I long ago forgot when I started using Quicken. It was at least the early 90s and possibly the late 80s. Yes, it has frustrated me many times. Earlier this year I was frustrated enough to try an alternative product. I gave that other product a few months and it was even more frustrating and devoid of important features.

What finally made me try to switch was forcing me to “subscribe” to the software. Typically I would buy it every third year. I just didn’t see enough new features to jump every year. What got me to return to Quicken was the failure of the alternative and doing a bit of the math. I bought the subscription from Amazon and it included a term of 14 months. Included in that 14 months was the Bill Pay service. Previously I had been paying $10 a month for Bill Pay through my bank. That cost me $120/year and the cost of the subscription was well below that.

I installed the software and got the several months of data entered from the timeframe I tried the alternative. Then it was time to set up Bill Pay and that’s where the nightmare started. To give you an appropriate timeline, the account was setup on November 19, 2018. In order to pay bills, you need to add a bank account to use to fund the payments.

The process for adding such an account is one I’ve followed many times before. Provide the routing and account numbers to access the account is the first step. Then two small (under $1) deposits are made to verify the account. When you are able to provide the amounts of those small deposits, the account is ready to use. This is where the process failed miserably as I’m still waiting on those two deposits.

It claims it will take 2-3 business days for the deposits to appear and I started the process on the Monday of Thanksgiving week. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and patiently waited for the deposits. Finally on November 30, 2018 I placed a call to the company that handles Quicken Bill Pay. Note that it is NOT Intuit, just a 3rd party with whom they contract. To be exact, I’ve listed the quoted company info below.

Metavante Payment Services, LLC
Address listed:
11000 W Lake Park Drive
Milwaukee WI 53224
877-486-8844

It was clear when I called that the call center for support was located far away in an offshore location. If I had to guess, I’d say the Philippines though I’m not positive of that. The exact location isn’t important other than it isn’t Milwaukee and the representatives are clearly not enabled to do anything. My first call to them was on November 30, 2018. They created a ticket and assured me someone would get those small deposits handled as soon as possible. No follow up at all in any way.

I called them again on December 17, 2018. Of course the deposits still haven’t been made. The representative admitted that nothing had been done on my previous ticket and that it was still open. Seems that 18 days doesn’t fall within “as soon as possible”. Now a month of my “free” Bill Pay has passed and I don’t have the ability to pay any bills yet. I should also mention that mailing checks myself is not an option since I’m living outside the US.

When the representative wasn’t truly able to do anything other than place me on hold a few times, I requested a supervisor. No supervisor was available so another ticket was created and they claimed a supervisor would call me back before the end of day. I’m not sure how they define end of day, but certainly I would have expected the call to come before 5pm given that my original call was at 10am. Supervisors aren’t that busy, right? Finally when I was driving to dinner, I got a call at 6pm. The person who called claimed I needed to provide documentation, but was vague on what was needed. One option was a photocopy of my social security card. I made it clear that will never happen. I asked if the requirements could be emailed and the supervisor isn’t able to email. Maybe someday they’ll tell me how to get to the next step. Sadly, I have no idea when.

I’m not the only one who has had problems with the service. I found a few other online complaints in trying to find a solution for my issues.

• Quicken Bill Pay is the worst nightmare ever !
• Quicken Bill Pay issues
• “Free” billpay with Quicken Premier

If you are considering a purchase of Quicken, just assume that Bill Pay isn’t included. It seems it is difficult for most users to get it working and the folks at Intuit (Quicken) don’t want to be the least bit helpful.