by dustinaz August 31, 2009 8:57 AM MDT
I use Wells Fargo and Washington Mutual with Paytrust. I have had issues in the past with both banks, but more with WAMU. These were usually resolved within a week or possibly 2 weeks. However, in the last month, I have been unable to connect to WAMU. After contacting Paytrust, I was told that they have made a business decision to stop supporting SmartBalance for ALL BANKS. It has become too difficult for them to support the new security features of the banks. And, for those who don't know, Paytrust SmartBalance uses a sort of macro that logs in as you just like you do through a web page. If ANYTHING is different, such as an offer for a service or any new page that Paytrust didn't see when they wrote the macro, you won't be able to login. As others have asked, I also wanted to know what banks worked, but they refused to tell me. Considering that all banks will lose support, it appears like SmartBalance is going to be phased out. This is extremely sad as this is a major feature of the service. I specifically chose my banks because they were supported by this feature in the past.
What I don't understand is why Quicken Online can access these accounts with no issues. Both Paytrust and Quicken are owned by the same company, Intuit. The Paytrust website has not been updated in at least 2 years and hasn't had a major update in far longer. I've been a customer for almost 8 years now (starting with paymybills.com which was acquired by Paytrust.com), and have not seen any significant improvements in almost 5 years. Since they are phasing out SmartBalance and there has been absolutely no attempt at integrating this Intuit service with the others, I fear that Paytrust is planning to be phased out completely. I really hope this isn't the case, but see no effort by Intuit to promote this service or integrate it with anything else they own. Note that if you go to intuit.com and search for "Paytrust", it does not find anything with that word. There are plenty of references to every other product, but no mention (or link) to Paytrust. It maybe owned by Intuit, but they don't appear to want anyone to know about it.
As others have said, this is still a great service and there are not any others that are anywhere near as good. I just hope that it doesn't go away and wish that there was at least some effort to update it instead of what appears like a conscious business choice to let this service wither on the vine and slowly die off.
Reply to this comment.
by cicorias August 31, 2009 8:57 AM MDT
SmartBalance has been discontinued. This is the message I received today.
Dear XXXX,
After much consideration, a business decision was made to stop providing the SmartBalance feature.
We made this decision due to the fact that increased security on most Financial Institutions' websites has made it increasingly difficult for us to access your banking account. We understand that losing the functionality of SmartBalance is a disappointment to our customers, which is why we did not reach this decision lightly.
We are confident that the many other features of Paytrust will continue to qualify us as the number one online payment services provider.
If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at Support@paytrust.com for your bill payment needs. We are here to assist - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Regards,
Aaron H.
August 30, 2009
Paytrust Support
reply by Bogo77 November 23, 2009 9:05 AM MST
It's funny, Intuit acquires Mint.com which offers the feature you're describing, and Paytrust (also an Intuit offering) discontinues Paytrust.
by BillS May 12, 2009 1:46 PM MDT
I live and work outside the US, so I have used Paytrust for over 8 years in tandem with my Suntrust bank account. I have found the service to work quite well and I especially value the SmartBalance feature which has, at least until recently, worked seamlessly with the bank account. However, for the last month, the security features at Suntrust have blocked SmartBalance. After several requests for help, I was told by Paytrust that they no longer can support SmartBalance for my account. If Suntrust is doing this, I suspect other banks will follow soon. (Perhaps this is also a ploy by banks to get people to use their bill payment services?) A more ominous sign of possible waning cooperation by banks is that, rather than reveal which banks support SmartBalance, Paytrust has basically told me to pick another bank, open an account, and then see if it works with SmartBalance - not a good sign!
reply by barainey May 13, 2009 2:28 PM MDT
update:
about a week ago (i believe it was down for about 5-6 weeks), it looks like smart balance began working again. i never received any update from customer service letting me know. hopefully, it won't disappear again.
by ndanielle April 2, 2009 3:53 PM MDT
I'm a Paytrust customer and love the service, however I'm finding my favorite feature, SmartBalance, continues having problems with banks. This is the feature I use to balance my account. When it works, it's fabulous - when it doesn't it's horrible. I bank with Wachovia and I've seen similar posts online regarding Bank of America. The problem is that when our banks change their security features, Paytrust's SmartBalance stops working. The latest problem with SmartBalance and Wachovia seems to be 3+ Weeks old, however the issue isn't resolved.
So, as cool as Paytrust is - the feature called SmartBalance is simply transfer of your credentials. SmartBalance is NOT a partnership with banks, which I assumed it was.
I still love not receiving bills at home, I love being able to get all my bills received by them and scanned for me to read, however without SmartBalance - well, I'm less than satisfied.
I won't cancel this service just yet because I haven't found a competitor who will receive my bills for me, but I'm looking.
reply by barainey May 12, 2009 1:46 PM MDT
I have exactly the same experience with Paytrust.
One of the big perks for me is SmartBalance, but it's gotten to where it has issues updating approximately every two months and takes about two weeks for them to resolve the issue (I use Chase bank).
Currently, I have not been able to update my SmartBalance since 3/19 and have emailed them over and over again only to receive the same, almost identically useless responses. I think they began to tire of my inquiries because I their responses seemed to become a little random. They offered to remove transaction items from my SmartBalance. Then they told me Chase updated their security features so that it would no longer be compatible with SmartBalance and they stopped offering it two weeks prior. When I asked them why they hadn't mentioned that for two weeks and asked what had changed at chase.com, they replied they had no more information for me. Basically, a brush off.
I find it interesting someone using a different bank is having the same issues.
I would also consider leaving, even after 9 years, just due to my frustration with customer service, except I don't want my bills coming to me.
reply by joshuasteiner May 6, 2009 9:20 AM MDT
I agree--wells fargo smartbalance has also stopped working. someone replied to my help request iwth a note saying that SmartBalace was being discontinued because of the technical challenges of the evolving security scheme of our banks. Quicken Online pulls data from accounts and banks (including my checking accounts), but doesn't offer bill payment. Quicken (on the PC) also pulls data, but uses bill payment via the bank and does nothing about receiving bills. I want Paytrust to link to Quicken Online for the smart balance feature
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