Reader mail: more Quicken and Metavante complaints
Thanks for you information on the web. I use quicken bill pay and I just found out that 4 payments I made never got posted (without any notification to me) never were made. I guess I was just lost on the transition from Checkfree to Metavante. My contract was with Quicken Bill Pay not with check free or metavante and I believed them when my quicken register said these payments were made. Now, my credit is affected and quicken says I have to call checkfree and that they can’t help me. I can not believe this is legal. If there is a class action I can get involved with I will. Just venting…
My non lawyer opinion is that Quicken is liable for all your damages.
Obviously, Quicken should pay for all related fees and it should provide you with a letter stating that it was THEIR error that the payments were not made.
Mistakes happen to the best. “Normal” procedure is to send you a letter of apology, listing the bills that should have been but were NOT paid and to also send this letter to the creditors who were not paid, to pay all related fees (late, over limit, whatever) and to give you either free service if you’re interested or to send you a $50 to $100 check for your trouble.
Only the very worst companies will engage in finger pointing, requiring that you file a lawsuit.
If Quicken had done what’s “right”, the creditors who were paid late would most likely have deleted any derogatory data from your credit reports and you could also have disputed with the credit bureaus and included the Quicken letter as documentation.
At this point, follow up IN WRITING with Quicken AND dispute with the credit bureaus:
“Please delete the late payments for accounts .... as I had scheduled the payments with Quicken Bill Pay and they somehow “lost” those payment instructions.”
They may or may not delete, but you need to do this to mitigate your damages.
If you have otherwise good credit and you carry balances on credit cards, you may well have your interest rates increased due to these lates and incur substantial long term damages.
See the Chase increases to 28% at Chase - Bank One - First USA illegal rate increases
Here’s another Quicken/Metavante complaint:
Christine,
I am one of those being charged for something that I have no idea that I subscribed for. Do I feel dumb!!! I just thought I was paying for something that I forgot to cancel. When I called Quicken, they told me that I was inactive as of 7/29/04 and that maybe I have something with Metavante. To my surprise, I never heard of them and this has been happening to lots of people.
I will start researching it, talk to my bank and would appreciate any info you can give me.
Thanks,...
You need to document this IN WRITING or at least record the phone calls. Request a full refund of all charges since 7/29/04 IN WRITING with confirmed delivery and let us know what happens.
Sending an Open Letter to the Metavante and Quicken CEOs is on my list of things to do - the trouble is that I have SO MANY things to do and occasionally I even have to do some paid work. Since I’m NOT interested in getting paid for organizing a class action with all the money going to the lawyers and the fraud victims getting some stupid coupons, I really want to get Quicken and Metavante the publicity they deserve and just MAYBE there’s a law firm willing to file a class action on MY terms:
1) They will NOT settle for coupons for whatever Intuit services or software. I’m thinking something like treble refunds + $100 to ALL affected customers, not just the ones who file a claim.
2) They will establish a website with the word quicken in the URL and they will post the filings as at fcraclassaction.com.
3) They will post plain English updates at the site.
4) It’s a NATIONAL class action, not just for one state.
And of course it would be nice if there was some money to fund an organization to do what I do and PAY people for the work. I’m only one person, my day has only 24 hours and I can only work about 14 of those.
The government does a HORRIBLE job enforcing consumer protection laws and usually the FTC settles with companies who do NOT admit any wrong doing and the consumers never get a penny of the settlement money. Sometimes they negotiate refunds, but even when I was eligible, I’ve never gotten a check: I either couldn’t get a claim form or it was such a hassle that it was more economical NOT to bother.
So, I hope to find the time to write and post my Open Letter at http://mylitigation.net/ and who knows, maybe there is another person able to write a letter and post it before I get around to it - please contact me if you’re interested.
Posted by Christine on 12/15/2005 at 03:13 PM
Quicken Bill Pay - Metavante • (9) Comments • Permalink
Greetings from Mathias, the whistleblower for this Quicken--Metavante issue. As for the 2nd issue listed above: it is legitimate litigation for someone whose account was cancelled with CheckFree _prior_ to the Metavante migration, as Metavante knows about tens of thousands of accounts that were inactive at CheckFree but activated in error when CheckFree’s database was converted to MEtavante’s system.
However, I have sad news for the first item in this thread: according to Intuit/Metavante’s terms of agreement, Metavante is only responsible for refunding up to $50 of any late fees or other fees associated with payments that do not process properly, whether or not it is Metavente/Quicken’s fault. When employed at Metavente, my coworkers & I did everything in our power to provide the largest refunds my bosses would allow in cases where Metavente was at fault, and went the extra mile to provide letters to the customers’ payees and to credit bureaus explaining our mistakes, and also sent copies of all letters directly to the affected customers. As pressure was applied to our Sioux Falls branch office from Metavante’s Milwaukee home office, our attempts were shot down more & more often since the contract specifies a $50 reimbursement limit. (The Sioux Falls billing research branch has since been closed so that all billing research is now processed in Milwaukee.)
Hi Mathias, good to hear from you!
Regarding the contract limiting damages, I don’t think that would hold up with fraud claims.
Since the lawyers aren’t interested in a class action suit that makes a difference, I’m wondering why there isn’t a CRIMINAL investigation.
They’re STEALING!
They have no right to activate accounts and they KNOW it.
How long would it take for law enforcement to investigate if you or I started taking money out of other peoples’ bank accounts?
I have no experience in this arena, but if you knowingly sign a contract, doesn’t it bind you to whatever terms the contract stipulates, as long as the contract isn’t itself in violation of a law or constitution? (I can’t agree to sell myself into slavery, for example, but I could be forced to give someone my car if I don’t repay a loan using the car as collateral.)
But yes, it was made VERY clear to me that the people at Metavante knew about the invalid activation of accounts. Not only didn’t they correct the problem once it was discovered (and I explained to several of them how easy it would be to determine which accounts these problems had affected), but they _knowingly_ continued to bill people monthly for these fraudulent accounts. No one is innocent there as I made my objections clear to every bigwig I could: the issue is definitely known by everyone in the billing research department’s chain of command, and to some other managers as well.
“I have no experience in this arena, but if you knowingly sign a contract, doesn’t it bind you to whatever terms the contract stipulates, as long as the contract isn’t itself in violation of a law or constitution?”
Of course. But do you really think it’s legal to steal peoples’ money?
It would take me no more than 24 hours to sign up for a service that allows me to print out checks from ANY account.
As a matter of fact, I could do this to Metavante or Quicken if a reader sends me the numbers from a paycheck and I could start printing these checks for deposit into my bank account.
How long would it take until I’d be in serious trouble with the law?
When you have more than 1 entity involved in a scam like this, one could file a racketeering suit under federal RICO laws.
“No one is innocent there as I made my objections clear to every bigwig”
The Department of Justice ought to file that suit and put some people in jail.
And another thought on the terms of the contract. When the customer CANCELLED the account, the contract was TERMINATED.
I don’t think the contract terms apply to any actions after the termination.
This sounds like outright fraud to me. Mathias, you may have a significant claim on your own for being fired as a whistleblower. The whole point of Sarbanes-Oxley is to hold companies and senior management accountable for this kind of thing. If you haven’t already, check out whistleblowers.org for more information.
As for Metavante it is one of the worst companies to work for. I worked there for almost 5 yrs before being fired. Before they toke on new accounts such as Chase, and other bill pay accounts we had little to NO training on these new systems before we were hit with none stop calls of customer complaints of payments not being made or accounts being double debited for one transaction.
Management did little or nothing to help resolve customer complaints or help take on some of the stress as we bill pay reps were taking 100’s of calls from IRRATE customers telling us how DUMB we were and how all their accounts we over drawn and all of the fees they were now accumulating.
Management sucks they are racist, have been sued for NOT paying their research dept over time telling them it was maditory(which the research reps were proven right and Metavante had to come out of their pocket and make payments even to ex-employees for overtime that was not payed to them) the people who blew the whistle on them for that WERE FIRED. Anyone who made complaints were terminated and that company SUCKSSS!!!
Metavante really is a horrible company. Unfortunately my credit union has now switched to metavante and has given them access to our account and contact information. They missed a payment deadline twice and the second time around I asked my credit union for a refund of both the initial funds and the late fee I was charged. Imagine getting 2 unsigned emails from metavant giving different reasons as to why payment was not received by the payee when they were basically lying; first address incorrect, then account incorrect, whereas they had made the same payment exact payment using the same exact information the month before and it was late. Now they are coming up with lies to cover their tracks. I’m looking for a bank that doesn’t use them for bill pay and i’m switching. They really are dubious and giving them access to customers information is scary!
Did you get your refund?
The credit union may not have many choices for their bill payment.
As I’ve been researching these issues for many years, I found that it’s just about impossible to run a financial business HONESTLY and treating your employees and customers fairly.
Whether it’s a bank, a credit bureau or a collector, the industry as well as consumers want everything CHEAP, or even better, FREE.
Our data is provided to people overseas as well as to KNOWN FELONS in the US, see http://creditsuit.org/credit.php/blog/why_can_banks_sell_your_personal_information_with_the_debt_to_any_criminal_/
It is scary and my personal solution is to TRY to no longer care, although I still file the occasional lawsuit just to make a point.
If you have NOT received your refund, POST your credit union’s name and the manager who is informed about your complaint and doesn’t take action.
