isn't about money, it is about thinking you found a clever way to get a bargain and finding it wasn't the bargain you thought it was.  Quicken Inc never told anyone to do this, and there was even a warning not to do it:

It also warned that if I transferred over to the new email account, I would lose all of my bill pay information.

And I will point out that the choice to re-setup the bills or not is entirely up to the user.  You ignore the warning and see sure enough your bills are messed up.  You can ask for a refund, pay for "non bargain" price for Quicken, and restore from a backup and continue on.  If you pursue re-setting up the bills it is entirely your choice to decide what is more valuable to you the time you need to do that or the $50.

The complaints on costs are really more in the mind than in the pocketbook.  And I get that, I don't like repeating costs either, but I do like having running water, electricity and gas.

mshiggins

Chris_QPW said:

mshiggins said:

Funny. The cost of subscription is not an issue for SUs so you guys don't have any skin in the game. 

Really, you want to go there?

Yes. What I see in this discussion is an SU deriding the OP for wanting to save money on the cost of Quicken subscription when they don't incur that cost themselves. 

Quicken Jasmine

Hello All,

This post has deteriorated, become argumentative, and is now closed for further discussion.

Thank you!