Balance off every time I update fidelity rewards card

jijones2

Every time I update my Fidelity reward card online the balance is always way off, so far in the past few months I have accumulated over +16,000$ of balance adjustments. I change the singular balance adjustment each time. I do not get any error alerts.

Boatnmaniac

I suspect that this issue is the one that popped up near the end of June where the Online Balance being downloaded is a positive balance number instead of a negative balance number. In this situation, if the correct credit card balance is -$500 but the downloaded Online Balance is +$500, then when doing Reconcile to the Online Balance, Quicken will suggest entering a balance adjustment of $1000. Each time you run OSU this process happens, again. Eventually, you can easily have $thousands of adjustments made over the last 1-1/2 months.

There has been a lot posted about this issue in Community. Here is one of those threads: Re: Fidelity/Elan Credit Card Shows Positive Balance.

There is also an open Alert on it (ONGOING 7/24/24 Fidelity - Investments & Retirement Accounts FDP-101/CC-601) that was originally opened and posted on 7/10/2024. Note that this Alert talks only about one issue (error codes FDP-101/CC-601) out of the many issues that people are experiencing with the Fidelity - Investments & Retirement Accounts EWC+ setup connection and this credit card. In addition to the error code mentioned in this Alert, some people are still able to download transactions but the Online Balance does not update, some people cannot download anything at all and just about everyone (but not all) has this positive Online Balance issue.

What most people have done is to abandon the Fidelity - Investments & Retirement Accounts setup connection by deactivating it and then setting up a new connection for it with Elan Financial Services. Elan is the issuer of the Fidelity Rewards Visa Card and that is were Fidelity pulls their data from and we can pull it from there as well.

If you wish to try changing your download connection to Elan, note the following:

1. Enter and save the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount into the Memo field of that transaction. (It's not necessary but it can really be helpful if the following process changes the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount.)
2. Backup your data file.
3. If you already have an online account with Elan, proceed to step #4. If you have not already set up an online account with Elan, go to https://www.myaccountaccess.com/onlineCard/login.do,, click on Log In, then click on Sign Up, follow the prompts to set up you online account and then proceed to step #4.
4. In the Account Register: Delete all of those balancing adjustment transactions that have been entered because of this issue.
5. Go to Account Register > upper right Gear icon > Edit Account Details > Online Services tab > Deactivate.
6. Go to Tools > Add Account > type in Elan Financial Services in the search field > follow the prompts to set up Elan for downloading > when prompted, be sure to Link the download to the credit card account that is already entered into Quicken.

If the account balance is not correct:

• Check the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount. If it does not match what you previously entered into the Memo field, correct it so it does match what is in the Memo field.
• If it still is not correct: Scroll backward from today's date looking for duplicate transactions. If you find any, delete one and retain the other. Generally, if there are duplicate transactions entered they will appear within the last 90 days or so.

Check the Opening Balance:

• If it is a negative number with cents being shown, then it is probably correct and you should be able to reconcile the account.
• If it is a negative number with no cents shown: Do not deactivate or reset the account. Instead try running OSU 12-24 hrs later. Generally the missing cents issue will self resolve….sometimes in as little as 6 hrs.

I hope this helps. Let me know what your results are and/or if you have any questions.

Quicken Kristina

Hello @jijones2,

To assist with this issue, please provide more information. When did you first notice the issue? To clarify, when you say the online balance is way off, do you mean that the online balance showing in Quicken does not agree with the online balance you see on the financial institution's website? If so, could you provide more detail how it's incorrect (i.e. showing positive balance instead of negative, reflecting pending transactions, etc.)? You mentioned a balance adjustment; was that an automatic adjustment done after reconciling the account, or was it one you manually added to force the account to balance? Are there any missing or duplicated transactions that would be making the balance appear incorrect in Quicken?

Are you using the Elan Financial Services connection for this rewards card, or is it connected using the Fidelity - Investments & Retirement Accounts connection? To check this, go to Tools>Account List, click the Edit button next to the account, and in the Account Details window, on the General tab, near the upper right it should list which Financial institution it's connected to.

I look forward to your reply!

Boatnmaniac

I suspect that this issue is the one that popped up near the end of June where the Online Balance being downloaded is a positive balance number instead of a negative balance number. In this situation, if the correct credit card balance is -$500 but the downloaded Online Balance is +$500, then when doing Reconcile to the Online Balance, Quicken will suggest entering a balance adjustment of $1000. Each time you run OSU this process happens, again. Eventually, you can easily have $thousands of adjustments made over the last 1-1/2 months.

There has been a lot posted about this issue in Community. Here is one of those threads: Re: Fidelity/Elan Credit Card Shows Positive Balance.

There is also an open Alert on it (ONGOING 7/24/24 Fidelity - Investments & Retirement Accounts FDP-101/CC-601) that was originally opened and posted on 7/10/2024. Note that this Alert talks only about one issue (error codes FDP-101/CC-601) out of the many issues that people are experiencing with the Fidelity - Investments & Retirement Accounts EWC+ setup connection and this credit card. In addition to the error code mentioned in this Alert, some people are still able to download transactions but the Online Balance does not update, some people cannot download anything at all and just about everyone (but not all) has this positive Online Balance issue.

What most people have done is to abandon the Fidelity - Investments & Retirement Accounts setup connection by deactivating it and then setting up a new connection for it with Elan Financial Services. Elan is the issuer of the Fidelity Rewards Visa Card and that is were Fidelity pulls their data from and we can pull it from there as well.

If you wish to try changing your download connection to Elan, note the following:

1. Enter and save the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount into the Memo field of that transaction. (It's not necessary but it can really be helpful if the following process changes the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount.)
2. Backup your data file.
3. If you already have an online account with Elan, proceed to step #4. If you have not already set up an online account with Elan, go to https://www.myaccountaccess.com/onlineCard/login.do,, click on Log In, then click on Sign Up, follow the prompts to set up you online account and then proceed to step #4.
4. In the Account Register: Delete all of those balancing adjustment transactions that have been entered because of this issue.
5. Go to Account Register > upper right Gear icon > Edit Account Details > Online Services tab > Deactivate.
6. Go to Tools > Add Account > type in Elan Financial Services in the search field > follow the prompts to set up Elan for downloading > when prompted, be sure to Link the download to the credit card account that is already entered into Quicken.

If the account balance is not correct:

• Check the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount. If it does not match what you previously entered into the Memo field, correct it so it does match what is in the Memo field.
• If it still is not correct: Scroll backward from today's date looking for duplicate transactions. If you find any, delete one and retain the other. Generally, if there are duplicate transactions entered they will appear within the last 90 days or so.

Check the Opening Balance:

• If it is a negative number with cents being shown, then it is probably correct and you should be able to reconcile the account.
• If it is a negative number with no cents shown: Do not deactivate or reset the account. Instead try running OSU 12-24 hrs later. Generally the missing cents issue will self resolve….sometimes in as little as 6 hrs.

I hope this helps. Let me know what your results are and/or if you have any questions.

jijones2

Boatnmaniac, Perfect! that was the problem. Wonder why there have been so many problems w/ Fidelity Rewards card? Any ways it works for now. Thank you for your help!!!

(I too am a (sail)boating maniac on lake Erie).

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20447605#Comment_20447605

Happy to have been of help. Always nice to get acquainted with another boater. I have a 24' open bow power boat on Lake Travis which is a 65 mile long, 1-3 miles wide reservoir on the Lower Colorado River (not to be confused with the Colorado River) NW of Austin, TX. During summers being able to boat and float (in the water) is one of the few outdoor activities we have of dealing with the extreme heat.

We'll probably never know what is causing the issues with this card (actually, with the connection in general). It had been working so reliably well for me from Feb until the end of June. My guess (and it is purely hypothetical) on the situation:

• In mid/late June, the Elan website was upgraded (confirmed) and perhaps the system changes required for that caused this positive online balance issue in downloads from Elan.
• A day later, the positive online balance issue began to show up in downloads from Fidelity. There generally is a 1/2-day to 1 day delay in credit card downloads from Fidelity compared to from Elan. Fidelity has to get their data from Elan and update their system with that so a slight delay like this is understandable.
• Elan figured out the fix in downloading from their website and implemented it 1-2 days later.
• It was anticipated that the Fidelity fix would probably occur within the next couple of days but that did not happen. Instead, by early July some users started getting CC-601 and CC-555 error codes and downloading of investment accounts (in Simple Investing mode) via this EWC+ setup started failing as well. My guess is that Fidelity might have implemented some system change intended to fix the positive online balance issue but it failed and instead made it worse by preventing downloads of investment accounts as well. (Investment accounts can still be successfully downloaded via the Fidelity Investments Direct Connect connection.)

I think I'd read somewhere last week that Fidelity has identified a fix but no ETA was provided. So, we just need to sit back and wait. Fortunately, we have the Elan connection option for the credit card and the Fidelity Investments DC option for investments. I would be pulling my hair out (and I can't afford to lose too much more of it) if we didn't have these options because Fidelity is the most important and impactful financial institution for me.