USAA Credit Card Transactions not Updating on mint.com

[henryir]

Quicken Premier/Deluxe - Direct Connect seems to be working for USAA Credit Card transactions.

[kajoyce65]

Not a free finance tool and also expected to work since it is likely using an API instead of screen scraping for data retrieval

[kajoyce65]

@panepinto1959 yours is an interesting point of view but I suspect you haven't read the entire thread or don't have a thorough understanding of data security. How is USAA's change to prevent screen scraping a security improvement? If Fidelity Investments uses screen scraping to retrieve USAA data, are you saying Fidelity is an unsecure tool? I will ask you the same thing I asked someone in a previous comment, how is screen scraping unsecure? The process is to authenticate the user information and then extract the data. The  screen scraping occurs after the user is authenticated. There is no security improvement because USAA decided to break screen scraping.

Screen scraping is an industry method for grabbing data and minimizes the need to to maintain API's which can be changed without notice to all parties causing problems (like USAA just did). Screen scraping is flexible and dynamic. API's work great when both parties communicate with each other but they are cumbersome at best when they are changed without communication (like USAA did). 

No matter how you slice it USAA caused this problem and now everyone, unfamiliar with IT processes, wants Mint to fix something that wasn't broke until USAA made the change.

[panepinto1959]

Hello,

I initially thought it was a security concern, but then agreed and responded as such that it is not a security concern.  Still, my point remains.  The source of the data, USAA, has the right to change its published way of providing access to the content any time they want.  It is up to the vendors that want to provide connectivity to their data sources to update them.  That is how the software industry works.

[kajoyce65]

Perhaps the USAA members that are blaming Mint for the problem reported in this thread should subscribe to the USAA community and check the following post from USAA from 12/20/2022:

https://communities.usaa.com/t5/Technical-Support/Credit-card-transactions-not-showing-up-in-Mint-bu...

USAA Social Service

USAA Service

In response to TesstheDog

Tuesday

@TesstheDog

It would be my greatest pleasure to provide an expected fix date for this issue. However, there is not yet an exact timeline we can pinpoint for implementing the solution for this issue. 

USAA made updates that resulted in Mint, Intuit and other institutions not being able to pull credit card data from our accounts, as we previously allowed in the past. 

We do understand this is important to some of our members. Please know, our teams have develop and introduced a solution, we are working directly with Intuit to implement a secure as well as efficient process.

We do ask for your patience and understanding during the implementation process. 

Thank you! 

~ Lori C

[kajoyce65]

@panepinto1959 You are 100% correct in the world of paid software.

In the world of free software, vendors do not want and can't afford to have high maintenance solutions.

Do you work in or have you worked in software? Because your response is very unrealistic from a software implementation perspective. Anyone who has worked in software understands ITIL and software change control. For a free software vendor they are not going to have resources that are sitting around waiting for another software vendor to make a change so they can then update their software. They would be taking the simplest software solution with the least amount of maintenance to accommodate the need of the product. That was screen scraping and that is why Mint/Intuit and other software vendors like Fidelity use it to gather data from other data providers. 

When you have a pay software provider like Quicken, they can have a specific interface that they agree upon with the data providers and they will maintain that. They will also be notified by the data providers when the data provider is going to make a change to how they would extract the data. That is why the consumer is paying for the product. This insure a more stable product.

When you have a free software tool, like Mint, people should not expect it to accommodate unannounced changes that are made by the source data provider immediately. Especially when the source data provider (USAA) doesn't even admit they broke anything until almost 3 most after the problem.

[wdeptx]

I don't think it's unreasonable for users to expect an app that works, whether the app is "free" or not.

BTW I don't believe Intuit is running Mint as a hobby. If there is *no charge* for the app, then the users -- and our data -- are likely the product.

I believe if a business relies on APIs or screen scraping, then the risk of either link breaking should be expected. Intuit and USAA possibly need to know their customers better and establish a more robust relationship to minimize these perturbations. Or maybe they do know their customers and the population of users who care is too small. I dunno. I do know the hassle will make me avoid using USAA credit cards.

[panepinto1959]

This will be my last reply on this thread.  KaJoyce65, your comment is so arrogant, by the way.

There is no such thing as free software.  Intuit does not run Mint out of generosity.  The software is paid for by ad sponsors and the investment in folks that will switch over to their paid products.

Just sayin'.

[kajoyce65]

Is my reply arrogant or is it realistic and hurt your feelings because you are not being realistic in your expectations for a free software package?

You, me and everyone else who uses Mint are not paying anything for the use of the product. I never said Mint is not making money on the product through advertisements. The difference between a customer paid product and an ad based product is the ability to have a staff to make software changes and to communicate with other software vendors to prevent a data outage. For a customer paid software package, the company can have staff available to fix issues that may surface from other vendors making a change (like USAA did) or needing to make a change. Ad based software is no going to have that luxury. Especially for a unannounced change like USAA made. The ad based software will need to plan to implement a fix when they have a resource available who can make the fix. This is likely what Mint is doing.

People need to point the blame in the right direction regarding this problem. That direction is towards USAA.

Trust me I am not saying Mint is not to blame for other problems. I have had logged about a half dozen bugs  with them for their tool and most of these were closed without any update or a fix or even a word from Mint support on the issue. Which is really poor customer service. I have left several negative posts on Mint regarding their inability to fix their bugs but in this case the bug is not theirs. So I won't blame them for the problem USAA made. 

I

[Maria3473]

I’m also having this problem! Please fix this issue as calculating holiday expenses is extremely difficult without being able to sort transactions. 

[Pdgarner]

I fixed the problem for myself by getting an Apple Card and no longer using my USAA card. 

[ajones0526]

Ha! Likewise. Been using another credit card from a different institution. Hopefully USAA can get it figured out 

[wdeptx]

Same here. I will use credit cards from other banks for now.  Maybe the larger banks (BofA, Wells Fargo, Citi, Chase) get more attention from Mint than USAA.

I wish I had started earlier this month. I like to redo our budget at the end of the year and I had a few dozen USAA CC transactions I had to deal with by hand by exporting csv from the USAA web site.

[kajoyce65]

Well it looks like one of the budgeting tools gave up trying to work with USAA on the problem created by USAA IT team:

https://support.personalcapital.com/hc/en-us/articles/10820424780823-USAA-No-Longer-Supported

Personal Capital decided to stop trying to work with USAA since USAA was not willing to resolve the issue:

"Over the past few months we have been alerted to increasing connection issues with USAA accounts. While we have been working with our aggregation team to find a resolution for this issue, unfortunately the changes that need to be made require some assistance from the USAA team. Currently the team at USAA is focused on other features, and as such we have not been able to work together to resolve the issues with linking and updating this site."

For all the people who have been saying this is a Mint issue, maybe this will change your mind who caused the issue and who needs to fix it.  

[ajones0526]

Thank you for your contributions to this thread. It’s been insightful. Perhaps you can help me understand, why can Mint pull my USAA checking account transactions but not my USAA credit card account transactions?