USAA have stopped supporting Direct Connect in July 2023

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dtd

19 May, 2023 07:17 AM

just a user - OFX appears to be a dying breed.

EDIT: UPDATE, as of July 4, 2023, it appears that USAA has shut down their Quicken access id system. That would render the current Moneydance OFX direct connect as useless.

If you wish to verify this or deny it, please post, as this is data based on only two days observation...
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Over two years ago, USAA "changed" OFX to particularly support Quicken. Stuart Beesley fixed the issue, I documented it.

So, two years. It was an indication that things were changing. MD+ was introduced and so on.

So, today, a simple question - is USAA (via OFX and the change profile) still working for you?

Mine works - sort of. I have to go to www.usaa.com/accessid and say "I approve!" and it stops the Error 2000 (Error general id - which basically means nothing) for - about two hours or so.

Other insights? I think we are near the end for USAA OFX.

Showing page 4 out of 4. View the first page

  1. 91 Posted by dtd on 26 Jul, 2023 10:28 PM

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    just a user - unfortunately, banks are promoting this movement, saying it is "more secure". Yeah, right.

  2. 92 Posted by dwg on 26 Jul, 2023 11:06 PM

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    Whereas it reduces their costs because they do not have to maintain system, do not have to support them hence also do not have to deal with customers regarding issues with them, go talk to your aggregator.

    Provision of data becomes someone else's problem, as for security since a lot of it still involves screen scraping and like technologies you still have to give the aggregators your username/password in many cases so the institutions can say you compromised security by giving a third party your credentials hence any issues are your problem.

    They can say you can access your data via Internet Banking, whether it is a useful format for downloading or can be loaded into financial software is also not their problem, it is yours.

    Banks have been drawn into Open Banking in some countries, so they have to provide data, but again not directly to you but through accredited providers but not of their free will, but when you have Governments that can turn around and say participate or else .... there could be big fines, jail time for executives or ultimately your banking license could be removed i.e. you cease to exist, you tend to co-operate.

  3. 93 Posted by Gib Henry on 26 Jul, 2023 11:58 PM

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    …banks are promoting this movement, saying it is "more secure". Yeah, right.

    What, the same banks that send inherently insecure messages via SMS or email, and refuse to provide infinitely more-secure time-based one-time passwords (ToTP), or maybe even passkeys? Nah, couldn't be them…could it?

  4. 94 Posted by dwg on 27 Jul, 2023 12:49 AM

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    I think it is the same banks that find you nothing more than an aggravating nuisance, it is just they have not found a way to make a quid without you.

    So they minimize contact, close branches and generally just want you to use electronic banking without any contact being needed, you can use plastic if you like but some companies charge you for the privilege there too, as looking at my latest Electricity bill shows.

    Don't like it well our competitor is doing exactly the same thing so we don't care.

  5. 95 Posted by Gib Henry on 27 Jul, 2023 01:34 PM

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    … our competitor is doing exactly the same thing so we don't care.

    There are smaller banks that do care, and offer real services. The problem is that the big guys keep gobbling them up to prevent competition and innovation. We're going to end up with one or two brain-dead, consumer-hostile mega-banks.

  6. 96 Posted by dwg on 30 Jul, 2023 02:51 AM

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    Mark D's CSV importer instructions should probably be added to the Knowledge Base, perhaps as part of the existing USAA article.

    The obsolete Direct Connect information, including the toolbox work around can now probably be removed, I think it would possibly mislead users to keep that info in the article.

  7. 97 Posted by timothy_curtiss on 11 Aug, 2023 02:20 PM

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    This comment was split into a new private discussion: USAA have stopped supporting Direct Connect in July 2023

    USAA initially imported but no longer does.

  8. 98 Posted by Gib Henry on 15 Aug, 2023 04:30 PM

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    Just for fun, I tried the link https://www.usaa.com/accessid: it’s still working, giving the erroneous impression that you can connect. In addition, there’s no error message from Moneydance; there used to be, which suggests that USAA changed something that causes no error.  Nonetheless, the connection doesn’t work. I’ve attached a console snippet.

    As far as I can tell, USAA made no prior or subsequent announcement regarding termination of Quicken Direct Connect support which occurred on 7 July. A search of their website for “direct connect” produces no relevant hits.  Worse, the search engine force-changes a search for “quicken” to a search for “quickly”; that means that you cannot search for “quicken”!

    That is disgraceful and outrageous behavior by USAA!  Are they hiding something, just incompetent, or is it something else?

  9. 99 Posted by dtd on 15 Aug, 2023 10:16 PM

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    They also made no announcement when they killed direct connect for non-Quicken users in January 2021, which did get a fix from Stuart, which I documented.

    They simply change things with no care for their clients who are left in the lurch.

    Of course, once it is "gone" (even with a still existing deprecated web site link), it can't be fixed - you have to move to CSV or an aggregator...

  10. 100 Posted by dtd on 15 Aug, 2023 10:17 PM

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    And USAA is NOT unique in this - I've never seen, from any bank, an announcement of a change like this.

  11. 101 Posted by J H on 15 Aug, 2023 10:19 PM

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    ________________________________

  12. 102 Posted by Gib Henry on 15 Aug, 2023 10:36 PM

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    Incredibly, they actually sent me an email stating that "Quicken Direct Connect has been connected to your USAA account."  When I click the link, it hasn't; that's a false statement.

  13. 103 Posted by dtd on 15 Aug, 2023 10:45 PM

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    They discontinued direct connect, but left all the old links in place - including messaging. Even worse than not informing, now it is misinformation.

  14. 104 Posted by Gib Henry on 15 Aug, 2023 11:03 PM

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    disinformation!

  15. 105 Posted by dtd on 15 Aug, 2023 11:15 PM

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    So that it is not lost, and in fact is pertinent to the current discussion re USAA not updating links, I agree with dwg that the MD USAA kb article should be updated further, not just the "it doesn't work anymore", but the removal of the Stuart fix information that I documented, and replaced with at least the Mark D CSV alternative (if not other alternatives) would be a great idea.

    https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/discussions/online-banking/1246205-is-usaa-failing-for-you#comment_59652612

  16. 106 Posted by mgphl52 on 16 Aug, 2023 03:51 PM

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    I was just on the site yesterday doing the ugly CSV export. At logout, the
    site wanted me to complete a survey... That allowed me to do some serious
    (but polite) venting!

    On Tue, Aug 15, 2023 at 5:16 PM dtd <[email blocked]> wrote:

  17. 107 Posted by dwg on 16 Aug, 2023 11:11 PM

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    Surveys are easy to deal with you just write them to /dev/nul so they can be permanently filed :)

  18. 108 Posted by Gib Henry on 16 Aug, 2023 11:24 PM

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    I know how that survey stuff works because I knew the owner of a focus-group company:  they have to tell their client what the client wants to hear; they won't get to renew the contract if they tell them the naked truth.  USAA is already great at tooting their own horn, but they have a highly inflated opinion of themselves.  And they just don't care enough to respond even to postal letters with documented evidence of failures.

  19. System closed this discussion on 15 Nov, 2023 11:30 PM.

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