Paypal Credit Card - pending transactions incorrect

Dave1234

How can I DISABLE the download of "pending" transactions on my PayPal Credit Card account?

It downloads "authorizations" - i.e., a biller sends in an authorization for $0.01 just to make sure the account is legit. I don't want to download these. I don't care about these. I only care about actual transactions that affect my balance.

It downloads some transactions incorrectly - as a PAYMENT instead of a CHARGE. While I would LOVE it if my local gas station paid me every time I fill up, I don't think I'd win that argument with PayPal.

How can this behavior get fixed? This started happening sometime in the second half of 2022 - either when Quicken changed how it connects to PayPal or when PayPal Credit Card (Synchrony) did some major upgrades to their website.

Quicken Jared

Dave1234 said:

How can I DISABLE the download of "pending" transactions on my PayPal Credit Card account?

It downloads "authorizations" - i.e., a biller sends in an authorization for $0.01 just to make sure the account is legit. I don't want to download these. I don't care about these. I only care about actual transactions that affect my balance.

It downloads some transactions incorrectly - as a PAYMENT instead of a CHARGE. While I would LOVE it if my local gas station paid me every time I fill up, I don't think I'd win that argument with PayPal.

How can this behavior get fixed? This started happening sometime in the second half of 2022 - either when Quicken changed how it connects to PayPal or when PayPal Credit Card (Synchrony) did some major upgrades to their website.

Hello @Dave1234,         

Thank you for discussing online banking services and the downloading of unwanted transactions with us here on the Quicken Community. We apologize for any frustration you are experiencing.

First, do you have your downloaded transactions set up to automatically enter your Register? If you navigate to Edit > Preferences >Downloaded transactions, is the Automatically add to banking register option selected, with a checkmark in the box next to it?

I look forward to your response.

Thank you,

Quicken Jared 

Dave1234

No, I do not have Quicken set up to automatically add transactions to registers (that would be a nightmare - between errors and miscategorization, I'd waste an enormous time fixing things). The transactions are downloaded, and then I manually accept them into their respective accounts.

This problem is specific to my PayPal Credit Card. To reiterate:

1. Quicken is downloading "pending transactions" - I don't want that. I only want transactions that have actually posted to the account.
2. Quicken will occasionally download these transactions as a "payment" instead of a "charge". Which is obviously wrong for purchases (like gas for my car). If I click on the transaction in the "downloaded transaction" window, it then appears at the bottom of the register. I categorize it as "Auto:Fuel", but the amount is listed in the "payment" field instead of the "charge" field. If I click "accept", it gets entered into the register as a payment.

Quicken Jared

Dave1234 said:

No, I do not have Quicken set up to automatically add transactions to registers (that would be a nightmare - between errors and miscategorization, I'd waste an enormous time fixing things). The transactions are downloaded, and then I manually accept them into their respective accounts.

This problem is specific to my PayPal Credit Card. To reiterate:

1. Quicken is downloading "pending transactions" - I don't want that. I only want transactions that have actually posted to the account.
2. Quicken will occasionally download these transactions as a "payment" instead of a "charge". Which is obviously wrong for purchases (like gas for my car). If I click on the transaction in the "downloaded transaction" window, it then appears at the bottom of the register. I categorize it as "Auto:Fuel", but the amount is listed in the "payment" field instead of the "charge" field. If I click "accept", it gets entered into the register as a payment.

Hello @Dave1234,       

We are sorry about this frustration continuing, and thanks for clarifying.

One option is to simply not Accept the transactions when they enter the Accept Register featured at the bottom of the screen after a successful account update, however, if you want to avoid this process, as well, there are some additional items we will need to look into.

First, what connection method are you currently making use of in order to add or link your accounts to online banking services? Please note that you can verify this anytime by going to Tools > Account List and then clicking on the Edit button in the row associated with the affected accounts. Next, go to the Online Services tab in the new window that appears afterward. The information we are looking for should be found under the Online Setup callout box. 

Next, if you have the chance, you could save a backup by going to File > Copy or Backup File... in the upper menu at the top of the screen and then create a 'test' data file by going to the same menu and selecting New Quicken File... Next, choose New Quicken File in the screen that follows, and then click OK. After this, choose a file location on your computer and then click Save. Choose Don't use mobile and web when prompted. 

You may then add your Paypal-associated accounts by navigating to the Add Account button in the upper left-hand side of the screen, denoted by the '+' symbol. Let us know if you see the same error message occurring in the test data file once this is attempted. 

I look forward to your response. 

Thanks,

Quicken Jared 

Dave1234

I download transactions from about a dozen accounts, and I've literally been doing so for longer than I can remember (I've been using Quicken since the mid-90s). I'm not going to STOP accepting downloaded transactions - there's no rational way for me to keep track of my finances without doing so.

My PayPal Mastercard account is connected via EWC.

To use a "test" file, I'd need to do so at roughly the same time as when the problem occurs - i.e., when there is a 'pending' transaction posted to the account that I see downloaded incorrectly. I could then try a "test" file.

But I really don't appreciate your canned suggestion here. There is no "error message" - it's the Quicken application behaving incorrectly, and what it's doing is just wrong. It shouldn't download PENDING TRANSACTIONS at all. There are a number of other folks who have complained about similar behavior very recently in THESE FORUMS. Why are you ignoring our pleas? Just stop downloading pending transactions and let things work as they should. Once pending transactions are either removed from the bank's website (i.e., they were 'test' authorizations by a merchant for a nonsense value - like $0.01, or they convert into actual transactions), everything works fine.

Chris_QPW

I think I should point out something on this problem.  This problem doesn't sound like the recent "pending transactions" problem.

One of the ways you would know that feature was recently turned on and then turned off, if your problem is "long term" it is a different problem.  Another way to know is with the new feature on, the pending transactions will be displayed in the register with a status of pending and will behave like showing reminders in the register.  This doesn't sound like your problem.

Your problem instead sounds like that for your PayPal credit card only it is downloading pending transactions as if they were already posted. This problem wouldn't be in Quicken (the program) it would be in the transfer of the transactions between Intuit and PayPal.  With Express Web Connect Intuit (which is Quicken Inc's aggregator) has an agreement with each financial institution on how to transfer the transactions.  As such, the method can be different for different financial institutions, and frankly PayPal has always been problematic.

As such the only way to get such a problem fixed is by getting the problem escalated to the "scripts group" so that Intuit and PayPal can work out how now to be sending the pending transactions.  And to do that you will have to contact Quicken support and convince them to look into the problem and escalate it.
Official Quicken® Support - Phone, Chat, or Community

Dave1234

> @Chris_QPW said:
>....the pending transactions will be displayed in the register with a status of pending and will behave like showing reminders in the register.  This doesn't sound like your problem.

Correct. These don't show as "pending" transactions in Quicken. I don't see any indication (within quicken) that they are "pending", and I just accept them as I normally do - and they are then tagged as "cleared".

>....
> As such the only way to get such a problem fixed is by getting the problem escalated to the "scripts group" so that Intuit and PayPal can work out how now to be sending the pending transactions.  And to do that you will have to contact Quicken support and convince them to look into the problem and escalate it.

Is "scripts group" a magic phrase that I can use that will hopefully get the level-one agent to get this routed appropriately?

Thank you for the informed reply!

Chris_QPW

Yes, at least that is what one of the moderator said in past, that it helps to say you would like to escalate to the “scripts group”.

Dave1234

Update: In an online chat with Quicken support, I actually got a rep who understood my problem. I sent in a support package from my Quicken installation, and he was able to find the two offending transactions (an authorization for $0.01 listed as a transaction, and a "payment" from a gas station).

The Quicken rep says that the transactions are being sent incorrectly by PayPal - that they are being sent as posted transactions.

UNFORTUNATELY - and this is a thorough disappointment with Quicken - the rep says that Quicken can't help me. Quicken says as a consumer who knows nothing about how these transactions are transferred between a bank and the Quicken server, I HAVE TO CONTACT PAYPAL'S ONLINE BANKING DEPARTMENT. Even though I am not directly downloading anything from PayPal! (I'm downloading through Quicken... and presumably via Intuit)

That's monstrously stupid. I have no way to contact an internal department at PayPal, and even if I did, I have no way to provide the technical details necessary to actually explain the problem.

Come on Quicken, you guys need to do better. Passing the buck (pun intended) on to your paying customers to fix problems with your services is not the right way to do things.

Chris_QPW

Well, it sounds like you got a person that understood the problem but wouldn't escalate the problem.  Unfortunately, that is the way it seems to be, that some will, and some won't escalate the problem.  I agree, contacting PayPal will be useless.  Frankly, I don't know if the problem can be solved, or more precisely if the parties involved are willing to put in the effort.

PayPal has always been problematic as far as downloading transactions.  I can certainly see that their "agreement" with Intuit is something like "here pick up this report it should be what you need and convert it to what you need (say from CSV to whatever format Intuit is using).  The report might very well be one that is just fine for the users which might want to see pending transactions, but not what is really needed for Intuit/Quicken use, but PayPal might not care.