Useful Memo data no longer downloaded after American Express (AmEx) converted to EWC+

BrittMayo

For decades, the American Express (AmEx) download contained useful information in the "memo" field: merchant phone number, airline ticket number, etc.

Recently, when AmEx "upgraded" from Direct Connect to EWC+, all of this information is no longer transmitted. Instead, the memo field in each transaction just has a blacked-out version of the credit card number (e.g., xxxx-xxxxxx-x1234). This, obviously, is the same for each transaction and is just a waste of space that adds no value.

Is there any way to get the old, useful memo data back?

CMMVM

I'm experiencing similar. I hope this gets resolved.

Bob.

In my opinion, likely not. And you no longer get pdfs of sytatements as well. That may be with ALL EWC accounts, but too soon for me to be sure of that.

EmKay

Climbing aboard in hopes of seeing a fix to this!

EmKay

Can someone from Quicken please look into this? There have been a couple of posts about this (one closed prematurely). Downloading my account number over and over does nothing for me. What I USED to get in the memo field was helpful.

Rocket J Squirrel

Why would anyone think Quicken could fix this? AmEx is sending it, Quicken is just passing it along. Just check "Don't update memo when downloading" to rid yourself of it.

Tom Young

@Rocket J Squirrel

"AmEx is sending it"

I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer here. Is "AmEx sending it" or is "Intuit getting it?" That is, is AmEx deciding to not send useful information, or is Intuit going the easy-peasy route and not doing the research and programming required to put together a Memo that's useful?

Rocket J Squirrel

@Tom Young The memo field is XXXX-XXXXXX-X1234 (with literal X's) which identifies the card number by the last 4 digits as @BrittMayo mentioned above. I can use that to determine whether I or Mrs. Squirrel made the charge. I don't see how anyone other than AmEx could send that.

UKR

If they wanted to do something really useful, they should put the last 5 (yes, 5, AmEx is different from VISA, MC) digits of the credit card number into the Memo text, followed by whatever the merchant sends as Memo.
e.g. 90001: 800-555-1000 CABLE SVCS

Amex used to send useful Memo text in the past, until late last year. They should be able to resurrect that code and make it available again.

Rocket J Squirrel

@UKR

If they wanted to do something really useful

That's a big if!

I wouldn't even mind having just the last 4 digits in order to distinguish between the 2 cards. But all the X's make it really ugly.

Tom Young

"Amex used to send useful Memo text in the past, until late last year."

Odd, I was still getting the more informative Memo fields in March 2023. Didn't get a download with a card number in the Memo field until April.

Since the card number associated with any AmEx transaction is certainly stored in the AmEx system - and always has been - I for one really have no idea if AmEx is "sending" that or Intuit is "harvesting" it.

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20370783#Comment_20370783

One has to understand one major difference between Express Web Connect and Express Web Connect+, and that Express Web Connect+ is using a standardized protocol between Intuit and the financial institution. Whereas Express Web Connect use an agreed upon way to get the data. So, whereas with Express Web Connect we have to guess at if it is using “harvesting” that might not be getting the data from the right location, Express Web Connect+ has a field in the protocol dedicated to it, and as such there is no doubt that it what the financial institution is sending.