Amazon Synchrony Store Card Download with Descriptions

CMRater
CMRater Member ✭✭✭✭
Does anyone know why my amazon store card stopped downloading with a transaction description in the Payee.  It was very convenient for determining the category of each purchase.  Since May 9 it simply indicates whether it was Amazon Retail or Amazon Market Place.
Any suggestions on how to revert back to the descriptions would be most appreciated.
Quicken User Since - 1991

Comments

  • Boatnmaniac
    Boatnmaniac SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Do you have any Renaming Rules set up for Amazon?  If so, either change or delete them.
    Do you have any Memorized Payees for Amazon that are locked?  If so, either unlock or delete them.
    Also, you might want to play with your Register Columns for your Amazon Card register to see if any of them shows the additional description information you want to see:  Account Register > upper right Gear icon > Register columns.  Check the boxes for the columns you want to see in the register and uncheck any columns you don't want to see.  The ones I would start adding first are Downloaded Payee, Downloaded Memo and Downloaded Reference.
    It could also be that Amazon Card has now actually changed what they download and no longer download that detail.  If that is the case then there is nothing you can do to get that information to start being downloaded, again.

    (Quicken Classic Premier Subscription: R54.16 on Windows 11)

  • CMRater
    CMRater Member ✭✭✭✭
    Thanks.  Tried your suggestions.  Wonder if anyone else in community noticed this?
    Quicken User Since - 1991
  • Boatnmaniac
    Boatnmaniac SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    CMRater said:
    Thanks.  Tried your suggestions.  Wonder if anyone else in community noticed this?
    Did any of those suggestions work?  If so, which one(s)?  (It might help others in the future who are experiencing the same issue.)
    Every once in a while I see someone posting about this subject (with a variety of different financial accounts) but I haven't seen many.  I think most people don't really pay a lot of attention to or care much about all the extra detail that is in the Downloaded Payee and Downloaded Memo fields. 
    What I like is just getting the store name downloaded and since I keep the receipts I can enter the category and description information at that time.  So I lock my Memorized Payees and set up Renaming Rules accordingly.  One of the things I like about this Community is I get to see how many ways there are that different people use Quicken and why they use it they way they do.  It helps me better define how I might want to use it going forward.

    (Quicken Classic Premier Subscription: R54.16 on Windows 11)

  • CMRater
    CMRater Member ✭✭✭✭
    Well I noticed one Amazon Memorized transaction was locked, but I deleted them all since Amazon applies to so many different categories.  I added reference # too.  I won't know if it worked until I download tomorrow or day when I have new transactions.  Will let you know.

    When Amazon downloads the product description with Payee info it makes it so much easier to quickly categorize.  Today I had a 4-6 transactions to clear.  I couldn't recall the purchase simply by the amounts so I had to call up amazon orders in the browser to find each purchase which is not in the same or as they download.  Just enjoy the simplicity :)

    Thanks for your interest and follow-up!
    Quicken User Since - 1991
  • Valsalva888
    Valsalva888 Member
    Same problem here with my Amazon store card. I lost auto downloaded descriptions starting in early May.
  • LWC
    LWC Member
    I've got the same problem with Synchrony Bank and Amazon. An annoying and time-consuming error to fix. Both Amazon and Synchrony Bank say it's not their fault.
  • Boatnmaniac
    Boatnmaniac SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    CMRater said:
    Well I noticed one Amazon Memorized transaction was locked, but I deleted them all since Amazon applies to so many different categories.  I added reference # too.  I won't know if it worked until I download tomorrow or day when I have new transactions.  Will let you know.
    Any update you can provide?

    (Quicken Classic Premier Subscription: R54.16 on Windows 11)

  • Boatnmaniac
    Boatnmaniac SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Same problem here with my Amazon store card. I lost auto downloaded descriptions starting in early May.

    LWC said:
    I've got the same problem with Synchrony Bank and Amazon. An annoying and time-consuming error to fix. Both Amazon and Synchrony Bank say it's not their fault.
    Have either of you tried the Renaming Rules, Memorized Payees and Account Register Columns suggestions I made above?
    If so, what was the result?

    (Quicken Classic Premier Subscription: R54.16 on Windows 11)

  • CMRater
    CMRater Member ✭✭✭✭
    I tried your suggestions Boatnmaniac.  No Luck.  But thanks for the suggestions.
    Quicken User Since - 1991
  • CMRater
    CMRater Member ✭✭✭✭
    Also happened in Early May.  May 9th to be exact.
    Quicken User Since - 1991
  • Boatnmaniac
    Boatnmaniac SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2022
    CMRater said:
    I tried your suggestions Boatnmaniac.  No Luck.  But thanks for the suggestions.
    Thanks for replying.  This is an indication that what is being downloaded from Amazon has perhaps been changed by Amazon.  Financial Institutions (FIs) control what they enter into the transactions for downloads and it is not uncommon for FIs to occasionally change what they enter into those fields.  One example that I am really familiar with is Ebay.  It used to be that Ebay would alway download purchase transactions with the seller's name in the Payee field but a while back they stopped doing that and now download it as "eBay Commerce: Transaction Number XXXXX" which makes it a lot harder for me to remember.  But it is what it is and there is nothing I can do about that.  It might just be that Amazon has done the same thing...made a change to what data they download.
    But I'm curious:  Did "Downloaded Payee" or "Downloaded Memo" not show the information you wanted to see?
    CMRater said:
    Also happened in Early May.  May 9th to be exact.
    This is another indication that Amazon made a change because it appears that multiple people are affected at the same time.

    (Quicken Classic Premier Subscription: R54.16 on Windows 11)

  • Boatnmaniac
    Boatnmaniac SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited May 2022
    LWC said:
    I've got the same problem with Synchrony Bank and Amazon. An annoying and time-consuming error to fix. Both Amazon and Synchrony Bank say it's not their fault.
    The Amazon card is a Synchrony card.  One notice I got from JC Penney (another Synchrony card) a couple of weeks ago is that Synchrony is consolidating many of their cards into a single website which means they will likely be making the types of data being downloaded common among all the cards.  Maybe that is what has happened with your cards.  I have not been able to check it out myself, yet, because that JC Penney card is the only Synchrony card I have and I have made any purchases with it lately.
    If they did make the change to the Payee information that they download then there is nothing that you (or any of us) can do about that....and, of course, they would not view it as being a problem on their end.

    (Quicken Classic Premier Subscription: R54.16 on Windows 11)

  • whyme2022
    whyme2022 Member
    This happened back in the beginning of 2020 too with these short descriptions. It cause all sorts of data issues when it finally got resolved a couple months later. Duplicate transactions everywhere going back to the change. I agree that leaving the description is best, especially if you need to categorize the transaction for audits. (Also, I have no renaming rules for Amazon as I got rid of them when it happened a couple years ago.) I really wish the vendors (whether it is Quicken or Synchrony or Amazon) cared about the impact to the customer when they do this crap.
  • imichel
    imichel Member
    This is happening to me too! Simply awful. Please tell us if you fix this, anyone.

    Best feature of Amazon Synchrony every too, and now its gone.
  • Jeff T
    Jeff T Member
    This happened to me as well. The last download with descriptions was on May 8, 2022. I have tried all suggestions from this thread. No luck.
  • Boatnmaniac
    Boatnmaniac SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2022
    It sure sounds like Synchrony has made changes to what they download.  If that is indeed the case then the only thing to do is to contact Synchrony and request that they download the missing descriptive purchase data.  If they get enough people requesting that information then perhaps they will make the requested change.
    A really long shot that just came to mind that you might want to look into:  Go to the Online Services tab of Account Details.  If the box for Don't update memo when downloading is checked, uncheck it.  Some FIs will download purchase description details into the Memo field of the transaction.  Maybe Synchrony is now downloading that information into the Memo field, instead, and if that box is checked it might be preventing it from being shown there.  Unchecking that box might allow for future transactions downloads to show that info in the Memo field.  It's a long shot but perhaps worth a try.

    (Quicken Classic Premier Subscription: R54.16 on Windows 11)

  • LowcarbNY
    LowcarbNY Member ✭✭✭
    After a number of attempts via chat @ Synchrony that kept timing out while the agebt researched the problem I was finally given a contact number for tech support.

    "please contact our internal team 844 406 7321
    10am to 7pm eastern "

    When I made it through initial screening and was connected to Level 1 support the agent responded that this was her 2nd call of the day with that issue.
    She opened a problem ticket.

    We'll see if anything improves in a few days.

    This problem is not limited to just Quicken Web Express.
    I downloaded a .qfx from the Synchrony site and inspected it. No description past the store name.
    I also downloaded an Excel/qif format, same thing. For some reason they are truncating the description after the WA.
    Quicken for Windows since 1995
    Frequently loosing budgets since 2017
    Occasionally loosing budgest since 2012
  • I am having the same problem that started May 9, 2022. I've spoken with both Synchrony bank and Amazon. Synchrony tech help desk said that they had consolidated their websites but that I was the 1st person calling them about this problem... Tech opened up a ticket and said to call back in 7-10 days to check status.
  • ken deemer
    ken deemer Member ✭✭✭
    I have the same issue. Has anyone heard an update?
  • Quicken Jared
    Quicken Jared Alumni ✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2022
    I have the same issue. Has anyone heard an update?
    Hello @ken deemer

    [Removed- Off Topic].

    Quicken Jared 
  • ajkessel
    ajkessel Member ✭✭✭
    edited July 2022
    The thread linked in the previous item by Quicken Jared appears to be unrelated to this issue.

    I believe the problem here is the item description is no longer on the first line of the payee, and thus it is not getting imported into Quicken. If you check on the Synchrony website, you'll see descriptions like this:

    July 13, 2022 AMAZON RETAIL SEATTLE WA
    Amazon Basics 36 Pack AAA High

    Only "AMAZON RETAIL SEATTLE WA" makes it over to Quicken -- the later lines are not included in an exported QFX file.

    I don't think this is anything we can fix as users. Quicken needs to talk to Synchrony to figure out how to get the later lines of the description to be pulled over. Is there anyone monitoring this thread who can get this fixed?
  • MarkyBCus
    MarkyBCus Member ✭✭
    Noticed this issue today. Still no resolution. Quicken seems to be able to work things out with other banks when they make changes that effect importing data, assuming that's the issue. Or maybe Quicken made a change to how it reads the data? Sadly most of us don't have the knowhow to answer that. Only Quicken can intervene on our behalf. I certainly don't have the technical knowledge to navigate multiple levels of support at Synchrony, explaining the issue, other than it had this data before, and doesn't now. Hopefully Quicken will find Amazon Store Card customers important enough to intervene.
  • peejdu
    peejdu Member ✭✭
    I have the same problem. When I chatted with Quicken support, they would not acknowledge the issue existed. Ugh
  • LowcarbNY
    LowcarbNY Member ✭✭✭
    A good data point to report.
    My most recent download this week included the description information.
    Yeah! 
    Hoping that this becomes regular and not just a one time mistake. 
    BTW  this successful download occured post R-43.20 update .  
    Quicken for Windows since 1995
    Frequently loosing budgets since 2017
    Occasionally loosing budgest since 2012
  • Bobbie1
    Bobbie1 Member ✭✭
    While I get the red Amazon/Synchrony error every time I do my Quicken update, my transactions are downoading and my balance is accurate. It's very weird.
This discussion has been closed.