Does anyone else have trouble with downloading transactions where transactions are duplicated?

Question

I am a long time Quicken user and I have now totally stopped having Quicken update transactions.  Sometimes when I allow Quicken to update transactions, it duplicates transactions that were either previously downloaded, even transactions that have been reconciled….why would it do that?  Years ago I made a suggestion to Quicken for the system to determine if a transaction has been reconciled and, if so, do not download it again.  That fell on deaf ears and in fact the duplication has gotten worse.  I used to automatically download all of the time, but now do it all manually.  Seems like backwards "progress".  The same goes for the list to manually match transactions once downloaded….why does the list include old reconciled transactions?

Brams · Answer

I am also seeing this problem with a Wells Fargo credit card account. I believe I have proven that WF is changing FITIDs. To verify this, I downloaded two QFX files on different days. In the two files, I found several entries for the same transaction with different FITIDs, such as these two:

24000973MHYSFHV3Y~20250428000001

24000973MHYSFHV3YV~20250428000001

The other values in each transaction (TRNTYPE, DTPOSTED, TRNAMT, and NAME) are identical.

For each duplicated transaction in the two files, the earlier QFX file contains an FITID without a "V" before the tilde and the later QFX file contains an FITID that is exactly the same except with a "V" before the tilde.

I tried talking to Wells Fargo Complex Bankers Team (reached from the Online Banking Customer Service number), but they don't acknowledge the problem.

It may be that Quicken needs to remove the V before the tilde.

Note: I don't see this problem with my other WF accounts or with my other credit card account.

StevePVB · Answer

Apparently Empower uses a different matching technique. I don't have duplicates online or on the app.

NotACPA · Answer

The method that Q uses to identify duplicate transactions is the FITID (Financial Institution Transaction ID).  If Q sees that a downloaded  FITID has been previously used, it's considered a dupe.

For some download methods (Direct Connect and Web Connect) this is generated by the FI, and they're responsible for it being unique FOREVER.  For the other methods, the FITID is generated by Intuit when it's gathering the data.  And that's supposed to be unique also.

The problem that occurs is when you changed download methods (or, in some cases, Reset the download).  This can cause a different FITID to be created for a previously downloaded transaction … so Q doesn't know that it's a dupe.

SO, have you changed download methods on any accounts, or Reset the download on any?