Pending Transactions ‘feature’ causes duplicate transactions

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TJTex
TJTex Member ✭✭

[Removed - Disruptive/Rant] they decided to introduce ‘Pending Transactions’ when downloading transactions from your accounts using Express Web Connect (EWC).


Some people may like this but to me it is an utter waste of time and it is broken.


I noticed this behavior when I returned from a vacation and was updating my accounts. Suddenly, I had a huge negative balance in my BMO Mastercard and had to look closely to see what that was about. I found numerous duplicate transactions because of this new feature.


I then spied this banner:

I clicked the Learn More link and I got a blank window.
I clicked the Settings link and got this:

Notice how the Pending Transactions feature is set to OFF. One would think that if a feature was turned off, it would not do what the feature is intended to do.


Also notice the two links under the ‘Learn more about’ that provide you with no information at all as they yield blank windows when clicked.


[Removed - Rant/Speculation]


Quicken needs to fix this immediately as it impacts all accounts where you download transactions using EWC, and for me that is every account I have with every financial institution I deal with.


When is Quicken going to fix this massive bug in their software?

I am running the desktop version of Quicken Classic Deluxe, Version R55.15, Build 27.1.55.15 Canadian edition.

Comments

  • TJTex
    TJTex Member ✭✭
    edited April 6
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    [Removed - Disruptive/Speculation]


    Aside from duplicate transactions fiasco, which I am now finding is not consistent across all accounts, this feature [Removed - Language] Reconciliation.


    I tried to download and Reconcile one of my checking accounts and here is what happened.


    This shot is of my checking account register.

    You can see that the balance resulting from all cleared items is 10,554.38 with two not cleared items totaling 305.00. The ending balance in Quicken is 10,249.38 and Quicken also reports that the Online balance is also 10,249.38 Now that’s ok I guess but in the past, the Online balance would only reflect the account balance less the pending transactions.

    In other words, before Quicken [Removed - Language] with this pending transaction feature, the Online balance would have been reported as 10,554.38

    So when I then go to reconcile that account I get this:

    This shows that my Quicken account does not balance to my online account at the bank. In fact it tells me that my accounts don’t balance by the exact total amount of the not cleared (pending) transactions.

    [Removed - Disruptive] If this keeps up then every time you go to balance your accounts you will have a difference equal to the pending transactions and we all know that pending transactions can be reversed at the bank. We know that because we see it all the time with a credit card when we go to make a purchase. The merchant will put through a transaction amount that is not the actual amount of the transaction and later will correct that.

    I had several thousands of dollars in pending transactions on one of my credit cards while on vacation. Pending transactions are not real transactions until they are accepted by the bank and Quicken should know this. Now I am stuck with over 50 transactions in my credit card account that I need to manually go through and delete.

    The worst of it is that nothing balances anymore and will never balance until they fix this problem.

    What is Quicken going to do about this [Removed - Language]?

  • Richard Schreyer
    Richard Schreyer Member ✭✭
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    I may be a voice in the desert, but pending transactions works just as designed for me….the bug is not universal

  • D Morley
    D Morley Member ✭✭
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    I also have pending transactions turned off for my BMO Mastercard yet they continue to download which is causing no end of problems with balances and reconciliation. Please fix this!

  • Quicken Kristina
    Quicken Kristina Moderator mod
    edited April 9
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    Hello All,

    Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to report this issue, though we apologize that you are experiencing this.

    We have forwarded this issue to the proper channels to have this further investigated. In the meantime, we request that you please navigate to Help > Report a problem and submit a problem report with log files attached and (if you are willing) a sanitized copy of your data file in order to contribute to the investigation.

    While you will not receive a response through this submission, these reports will help our teams in further investigating the issue. The more problem reports we receive, the better.

    We apologize for any inconvenience!

    Thank you.    

    (CTP-9701)

    Quicken Kristina

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  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
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    A few points here.

    1. Original poster is using the Canadian version. The official announcement of this was in the R55.26 release notes. A version that the Canadian version has yet to get. Others have noted that this feature has been activated in older versions (even in the US version), but one has to wonder if that was "planned" or the fact that the old code had "some support" for this that got triggered by this being enabled on the server, and really shouldn't have.
    2. "true" Pending transactions NEVER appear as "cleared" and they are never included in a reconcile. In fact, this sounds more like the old behavior of pending transactions and one of the reasons they quickly turned it off for the older attempts.

    This is what pending transactions in the register should look like if you have "Automatically add to banking registers" on:

    If you have it off, they should be in the Pending Transactions tab, and not show in the register, not affect any balance, and certainly not be clear or included in the reconcile.

    Signature:
    This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/
  • Quicken Janean
    Quicken Janean Moderator admin
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    Hi All, can you confirm if this issue is still occurring? Thanks!

    Quicken Janean

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  • D Morley
    D Morley Member ✭✭
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    Yes, still occuring

  • Quicken Kristina
    Quicken Kristina Moderator mod
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    Hello All,

    So that our teams can investigate this issue further, please provide the following:

    1. A screenshot showing balance in register when sees the issue the next time.
    2. A screenshot showing balance at primary page listing accounts.
    3. A screenshot showing last posted transaction and all pending. Please include running balance on web site.

    If you post the screenshots to this thread, please make sure to redact personal information.

    If you are not comfortable posting the screenshots to this thread, please send them by going to Help>Report a Problem (in your Quicken program), and attaching those screenshots to the problem report (there is a maximum of 10 attachments allowed, so you may need to unselect some of the pre-selected items to make room).

    Thank you!

    Quicken Kristina

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  • TJTex
    TJTex Member ✭✭
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    This issue is with the Bank of Montreal Mastercard only. I don't have this issue with other institutions.

  • TJTex
    TJTex Member ✭✭
    edited 1:59PM
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    I am still having this problem and have phoned in to Quicken support but to no avail. They will not acknowledge this as an issue that they would address. They gave me Ticket # 11030127

    This issue is with the Bank of Montreal Mastercard

    Here are a few screen shots of the issue:

    First of all I have Pending transactions turned off in Quicken:

    From Quicken, the items circled in blue are pending transactions, the "Online Balance" agrees with the bank, but the bank does not include pending transitions in their balance and Quicken does.

    Ending balance of $2419.22 is not correct as it includes many pending transactions and duplicate transactions that I have yet to delete from the register.

    Pending transactions from my bank as viewed online:

    Balance at the bank Matches Quicken's online balance:

    It seems that Quicken is downloading the pending transactions even though I have turned off the feature. This is a problem because it will later on also download the cleared transactions and then I have duplicate transactions. Also, because pending transactions are downloaded, the "Ending Balance" will never ever equal the "Online Balance" in Quicken.

    Pending transactions include items that may or may not actually move to cleared transactions. On a recent trip I booked a rental car. They put through 3 pending transactions for various amounts. The total of those pending transactions was over $5000. When I turned in the car they put through the final bill for $1600. So Quicken showed 5 transactions for this alone totaling close to $8000. This also happened with hotels and meals, leaving me to hunt through all transactions to find and delete duplicates. I think we have all seen those 'Temporary Hold' items on your card where they were testing to see if the card was real before actually allowing the purchase? Well those are pending transactions that are downloaded and do not go away unless you manually delete them in your quicken register.

    Pesky Temporary Hold:

    Pesky duplicate Temporary Hold:

    At this point in time I am forced to manually go through every one of my transactions to see what is actually on my statements and what are duplicates because of this issue. I have spent over 8 hours trying to get my BMO Mastercard Quicken register Ending Balance to balance to the Online Balance, or my balance at my bank or my statements and I can not do it, it will not balance. The last time I had a correct balance was back in January 2024, before they implemented this Pending Transactions download feature.

    Aside from posting here, I have used the "Report a Problem" in the software several times and no one got back to me about this issue. I have also called support, and their first response was that I had to contact the Bank Of Montreal to get this fixed. I finally convinced them that it is an issue between them and the bank and that I can do nothing to impact that with the bank. They finally gave me the Ticket #11030127 but told me that they have no plans in place to address this issue.

    What is Quicken going to do about this issue? When will this get fixed because it makes Quicken useless.

    I am using Quicken Classic Deluxe for Windows Canada Edition Build R55.15

  • TJTex
    TJTex Member ✭✭
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  • TJTex
    TJTex Member ✭✭
    edited 2:05PM
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    Thanks @Chris_QPW Yes you are right. I am running the latest Canadian Quicken Classic Deluxe for Windows version Build R55.15 I just checked and it states that I am up to date.

    Now I don't know if the issue is that the Canadian version is a few builds back from the US version but it would be nice if Quicken would at least look at this issue. Also, I have the US version of Quicken that I run on a different computer, but that computer is in storage and I will not have access to that one for a few more months so I don't know how that version will work with my US BMO Harris accounts.

    You stated: "If you have it off, they should be in the Pending Transactions tab, and not show in the register, not affect any balance, and certainly not be clear or included in the reconcile."

    As you can see, even though I have the Pending Transactions feature turned off, my pending transactions appear in the register and don't look at all like yours, they appear as cleared transactions and affect the "Ending Balance". Also there is no "Pending Transactions Tab" in my version of Quicken