Come On, You Can Do Better Than This, Quicken and Intuit!

I thought I was a dinosaur. I started using Quicken back in the days of the Mac SE in the late 1980's, and even then I was astounded that it had so little functionality. It does very little besides being a checkbook register and generating reports.

Quicken has always been easy to use, but that's because it is so very basic. It has always had bugs and I've taken the time to write Intuit to have those bugs resolved, to no avail. One huge problem (unresolved over 20 years) is that sometimes trying to find a word string or client's name just won't work. At the end of the year, I combine Quicken accounts and some transactions are inevitably missed and passed over. I have to then go into every account and laboriously figure out what the missing transaction is.

I've tried Quicken for the PC to track my investment portfolio. Holy crap, what a waste of time that was. Quicken for the PC's investment and portfolio tracking registers and methods are incredibly frustrating to use.

There was a great web-based portfolio service called Mint.com. Intuit bought them early this year. A short time afterward, Mint.com lost all my account information and became unusable.

Here's a recent notice from Quicken, force-fed to my mail inbox even though I opted out of all mailings from Intuit. Wow, big news -- Quicken 2007 might work for Mac OS Lion users by spring 2012!!!!

Hello, Intuit?! It is the end of 2011!! Isn't it time for you to make Quicken for the Mac and PC into something that better befits 2012? It has not been 2007 for a long time now. The iPhone came out in 2007 for the first time. There were no tablets. Blackberries were still cutting edge. Isn't it time that you made something that is bitching rather than a clunker?

Thanks, Comcast, for Making My Life Hell

Thanks, Comcast, for making me type all kinds of stuff and then just closing the chat session without answering my questions.

CHAT ID: 28B4ABB1-40F2-4F2A-99E0-556D4A5Fxxxx

The session below has been edited for privacy.

Norbert: My Issue: can't cancel autopay or make a one-time payment

analyst Ronald Louie has entered room

Ronald Louie: Hello Norbert, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Ronald Louie. Please give me one moment to review your information.

Ronald Louie: I understand that you have a concern about your autopay, I thank you for your time. You've reached the right department and I will be happy to help you with your concern.

Ronald Louie: For security purposes, may I please have the full name, phone number listed on your account?

Norbert: gives this information a third time.

Ronald Louie: Thank you for that, please give me a moment to pull up your account.

Ronald Louie: Thank you for waiting, I have the account now. To complete verification, may I have the last 4 digits of your SSN?

Norbert: last 4 digits is xxx

Norbert: I also am trying to figure out what my service plan and the monthly charge. I see the instructions on your website but they do not work!

Norbert: I signed up for $29.99 per month Performance and should not have been charged any kind of installation fee, yet my current bill is for $48.91. Lots of problems, I have had to call many people to get this account set up correctly.

Norbert: First, lets cancel the automatic payments and then let me pay off the current bill!

Ronald Louie: Sure. Please give me a moment to check on your autopay issue.

Ronald Louie: Thank you for waiting, try to remove cancel autopay this time and check.

Norbert: OK, I will do so and hope you can answer my other questions in the meantime.

Ronald Louie: Sure. What are your other issues?

Norbert: I also am trying to figure out what my service plan and the monthly charge. I see the instructions on your website but they do not work!

Ronald Louie: I'm really sorry for all the trouble, Norbert. I see here that your new Internet monthly rate is $29.99.

Norbert: That's great. Can you tell me what the speed is supposed to be? Also, if you check all the bills associated with the startup of this account, you will see a mess. But starting 12-9-11 to 1-8-12, the monthly charge should be only 29.99. Can you credit my account $18 so that this is correct? I believe the $18 charge is some kind of installation or other service fee that surely should not have been charged given all the trouble I have had getting this service started. I can give you a list of Comcast staff who I talked to and promised to resolve the issue but did not.

Norbert: I appreciate it. I have been able to cancel auto APS and am trying to make a one-time payment now.

Ronald Louie: Let me check on this, Norbert. Please give me a moment.

Ronald Louie: I'm sorry for the delay. I need more time, please give me 2 more minutes. Thank you.

The chat session has been closed

Ronald Louie: Analyst has closed chat and left the room

PS -- if you are trying to make a one-time payment on Comcast, it won't work on Safari for the Mac. Try Firefox if you are using a Mac.

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