Bank of America....EWC+ Connection

I do not have a problem dup transactions. The downloads match what’s in my registers. All I  see for bill status is processing. 

> @denmarfl said:
> Looks Like BofA shutoff DirectConnect Today.  I thought the date was 10/12; Quicken support thought it was 10/10/22.  I used BofA DC yeaterday, today I got OL-393-A....BUT...normally you SE RETRY..today that button displays REAUTHORIZE and list all your accts.  Seems they PULLED the PLUG offically on DC

I believe 10/10 was the date.

My understanding is that the change to EWC+ was dont to enhance security.  Things are much different than they were 30 years ago, so I am all for security.

What has also occured over 30 years is how we all use Banking.  It used to be that overnight batch processing was fine.  All there really was were checks clearing and deposits received at the branches during the day.  

The systems are all set for overnight batch processing. (remeber the days of noon cutoff for deposts - that was because banks needed time to race the deposited checks from the branch to the central processing site.  Those cutoffs have all disappears as banking changed to more or a 'real time' / 'daylight' environment.

Banking has changed: 1) a lot more use of credit card transactions, 2) more use of debit cards, 3) ATM withdrawals for cash, 4) ACH transfers for deposits and payments of bills.   These all occur during 'daylight'.  The 'daylight' balance is more important as BofA does not permit overdrafts using the debit card or ATM cash withdrawals.  These are all the 'pending' transactions.  They have occured during 'daylight' but have yet to be updated in the overnight batch process.  (the cash transfers on their website cut off at 10:45 p.m. because the overnight batch processing begins at 11 p.m.)

On line bill pay transactions are a whole different 'kettle of fish'.  In a way they are 'pending' transactions, but not really. They have yet to occur while the items in the prior paragraph has already occured.  The bill pay 'pending' transactions come from a totally different system within the Bank (in fact, it comes from a separate company)

So it appears the EWC+ method is enhancing security for the 'daylight' transactions and the bill pay transactions are the collateral damage of the enhancement (by definition, NONE of the online bill pay transactions are processed in 'daylight' - they are all processed during the overnight batch processing as are all other paper checks) .... and that may be because the bill pay transactions come from a different source and it wasn't worth incorporating that into the enhancement as overall, as I suspect not as many use bill pay as they used to: a lot more vendors accept credit cards and debit cards than 30 years ago and the new generation is more accepting of permitting vendors to auto-debit their checking account, IMHO

@Andrew02467 - from other posts, what is driving the reconcilation issue is an 'opening balance' transactions....suggest reviewing if that is the change / deletion that is required. just delete the transactions from September that were already downloaded / reconciled; will that put you back in synch? 

I have been a 30+ year BOA customer and have been using Quicken and been a Support client for almost as long as the product's been available. The PR on this change has been nothing short of horrible on both sides. The Bank has been silent with it's customers and Quicken announced the connection change as an enhancement, without advising it's clients of any loss of functionality. To make matters worse, when contacting them about this, both sides blame the other for the change and refer you to them for resolution. How could this have been handled any worse? Question for Quicken - What will you do to resolve our loss of functionality??

BarryGraham said:

Greg_the_Geek said:

Why should Quicken resolve your loss of functionality when it was BoA that forced Quicken to change the connection method? Maybe you should ask BoA what they are going to do to resolve your loss of functionality.

Because the only reason that connection methods exist is to allow the downloading of data into Quicken.  Quicken and the Bank own the problem jointly regardless of who made the decision.

The Express Web Connect + connection does allow downloading of transactions.  What it doesn’t do is download scheduled payments or allow for sending instructions for scheduling payments or transfers.

As for the loss of those features, if we look for it to happen in Express Web Connect + the FDX protocol that it uses would have to change.  Given that the financial institutions got together and created that protocol and purposely left out that functionality, there is little chance they are going to put it in at a later time.  And even if they did it would be years into the future kind of timeframe.

Now Quicken Inc does recognize that the customers want that feature, but the best they are going to be able to do is try to do it with their third-party service bill presentment/payment system (Quicken Bill Manager).

Personally I don’t trust that system to be reliable, but that is where to look for whatever Quicken can do to restore this feature.  I haven’t looked at that system for the details of what it can and can’t do for you.

@Mark1104 I had to chuckle a bit when you mention that they should try the method you suggested to get with the times.  Except for Zelle, I have been using the process you described for over 25 years.  I really haven’t found the need for Zelle, but that is just because I don’t usually pay individuals.  It is certainly nice to have it available as an option.

Problem with Autopay using your bank account is that to do that you first have to sign a waiver/disclaimer that you are authorizing them to do so. Therefore in the rare case you do have a problem - for example the cable company continues to take it's monthly fee even after you cancel your account - don't expect any help from your bank. Your only recourse is with the merchant

ysg26 said:

Problem with Autopay using your bank account is that to do that you first have to sign a waiver/disclaimer that you are authorizing them to do so. Therefore in the rare case you do have a problem - for example the cable company continues to take it's monthly fee even after you cancel your account - don't expect any help from your bank. Your only recourse is with the merchant

I certainly feel better paying by credit card where I can just dispute any payment, not that have actually had to do it.
The only bills that I pay directly from my checking account are my utility bills, HOA, and the credit card payments themselves.  Beside going through the credit card earns cash back and the cashflow is much easier.

I do agree with @Mark1104 though that I believe the protections for payment from the checking accounts have improved a lot over the years.

> @BarryGraham said:
> Because the only reason that connection methods exist is to allow the downloading of data into Quicken.  Quicken and the Bank own the problem jointly regardless of who made the decision.

I agree and expect Quicken to work the same regardless of connection type.

Don't know if Quicken actually reads these posts, but, the recent loss of bill pay syncing / downloading of pending payments for B of A is not acceptable. I need to know, by looking at my register in Quicken, that I've scheduled a payment. Having to log into B of A to see this information is asinine. This information use to be downloaded and it should continue to be downloaded. BTW - the Pending Transactions feature, which according to their help page is supposed to show this info if you let Quicken automatically add downloaded transactions into your register does not work - I tested it and my pending transactions did not download.