Crooks at it again (Ed Foster's Gripeline)

I call this (below) the "screw-the-customer" policy....


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ED FOSTER'S GRIPELOG
The Reader Advocate Column
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Quicken Users Can't Put Stock in Intuit Reliability

Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2008
By Ed Foster

Intuit's never-ending campaign to force customers to upgrade by
crippling older versions of its software has reached a new low. Quicken
2005 owners have been receiving "discontinuation" notices that as April
30, 2008, all the program's online functions will be turned off. That's
become Intuit's standard M.O., of course, but what makes it worse than
ever is how the company has been ignoring complaints that one of those
online features - downloading stock quotes -- often gives wildly
inaccurate data.

Around this time each year we hear from Quicken (and QuickBooks)
customers who've just discovered that a perfectly fine program they
bought a few years ago is about to be rendered useless by Intuit under
its arbitrary sunset policies. One cosmetic change this time is that
Intuit is apparently sunsetting the "sunset" term itself, opting instead
(see
https://quicken.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/quicken.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_f
aqid=3874)
to now call its crippleware tactics a "discontinuation" policy instead.
So Quicken 2005 - a program that can hardly do anything without phoning
home for the latest popup ads Intuit wants to force on its users -- has
recently been displaying this "Critical Notice for Quicken 2005 Users":

"As of April 30th, 2008, in accordance with the Quicken discontinuation
policy, Online Servers and live technical support will no longer be
available for Quicken 2005 users. Immediate Action Required."

This notice has been particularly unpleasing to those who have had
problems getting accurate stock quotes via Quicken's online download
feature. "Unfortunately, the problem does not appear to resolved by
upgrading to the 2008 version," says a reader who first told us early
last year about Quicken downloading stock prices incorrectly and
Intuit's indifference to the problem. "I got the notice that Quicken
2005 would no longer be able to retain online functionality, so I did
upgrade because updating stock quote info is one of the primary reasons
I use the software. But it's having virtually the same problem I
originally wrote to you about - specifically you go to update stock and
mutual fund prices and it's hit or miss whether they update or not.
There have been a large number of frustrated users writing about this on
the Quicken community forums, so perhaps they are now taking action.
However, as a long time user I do think it is wrong to market a product
that seems to have become less and less dependable. Worse yet, until now
it seems Intuit was unwilling to take the time to listen to their
customers and respond to what many of us feel were serious errors with
the product."

For some reason, the biggest problems of all involve Canadian stock
quotes. "Since June of last year, the Intuit servers have been
distributing inaccurate stock quote data to both Mac and PC users of
Quicken," wrote a Mac Quicken user. "A large percentage of equities
traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange are generally quoted at TEN times
the actual value. Others are quoted at one-tenth reality. For example,
in the download I just did, they quoted Bell Canada (BCE) trading at
$385.00. In fact, BCE is trading at $38.50. It's a great way to make
one's portfolio grow! Even the Quicken web site consistently misquotes
Canadian equities, and has been doing so since June. Intuit's response
has been 'please be patient, we're working on it.' Intuit issued a patch
for the PC version of Quicken back in the fall, which according to some
PC users was problematic, but none has been forthcoming for Quicken for
Mac. In fact, a senior contact in Quicken tech support told me that they
are NOT working on a patch for Mac users. Instead, they are prioritizing
their development resources to work on the next Quicken release.
Apparently, they'd rather get a bunch of new customers to buy Quicken
2008 than address serious defects in the current release. That is a
recurring theme with this company. It's sad to see how far Quicken has
fallen. They were once the leader in personal financial software -- now
they can't even deliver accurate, reliable stock quotes."

Another reader explained how the bells and whistles that come with the
forced upgrade can cause problems of their own. "I own Quicken 2005,
which is expiring. I bought 2008, but the reports I created on previous
versions were unusable and would have to be remade. My vision is low and
I like the largest screen possible. Every time Quicken upgrades they add
more tabs, buttons or features which take up more viewing room on the
screen. It would suit me if they just charged for the connection for
updates. I took 2008 off and reinstalled 2005. I bought my first Quicken
in 1995."

What really bothers some readers is the presumptuousness with which
Intuit interferes in their communications with their financial
institutions. "In sunsetting my 2005 version of Quicken as of April,
Intuit is threatening to disable my ability to download 'financial data
from your bank, credit union, credit card, brokerage, 401(k) or mutual
fund accounts'," wrote another Quicken 2005 user. "They might as well
disable the ability to enter numbers! I can see them sunsetting 2005's
ability to connect to Quicken and Intuit services, but third party
banks? That means they either sold the program with planned
obsolescence or they downloaded a patch that is going to disable a
working feature. And it wasn't like they warned at the time of purchase
that the software would stop downloading on April 30, 2008. Do I hear
the sound of people calling their state attorney general?"

Some Quicken 2005 customers did have warning that this day was going to
come sooner or later, because they were among the Quicken 2001 customers
who three years ago were forced to upgrade in similar fashion. With both
Quicken and QuickBooks crippleware policies, Intuit just keeps getting
more aggressive in terms of how many features they shut down and how
quickly they force customers to upgrade. Who knows how soon those who
buy Quicken 2008 could face the next discontinuation notice?

But the real lesson to be learned here is that "discontinuation" can
come from Intuit incompetence and indifference as well as Intuit's
intent. Along with the Quicken stock portfolio problems, that point was
also brought home by last month's incident (see
http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/Pages/KnowledgeBaseArticle/1009
249)
where a buggy software update caused QuickBooks for the Mac to erase
files. And if I were a Quicken or QuickBooks customers, I'd be pretty
concerned about the security and privacy issues raised by Intuit's bugs,
not the least of which is the question of just how much of your most
important financial information is exposed, and where.

Intuit has always justified its sunset/discontinuation tactics with the
absurd claim that it permits the company "to provide reliable
high-quality products and services" in the future. But never has it been
made more starkly clear that the crippleware policy only encourages
Intuit to ignore defects in its software and support, in the belief that
customers will be forced to upgrade anyway. Quicken customers who don't
learn their lesson this time will therefore likely find that, be it
inadvertent or intentional on Intuit's part, the next shutdown of
essential features will be coming quicker than ever.

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Read this column on-line and post your comments at
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2008/1/29/1024/72051

Got a gripe? Write me at Foster.RemoveThis@gripe2ed.com
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Recently in my weblog:

Putting EULAs in a New Light
We've seen a remarkable array of restrictive license agreement terms on
hard goods over the years -- a woodworking tool that only one person can
use, ink jet cartridges that can't be refilled, carbonated beverage
canisters that must be returned to the manufacturer, even tropical fish
that you have to keep from fooling around. Now comes one of the
strangest yet -- a camera with a EULA that allows only certain people to
use it, and only to take certain kinds of pictures.
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2008/1/24/94733/7581

Unprotected From Antivirus Vendors' Autorenewals
One area in which McAfee has been the clear antivirus leader is in the
number of customer gripes generated by its automatic subscription
renewals. But I'm beginning to see signs that Symantec is closing even
that gap.
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2008/1/21/1231/47624

Extended Debate Over Extended Warranties
The discussion resulting from my "Part-by-Part Extended Warranty
Torture" story hasn't gone quite like I expected. For one, I'm a bit
surprised at how many people don't agree -- particularly when it comes
to items like high-end flat panel TVs -- with my conviction that
extended warranties are never a good idea. But what has really startled
me are comments from some professional TV repairmen who themselves
aren't big supporters of extended warranties.
http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2008/1/15/1147/75482

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