Bank of America Bill Pay discontinued?

CrunchTheNumbers

Has anyone else received an email from Quicken, stating that on October 10, 2022, they'll no longer be able to initiate bill pay instructions to BofA through Quicken and that if they want to pay bills from a BofA account, they'll need to use the BofA website or mobil app?

The email says that BofA is changing how they communicate with Quicken. After an hour & a half on the phone with BofA, BofA says it's due to a change initiated by Quicken.

It seems to lead back to what Q says is a BofA decision to discontinue support for Direct Connect & Express Web Connect, in lieu of a protocol called EWC+ (Express Web Connect +).

BofA says they're still supporting customers who already have DirectConnect & don't plan to discontinue that. I see posts in alt.comp.software.financial.quicken for other FIs that would indicate that a migration to EWC+ isn't isolated to BofA. Whether it's true or not, the final BofA rep with whom I spoke said that EWC+ appears to be owned by Quicken.

In the Quicken page about the transition, there is only a mention of "download". There does not appear to be any mention of "upload", which would seem required to achieve success for Bill Pay.

Does anyone know whether EWC+ supports BillPay instructions that will be initiated within Quicken & sent to a FI?

https://www.quicken.com/support/why-am-i-receiving-message-about-my-bank-america-accounts

Rocket J Squirrel

Yes, it's true.

https://www.quicken.com/support/why-am-i-receiving-message-about-my-bank-america-accounts 

CrunchTheNumbers

Apologies, but I revised my post after you replied. A BofA rep. led me to the same page in your post (a Quicken page).

BofA is saying they didn't initiate the change & that EWC+ is a Quicken initiated and owned protocol.

Quicken's email points the finger at BofA & BofA is pointing the finger back at Quicken.

WTF?

Does EWC+ support BillPay?

Jon

CrunchTheNumbers said:

Does EWC+ support BillPay?

No, it does not.

CrunchTheNumbers

OK.

The email from Quicken says it’s BofA that is making the change, but BofA is saying that customers who already have Direct Connect are grandfathered and that it’s Quicken that is driving the change.

BofA is also very quiet about the change and said I’d need to talk to take the issue up with Quicken Support.

Does anyone whether it’s Quicken who is behind the switch to EWC+ or whether it’s BofA?

I'm wondering whether this is a maneuver by Quicken to push customers into more subscription based services (Quicken BillPay vs. Bank BillPay).

mshiggins

@CrunchTheNumbers Quicken Inc is a tiny company. Bank of America, Chase, and Schwab are large companies. It seems more likely the big companies would be driving the change rather than the tiny company. 

neilz

FWIW .... EWC+ is Quicken's 'Express Web Connect', it removed the 'talk back' portion of what Web Connect does.

Here's the breakdown from Quickens own site:

https://www.quicken.com/support/how-quicken-connects-your-bank

In any case, until I hear from BoA that Web Connect is no longer being used, I'll still use it.

Doug Rousso

So bummed!  What used to be an easy to use program to pay bills has come to an end.  Quicken is dead to me now.  Time to bite the bullet and go elsewhere.

Lee Pitre

I need to talk to customer service

Lee Pitre

I have billing question-why are quicken charging me a $9.95 fee by Paypal

Jon

Lee Pitre said:

I need to talk to customer service

Lee Pitre said:

I have billing question-why are quicken charging me a $9.95 fee by Paypal

$9.95 is the monthly fee they charge for Quicken Bill Pay users who don't have a Quicken Premier level subscription. Did you recently let your Quicken subscription expire, or downgrade from Premier to a lower subscription tier? If you ever used Quicken Bill Pay and then did either one of those things, you can start getting charged for the Bill Pay service (it happened to me a few years ago).

You should call them on the phone to get this sorted out. 

skpnsf

We received the same notice about BofA and also another notice from Quicken stating the same thing about Chase. It would seem Intuit is attempting to make an additional revenue stream from it's users who traditionally received certain services for free from their finical institutions. The ONLY reasons we have stuck with Quicken for many many years is your ability to get Bill Pay from BofA gratis and have the transaction show up in your account instantly. Once that is gone, we'll be switching to something else.

Bill Maniscalco

Wells Fargo currently supports bill pay through direct connect, I believe. I'm considering a switch to Wells, but only if they're committed to the bill pay process long-term. Does anyone know anything about Wells Fargo's plans?

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Quicken Kathryn

Hi all,

Just a clarifying note: your transactions will continue to download with the new EWC+ connection type, however, you will not be able to pay bills with Direct Connect Bill Pay.  

Please understand that these connectivity changes were not initiated by Quicken Inc., and that we do not benefit financially (nor are we harmed financially) by these changes.  Our continuing focus has been on providing reliable, secure connectivity and integrated Bill Pay capabilities to our users. 

For more information on these bill pay changes, please see the FAQ here.

Denise Costello

[Removed - Rant]

GARPED

This degrades the utilization experience in Quicken... was easier to pay and review downloaded transactions in one place. WIth this change I will likely not renew my current subscription.

jrhoyer

When I moved my BoA connections to EWC+ and realized that it was poor compared to Direct Connect, I just switched back to DC.  Per BoA, it will continue to work fine... unless Quicken pulls the plug on it completely.  

Jon

@jrhoyer BoA runs their DC server. When it stops working it'll be because BoA shut it down, but I'm sure BoA would love it if you blamed somebody else & not them.

DowntownHoward

> @Quicken Kathryn said:
> Hi all,
>
>
> Just a clarifying note: your transactions will continue to download with the new EWC+ connection type, however, you will not be able to pay bills with Direct Connect Bill Pay.  
> Please understand that these connectivity changes were not initiated by Quicken Inc., and that we do not benefit financially (nor are we harmed financially) by these changes.  Our continuing focus has been on providing reliable, secure connectivity and integrated Bill Pay capabilities to our users. 
> For more information on these bill pay changes, please see the FAQ here.

Sorry, but comments on this situation are misleading. "your transaction will continue to download with the new EWC+" .

This is not very forthcoming, because payments scheduled through the Bank of America's bill payment service are no longer downloaded until your bank posts them as paid. Therefore, it is no longer possible to use Quicken to do cash flow management with future dated bill payments in advance scheduled through the bank.

[Removed - Rant]

troutmalt

[Removed - Disruptive/Rant]

rgintampa

Totally unimpressed and this change has already cost me fees due to late payments! Ridiculaous that I now need to enter in Quicken register and then log into BofA to set the Bill Pay

rgintampa

...and now a big interest charge on my BofA Visa!

Rocket J Squirrel

@rgintampa I suggest you phone the bank and explain that the Quicken change-over was the reason you ended up with fees and interest you otherwise would not have been charged. If you're lucky, a sympathetic representative can reverse those charges.

Rudol

BofA and Quicken both have been pointing the finger at each other as the culprit in the discontinuation of Bill Pay with BofA. Both have been amazingly silent on the issue with the consumer in terms of how to rectify or reinstatement of the service. I don't want to Pay Quicken for use of their Bill Pay solution. Nor will Quicken flatly state which financial institutions still allow Bill Pay to interface with Quicken. Try calling some of the other big banks and ask them if they still support a Quicken interface "Bill Pay". Meanwhile, on my part, I can no longer bank with BofA now and must switch all my accounts somewhere else. This means all my accounts, payees, balances, and all of my monthly direct deposits. I've banked with them for 70 years and now I must painfully withdraw.

Chris_QPW

Rudol said:

Both have been amazingly silent on the issue with the consumer in terms of how to rectify or reinstatement of the service. I don't want to Pay Quicken for use of their Bill Pay solution. Nor will Quicken flatly state which financial institutions still allow Bill Pay to interface with Quicken.

Quicken can’t provide a service that the financial institution has cutoff, so there isn’t anything for them to say other than what they have, as in they can try workaround the problem by providing the third party service/Quicken Bill Manager, and they have done that.

Bank of America did have a choice or course, but I think they have made their position quite clear.  As they say, actions speak louder than words.  And I can see their point, Quicken users are a small percentage of their users and they are using a system that no other users have.  And one that is “two way” that can do things like send payments and do transfers, certainly the kind actions a financial institution would be nervous about letting a third party do.

As for finding financial institutions that still support bill pay through Direct Connect search this list for PAYMENT.
https://ofx-prod-filist.intuit.com/qw2800/data/fidir.txt  

bbuckley

> This is not very forthcoming, because payments scheduled through the Bank of America's bill payment service are no longer downloaded until your bank posts them as paid. Therefore, it is no longer possible to use Quicken to do cash flow management with future dated bill payments in advance scheduled through the bank.
>
^^^^ This is a big deal to me! I have many auto payments scheduled through the BofA eBill process. Now they no longer download into Q when scheduled, only when posted. So is there a way to get around this? without a "look ahead" into the eBills scheduled there is a very real risk of insufficient funds to pay the ebills.

rgintampa

> @bbuckley said:
> > This is not very forthcoming, because payments scheduled through the Bank of America's bill payment service are no longer downloaded until your bank posts them as paid. Therefore, it is no longer possible to use Quicken to do cash flow management with future dated bill payments in advance scheduled through the bank.
> >
> ^^^^ This is a big deal to me! I have many auto payments scheduled through the BofA eBill process. Now they no longer download into Q when scheduled, only when posted. So is there a way to get around this? without a "look ahead" into the eBills scheduled there is a very real risk of insufficient funds to pay the ebills.
>
>

And this is the crux of the dissatisfaction. You now need to set up payment in BofA Bill Pay and then at the same time 'Enter' into Quicken register. You will need to 'Edit this instance and all future instances' in Quicken to clear the 'Pay' flag so it will show as 'Enter'. Alternatively, use Quicken Bill Pay.

I know that there is a perception that this change is due to BofA but I suspect it is with Quicken. This helps sell QBM as a revenue source.

rgintampa

> @Rocket J Squirrel said:
> @rgintampa I suggest you phone the bank and explain that the Quicken change-over was the reason you ended up with fees and interest you otherwise would not have been charged. If you're lucky, a sympathetic representative can reverse those charges.

I did but changes like this have a likelihood of introducing human eror ...which is what will happen. I went online with BofA and biller is supported by eBill and Autopay through BofA. I set that up and expected payment to go through for next cycle. Thinking that I might double pay due to Autopay, I deleted pre-entered transaction through Quicken. After missing payment, BofA identified that the eBill/ Autopay would only begin with the next bill cycle due November since October eBill was transmitted early Sept. Thus, $107 in late payment and interest charges......more than the Premier annual subscription

Jon

rgintampa said:

I know that there is a perception that this change is due to BofA but I suspect it is with Quicken. This helps sell QBM as a revenue source.

If Quicken was the one shutting down Direct Connect they would just shut it down for everybody, all at once. They wouldn't shut it down by ones & twos over the course of many, many years (even at a rate of one a month it would take over 100 years to get them all!). This theory also ignores the fact that the majority of Direct Connect banks don't support Bill Pay, so the majority of DC users won't be losing Bill Pay if they lose DC. If those users haven't already signed up for QBM, losing DC won't give them an additional reason to.

Chris_QPW

Jon said:

rgintampa said:

I know that there is a perception that this change is due to BofA but I suspect it is with Quicken. This helps sell QBM as a revenue source.

If Quicken was the one shutting down Direct Connect they would just shut it down for everybody, all at once. They wouldn't shut it down by ones & twos over the course of many, many years (even at a rate of one a month it would take over 100 years to get them all!). This theory also ignores the fact that the majority of Direct Connect banks don't support Bill Pay, so the majority of DC users won't be losing Bill Pay if they lose DC. If those users haven't already signed up for QBM, losing DC won't give them an additional reason to.

I always find it interesting that people think that Quicken Inc (small company) is dictating to LARGE financial institutions what they will and will not support.

I also find it interesting that no matter what Quicken Inc says that people chose to believe they are lying to them.
See @“Quicken Kathryn”’s comment hereL
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20296755/#Comment_20296755