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Online Billers - My August Saga

Bob.

Trying to recall if Online Billers has ever given me a month where all worked? Maybe, but if so its well overshadowed by months it does not.

This month, one Biller worked as expected. American Express.
AT&T once again reported account locked (it is not) and had me reauthorize the account. Still awaiting the monthly bill.
Chase - ahhhh, Chase. What can be said. Just search "Chase" here at the forums for all sorts of issues. Tracking manually now awaiting fixes in September as mentioned in the forums
Blue Shield - even though listed as a biller that can be added, has NEVER retrieved a bill. Ever.
Wells Fargo - Worked, but no pdf's since February
Citi-Bill overdue to come in. Refreshed, then had to reauthorize again. Then needed attention. Try again...Then had BIller Added. Immediately update bills and there it was. BUT, all historical pdf's gone.

So, I constantly have to know if a bill is late. Often have to refresh biller. And often lose something when I do. No indication ('cept for AT&T reporting locked) when I need to reauthorize.

Another month. Just in case anyone here with similar was feeling alone. Always open to any fixes I may not be aware of.

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Comments

UKR

How to put an end to a Never Ending Story

My 2cents' worth, if I may:

I don't use Bill Pay services or Bill Manager at all, neither the one from Quicken nor the one offered by my bank. Since time "B.I." (before the Internet was invented) I have set up almost all of my recurring payments as Direct Debit, PAC Draft, Autopay, APS, whatever the biller calls it. Using the biller's website, I authorized the biller to electronically debit each payment directly from my checking or credit card account on due date. Now I can sit back, relax and wait for it to happen. Instead of having to arm-wrestle Bill Manager into making payment on time I let the biller do all the work for me.

When I get notified of a new statement having arrived, usually by email, all I have to do in Quicken is to run a regular scheduled reminder to record the transaction. Haven't missed a payment in many years.

I recommend you do the same instead of fighting the Bill Manager windmill, missing payments and getting slapped with penalty interest rates or late fees.

Bob.

Thanks.

I NEVER miss a bill or have late payments. I am on top of my domain. I also do not use Quick Pay or ANY Quicken bill paying service. I do use the one from my bank which is performed in Quicken.

But that said, something new breaks on Online Billers each month. Sometimes these posts reach the right ears. Sometimes they just confirm for another user it is "not just them".

Chris_QPW

Bob. said:

But that said, something new breaks on Online Billers each month. Sometimes these posts reach the right ears. Sometimes they just confirm for another user it is "not just them".

That is exactly why I gave up on Online Bills years ago. It has never been reliable since the day they introduced it. And I don't expect any amount of complaining to change this.

And I don't believe there is any such thing as "the right ears", the logic just doesn't hold up.

For a short duration, one off situation I might buy it, but when something goes on for many years and has been reported many times you have to reevaluate the situation.

In these situations there are only two explanations. Either the problem is "out of their control" or they are incompetent. I don't care if you believe that the "right ears" are one level up or ten, after this amount of time that "person" should have long time ago should have picked up on such a long term problem and got it fixed (if they can).

And that leads the second explanation. When you create a system that is inherently unreliable you shouldn't expect it to be reliable. The Online Bill system is just like Express Web Connect, it is a system built on desperation not planning/cooperation/standards. There isn't any standard on how to get the bills from all those billers. So, just like Express Web Connect you have a third part service trying to "login as the user" to the biller's website and navigate it enough to pull that information from it.

Until those "scripts" become an AI system almost as good a human, this is never going to be a reliable system.

And on top of that, I have not found Quicken Windows developers to be that good at providing robust systems that talk to these third party APIs.

Bob.

So, it seems that NONE of my online billers have received a pdf since first week of July. All have had bills and have been paid since. So I am thinking 42.xx broke the ability to retrieve PDF statements.

Is that true for anyone else?