First Tech Credit Union - Visa

[rainypixels]

My wife and I both have Visas from First Tech, and we're getting the infamous "Extra Auth Required" message. Oddly enough, our checking, savings and instant access accounts are through First Tech, too, and those work fine. Any ideas? I've done the whole password reset deal, and that doesn't change anything.

[kgdavis]

I'm getting the same thing. It worked for a while, but now requires me to 'Login to First Technology Credit Uni... directly'. That link sends me to the password reset page. :(

[mattha]

Same here: FTCU VISA fails, chkg/svgs work.

My FTCU checking and savings accounts come through, but the VISA is getting stuck. A couple possibilities that come to mind:
* FTCU recently (not sure when exactly) implemented "biometrics" security by using the typing rhythm of the password at login to provide additional authentication info. This is supposed to only matter when real transactions are submitted (e.g. transfers, bill payment, etc.), so it seems unlikely, especially given that the checking and savings accounts work. See http://www.firsttechcu.com/home/security/online_banking/login_faqs.html for high-level info.
* FTCU also has 3 security questions (like many other sites) that come into play if the biometric data doesn't match. Again, it doesn't seem like it would be necessary, but you never know...

I'll also second the "direct login" link being wrong; the correct URL is https://online.firsttechcu.com/.

[kgdavis]

I think that it's really unlikely that it's the "biometric" thing.. as you said, checking / savings work, and the visa worked for a while.

I think the problem is the incorrect 'direct login' url, to repair something else that changed.

[mattha]

Yep, I doubt it's the biometrics; I was merely pointing out "recent" changes in case it might help the Mint team.

[Damon]

Actually, this would be something that couldn't be supported. If this was a recent change by your bank, then this would explain why it would work & then stop working.

Are the logins the same for both? In other words, is the general process the same when you access either account?

A little curious if the banking is still working...

[rainypixels]

Yep. Login process is the same for all the accounts, and the banking has been working all along.

[mattha]

The URL (http://www.firsttechcu.com/home/security/online_banking/login_faqs.html) I included in my first post explains it, but if you want to skip the click, it works roughly like this:
* The site uses a bit of JScript to record the typing rhythm for the password. If the rhythm "matches", then the user is fully authenticated.
* In the event of no biometric match, then the user is authenticated for viewing, but not for new transactions (transfers, bill pay, etc.).
* If the user wants a new transaction, then he/she must answer one or more security questions.

Is it possible that the security questions are needed for the VISA accounts?

[kgdavis]

Not sure about the security question requirements. Is there any way I could help?

[mattha]

My question was intended for the Mint team, since they can investigate the issue and change the login form if necessary.

[dpippin]

I just signed up today and First Tech is not authorizing even my Savings and Checking accounts. I get the error message "We can't add your accounts! (the issue has been reported to Mint)". I think it is because of the biometrics, or First Tech has blocked mint.com from accessing there accounts/logins. I will try again tomorrow it could just be a miscommunication thing. However, I know I am entering the right password and username for FirstTech.

If this continues maybe if we all decide to write an email to the Customer Reps at FirstTech they might do something. If someone wants to put a canned message together let us know, otherwise I'll try and post one this Weekend. First Tech does pride on making customers happy so maybe they will listen if it continues to be a big enough problem.

[rlindsley]

Hi there,

When I try to set up my First Tech accounts, I also get the "We can't add your accounts! (the issue has been reported to Mint)".

Most of my accounts are with First Tech, so for the site to be useful for me, I gotta have them. Is there anything that can be done?

Thanks!
Robert.

[philedry]

Yup, I have the same exact problem with First Tech visa not working, but checking/savings working. I've been in contact with the mint folks, and I think they're looking into it.

[kgdavis]

Good to hear they're on it. Did they give any estimate as to when to expect a fix?

[Damon]

I am filing a bug with this issue to see if there are any recent changes with the bank that will cause issues connecting to this bank. If I hear back about it...I will make a post about it. Our provider did have some issues in the latter half of January, so that may have contributed to some of the issues...

Note: Biometric passwords would be an issue.

[kgdavis]

Great to see you guys are on it. If there is any way for me to help, let me know.

aside: this forum software is terrible.

[Jared]

Great to see you guys are on it. If there is any way for me to help, let me know.

aside: this forum software is terrible.

vBulletin is probably one of the most popular forum software around, man.

[mattha]

It looks like the login form for the FTCU VISA has been updated to include security questions. I just gave it a try, twice, but it still doesn't seem to want to connect...

[philedry]

Yes, me too. It looks we now have a way to store the challenge questions and login, but it's still not logging in correctly. At least we're closer now!

[Damon]

Hi Folks,

The forms recently did change for this bank. However...if they are employing biometrics for password login, this is going to be a problem (not supported).

[kgdavis]

"Login to First Technology Credit Union - Credit Card to see if you need to answer any questions. firsttechcu.com
When done, please try re-adding your account.[cancel][try again]"

I logged into First Tech no problem, no questions required. The 'try again' button took me to a screen with dropdowns for questions. After finding the challenge questions I set up at First Tech I select them and filled out the answers. After pressing OK it tries to connect and takes me back to where I was.. needing more info.

Will re-adding the account work? I don't really feel like losing all my transactions..

[mattha]

This still isn't working for me, either. I've tried several times over the past week, and I continue to get "more info needed". I have a hard time believe bio-metrics are required for logging in, as the checking and savings accounts continue to work just fine.

I just tried creating a new Mint account and adding the FTCU accounts to it. Checking and Savings worked as expected, with the security questions as part of the login process. The VISA still doesn't work (tried twice), using the same login form.

[Damon]

" have a hard time believe bio-metrics are required for logging in, as the checking and savings accounts continue to work just fine."

Actually, this is extremely problematic. The login information passed via our provider wouldn't match *how* you type your password in a certain ryhthm & that is why sites with biometric passwords won't work.

[kgdavis]

I think mattha was pointing out that since this 'biometric' measure is used on the checking and savings accounts - that work fine - it didn't seem like this would be the problem.

[Damon]

I just checked the stats for the bank & it is up & down with successful adds. And folks are answering the appropriate security questions as well?

[kgdavis]

My experience:

Accounts page - "We need more info! This bank needs you to verify some details"

I click "okay" and am taken to a big dialog that says I need to verify some info.

I click 'try again' and it brings me to the security question page, defaulting to an empty form with all the question boxes defaulted to the first question - "how many brothers do you have?"

I enter my username and password, select the same challenge questions that I've selected on first tech's site and enter the answers exactly as I have them there.

When I click 'login', it tries to connect and fails, bringing me back to where I began.

Inside the first tech site, it will ask a random security question from the 3 I've set to go to the profile settings area. Is it possible that it's asking the questions in a different order? Although, if it was, I think that the correct order would have come up for me by now.

[mattha]

Same thing for me. I've entered and re-entered the questions/answers quite a few times now, and I continue getting the "We need more info!" prompt.

And, yes, my point about biometrics is that the same login process covers all three of checking, savings, and VISA, so it appears odd that checking and savings work while VISA does not.

[Damon]

Still an open issue. The thing here is that there's actually a pretty decent success rate for addition of both accounts here, so something else has to be going on.

[kgdavis]

I should have mentioned that originally I was able to add the account. Transactions came over to mint and it worked for a couple of days / sessions.

[kgdavis]

anything I can do to help figure this out?

[snwbrdwndsrf]

I have tried repeatedly over the last week or more to register my credit account without success. I'm guessing that as such this is not a matter of up/down time on their servers but something else. Any updates?

Thanks.

[Damon]

Still an open bug, unfortunately.

[kgdavis]

Have other banks shown similar behavior? Anything I can do to help debug? I was really excited to use mint, but without the card I use for all my expenses it's not too useful.

[kgdavis]

Something I haven't tried is removing, then re-adding the account, for fear that it will lose my transactions. Will it retain them and associate them to the same account if I manage to successfully re-add the account?

Is this still being looked at?

[kgdavis]

something else that might be helpful..

On the first tech site, to get to the area where you change your challenge questions, they ask you a random question drawn from your existing challenge questions.

Logging into mint today, it looks like I now have 2 First Tech CC accounts there? (both requiring more info and resulting in the same problem as before).

[Damon]

"Something I haven't tried is removing, then re-adding the account, for fear that it will lose my transactions. Will it retain them and associate them to the same account if I manage to successfully re-add the account?

Is this still being looked at?"

Yes, it is still being looked at. Removing the account will remove the transactions & I would not recommend doing so.

[Damon]

Hi Folks,

I am hearing back from our provider that the error code is that the security questions are not being answered. Can you please confirm that you are answering the security questions?

[kgdavis]

Strange.

Not being answered at all or not correctly? The FirstTech questions are available to me, I choose the ones that I've specified, answer them and get sent back to the 'we need more info' state on the accounts page.

[Damon]

Do you notice anything different about the security questions, etc.?

[kgdavis]

Looking closely.. the order of the questions is different:

On Mint: (alphabetical)
How many brothers do you have?
How many sisters do you have?
ln what city was your father born?
ln what city was your mother born?
ln what city were you born?
What is the first name of your closest childhood friend?
What is the name of your favorite pet?
What is your father’s middle name?
What is your mother's middle name?
What is your spouse's nickname?
What was the last name of your first grade teacher?
What was the name of the first school you attended?
What year did you graduate from college?
Which city did you visit on your honeymoon?

On FirstTech's site:
Please Select a Question
what year did you graduate from college?
what is the first name of your closest childhood friend?
what is your spouses nickname?
What was the last name of your first grade teacher?
Which city did you visit on your honeymoon?
What was the name of the first school you attended?
What is the name of your favorite pet?
What is your father’s middle name?
what is your mother's middle name
In what city was your father born?
In what city was your mother born?
How many brothers do you have?

Looking at the form on the FirstTech site.. I see they're being sneaky.

Instead of validating the input for uniqueness on submission, they change the contents of dropdowns based on your selection. So if you've got 'how many brothers do you have' selected for one of your questions, the form adjusts so you can't choose it for the others (not sure on the defaults as I set up my account ages ago). The mint form obviously doesn't do this.

This might be a good test of your system's flexability :)

[Damon]

Interesting...as the forms appear to be the same for bank and credit card, I just find it odd that the credit card option is failing at a much higher rate (Still waiting to hear back w/additional info).

[acamp]

Just wanted to chip in that I am also unable to get my visa card to work from first tech. My experience sounds the same as all the other posters. My account was working at one time, and has since stopped working. My checking account still works fine.

Only other thing to note is that I started out with secret answers that had special characters in them - a " " (space) and a "'" (apos). I have since removed those characters from my secret answers via the first tech page, but my login still does not work.

Anyway, I'll follow the thread, but thought I would add one more data point. Thanks for the investigation.

[Damon]

"Only other thing to note is that I started out with secret answers that had special characters in them - a " " (space) and a "'" (apos). I have since removed those characters from my secret answers via the first tech page, but my login still does not work."

Interesting. Generally speaking...I haven't seen where this is too much of an issue.

[kgdavis]

for what it's worth, I haven't ever had those characters in my passwords

do you guys communicate with FirstTech directly or via Yodlee?

[philedry]

In addition to trying what everyone else in these threads has tried, I have attempted to change all three challenge questions on the first tech site, and then re-register the questions in the "we need more info" mint account box. I even tried doing all questions with simple numeric answers, with no luck.

Damon, are you saying that some people are actually able to get their first tech credit cards working (since January)? Or does everyone have this problem?

My savings and checking are still working great.

[philedry]

One more thing... the credit card account also fails to authenticate in Yodlee. Are these issues related?

[Damon]

Most certainly could be related (we use them for our backend).

[kgdavis]

any update?

[philedry]

I've posted a service request with Yodlee, so maybe that will clear all this up.

Here's hoping,
Phil

[Damon]

I've been out of the office for the past few days because of a death in the family.

Interestingly enough, I've had some issues because some of the account that reported the issues either closed their account and/or removed the account from their profile. If you removed the account, and you're answering the security questions correctly, please add it again (don't remove) so I can get the information back to our provider.

[kgdavis]

I'm sorry to hear about that.

I tried to add my account again, but it failed to add in the same way. Let me know if there is anything I can help do to debug.

[kmlorenz]

For what it is worth, I am new to Mint and added my First Tech Savings/Checking accounts easily but was unable to add the Visa at all. Seems something must have changed in the system earlier this year.

[philedry]

... but that's the problem. We can't re-add the account. It's not like we're re-adding the account, seeing that the error happens, and then deleting it. The account never gets created.

[hombal_vani]

Hi all,

I am unable to add my First Tech Visa CC to mint. I have verified that all my security questions and answers are correct. Tried it several times. Even contacted MINT support and they came back with a reply asking us to follow this thread. But seems like everyone is having the same problem. :(

Any help is truly appreciated.

Regards,
Vani

[mooshu]

I read about Mint and thought I should try it out. Unfortunately after struggling for a couple of days, looks like I am hitting the same issue that other on this forum have reported.

I can get my First Tech checking and savings, but not my credit cards. I had my account questions reset and I tried re-adding my accounts, but no success. The credit cards just don't work, no matter what I try. It keeps taking me to "this bank needs to verify some details"

I really want to try and potentially use Mint, but this is blocking me. Thanks.

[Damon]

I pushed the bug again with additional info and cases. Let's hope that helps...

Note: The error message I am getting indicates that customers need to complete something on the First Tech site. At the same time, however, the same issue should happen with the bank account as well...doesn't make much sense to me.

[kmlorenz]

Looks like this issue has been dragging on for over 3 months now, is there any hope of resolution? From what I have seen of Mint this would be a great program to use, but I am not going to wait around forever waiting for the Visa problem to be fixed and this is pretty useless without adding my Visa account.

Can you give us a better idea of what is being done and a timeline?

[georgescriban]

Same issue as everyone else: I could add my First Tech checking and savings accounts easily, and they update fine. FTCU Visa, not at all (not even once). However, my Yodlee MoneyCenter account is updating the FTCU Visa account just fine (which strikes me as odd, since Yodlee's Mint's backend, right? Speaking of which, is there a way to bulk import accounts from my MoneyCenter account into Mint -- hate the thought of redoing all that work, one account at a time).

[Dharmansible]

Hey Damon, Mint team,

After a few frustrating days trying to figure out why this isn't working, I found this forum thread. Reading through all of the posts, I thought a nice detailed narrative might help.

I signed up for Mint sometime late last week. Maybe around 4/11 or 4/12. I have my savings, checking, and VISA through First Tech CU. I access all three of those accounts with the same firsttechcy.com online banking login. I am aware of the biometric "feature" they have, and the security questions as well as where to view/change those.

First, it's interesting to note as an aside that no matter how I type my username and password at firsttechcu.com, I've never tripped a mechanic that asked me my security questions. So I'm not sure how much stock I take in it. Also, for a while, accessing the site on my iPhone would take me to their legacy login that appears to skip the biometric, so they obviously haven't been too serious about it. Now they actually have a mobile site (with hampered functionality), and I can't imagine that uses the biometrics either, considering how different you type on a mobile device. But...I digress.

When I setup my Mint.com account, I had no problem adding my savings/checking account. In fact, I answered three questions at random, not knowing they were meant to match what I have on file for firsttechcu.com - Mint should probably state if it's supposed to match - and they didn't match. Even then it still added just fine!

But when I add the credit card account, it establishes a secure connection and then fails to authenticate, asking me to answer additional questions at firsttechcu.com.

So what have I tried so far?


Re-entering username and password for firsttechcu.com on Mint.com.
Using the security questions on Mint.com that are specifically used on firsttechcu.com, in the order they are used.
Verified that there are no spaces or hidden characters in my answers provided on Mint.com or stored on firsttechcu.com.
Waiting a few days to see if the problem resolves.


Sufficed to say, none of my above attempts towards self-resolution have been successful. While I realize this doesn't appear to be Mint's fault at current, and that you're waiting on a response from whoever, I wouldn't be a good consumer if I didn't follow up my detailed experience with...

It goes without saying that, after 3-4 months, you're going to lose a lot of Northwest users who rely on First Tech CU for their primary banking with this. Tracking expenditures made on savings/checking/debit transactions is great! But a lot of us rely on the added security an actual credit card provides. Not tracking those transactions makes us lose a lot of the functionality that your software is all about providing.

To my fellow First Tech / Mint users: A really crappy workaround, but a workaround nonetheless, is this: When you pay your credit card from your checking account, wait for the payment to clear and appear in Mint. When it does, use Mint to split that payment into the categories based on the transactions you can see on your credit card statement via firsttechcu.com. It won't reflect when the expenses are incurred (unless you make payment right away), but will account for them somehow. Of course, the minute you do get your credit card added, those categorized expenses will be doubled, and you'll really have a mess to clean up.

[Dharmansible]

Hey Damon, Mint team,

After a few frustrating days trying to figure out why this isn't working, I found this forum thread. Reading through all of the posts, I thought a nice detailed narrative might help.

I signed up for Mint sometime late last week. Maybe around 4/11 or 4/12. I have my savings, checking, and VISA through First Tech CU. I access all three of those accounts with the same firsttechcy.com online banking login. I am aware of the biometric "feature" they have, and the security questions as well as where to view/change those.

First, it's interesting to note as an aside that no matter how I type my username and password at firsttechcu.com, I've never tripped a mechanic that asked me my security questions. So I'm not sure how much stock I take in it. Also, for a while, accessing the site on my iPhone would take me to their legacy login that appears to skip the biometric, so they obviously haven't been too serious about it. Now they actually have a mobile site (with hampered functionality), and I can't imagine that uses the biometrics either, considering how different you type on a mobile device. But...I digress.

When I setup my Mint.com account, I had no problem adding my savings/checking account. In fact, I answered three questions at random, not knowing they were meant to match what I have on file for firsttechcu.com - Mint should probably state if it's supposed to match - and they didn't match. Even then it still added just fine!

But when I add the credit card account, it establishes a secure connection and then fails to authenticate, asking me to answer additional questions at firsttechcu.com.

So what have I tried so far?


Re-entering username and password for firsttechcu.com on Mint.com.
Using the security questions on Mint.com that are specifically used on firsttechcu.com, in the order they are used.
Verified that there are no spaces or hidden characters in my answers provided on Mint.com or stored on firsttechcu.com.
Waiting a few days to see if the problem resolves.

Sufficed to say, none of my above attempts towards self-resolution have been successful. While I realize this doesn't appear to be Mint's fault at current, and that you're waiting on a response from whoever, I wouldn't be a good consumer if I didn't follow up my detailed experience with...

It goes without saying that, after 3-4 months, you're going to lose a lot of Northwest users who rely on First Tech CU for their primary banking with this. Tracking expenditures made on savings/checking/debit transactions is great! But a lot of us rely on the added security an actual credit card provides. Not tracking those transactions makes us lose a lot of the functionality that your software is all about providing.

To my fellow First Tech / Mint users: A really crappy workaround, but a workaround nonetheless, is this: When you pay your credit card from your checking account, wait for the payment to clear and appear in Mint. When it does, use Mint to split that payment into the categories based on the transactions you can see on your credit card statement via firsttechcu.com. It won't reflect when the expenses are incurred (unless you make payment right away), but will account for them somehow. Of course, the minute you do get your credit card added, those categorized expenses will be doubled, and you'll really have a mess to clean up.

[Damon]

Believe me, these situations are equally frustrating for me (there's no way for me to resolve it personally). Every case I've looked at to date has something about requiring additional information & it is now in the hands of our provider.

[bkilian]

I'm in the same boat here. Sadly enough, I've had problems with every bank I've tried to add to Mint. One won't retrieve transactions, First Tech won't let me add the Visa account, and my last bank isn't supported at all. All of these banks worked flawlessly in Quicken Online, but quicken just doesn't have the featureset I want.

Considering this has been going on for more than 3 months now, I'm not going to hold my breath for a resolution.

[Damon]

The error code being kicked back is the same in every case. Our provider is working on it & I will post an update when I know it is fixed (sorry it is taking so much time).

[Damon]

Our provider is reporting that folks should have better luck now.

Two things:
Check to see how your security questions are at the bank's site.
Make sure you are answering them the same way on the Mint site.

[snwbrdwndsrf]

Our provider is reporting that folks should have better luck now.

Two things:
Check to see how your security questions are at the bank's site.
Make sure you are answering them the same way on the Mint site.

I just tried this and it continues to fail. I verified very carefully that my security questions were correct. :(

- Simon

[Dharmansible]

Our provider is reporting that folks should have better luck now.

Two things:
Check to see how your security questions are at the bank's site.
Make sure you are answering them the same way on the Mint site.
Unfortunately, I am seeing no change at all.

I opened my FirstTechCU.com account in one tab, and called up my challenge questions/answers. I then tried to add the account in Mint.com. I did it once selecting the questions and typing the answers exactly, then again copying and pasting the answers. No dice either way. Back to square one.

[kgdavis]

it works!

Although, I've got a 2 month gap in transactions from when it wasn't working so my spending looks a bit wonky. Any way to pull these in?

[kmlorenz]

Still no dice for me either. :mad:

[kgdavis]

it works!

Although, I've got a 2 month gap in transactions from when it wasn't working so my spending looks a bit wonky. Any way to pull these in?

scratch that.. it looks like my Visa only has the most recenly imported transactions, nothing from before it started working again

at one point before this started working again I'd tried to add a second Visa account - I may have inadvertently deleted the account that had my prior transactions

1. is there a way to get past transactions?
2. maybe a takeaway for what to do when you have multiple accounts of the same type - provide some way to distinguish between them? user assigned title? I had deleted the account on the second row, the one I thought I had added second (and never gotten to work)

[Damon]

"Although, I've got a 2 month gap in transactions from when it wasn't working so my spending looks a bit wonky. Any way to pull these in?"

Not sure I follow how this happened. Did you remove and re-add the account? If so, no way to do so.

The type of error that we're encountering indicates that customers need to update something at the end site before it will refresh again. When possible, I am trying to see if our provider can give us better information about what needs to be done exactly at the end site to rectify.

[michaelc]

I'm a new Mint.com user, and I'm trying to set up my FTCU credit card. I'm having the same problem as others on this thread, it says I need to log into my bank and answer any questions that it might have.

I've double checked that the security questions on my FTCU account are the same as the ones I use when trying to set up the credit card on Mint.com but I'm still not having any luck. Is there a general solution to this problem yet?

This is kind of a deal-breaker for Mint.com if I can't get my credit card set up...

[philedry]

Yaaaay It Works!

[rastchinskym@gmail.com]

Yaaaay It Works!
Is the sequence of questions same as in your online banking profile?

[Dharmansible]

Yaaaay It Works!

Well congratulations for you. Still no love here. Just checked. Same results.

[gph]

Me too...

FTCU checking/savings added fine, adding credit account results in We need more info! error.

Security questions are in same sequential order and have identical answers to profile on CU's site. Even tried changing to diff questions/answers with same resulting error.

Mint is great so far...love the UI and functionality. Once this account working, Mint will become my primary finance aggregator. :)

[Damon]

I've re-opened the bug with our provider. Please make sure you attempt to add the account & then leave it attached (can't file bugs if the accounts aren't active).

[Dharmansible]

Please make sure you attempt to add the account & then leave it attached (can't file bugs if the accounts aren't active).
I didn't know we had to be doing that. I didn't recall seeing it in previous posts. My apologies, since I've been removing the problem account until now.

I've just re-added the account (still fails), and am leaving the failing account attached moving forward.

Thanks!

[shaileshs]

Hi,

I am having same issues like other gazillion people. Added my firsttech saving/checking account just fine, but can't add the credit account.

Verified that all the answers are correct and in the same order as on bank's site.

I have left the account in added failing condition as I read on other replies from Damon.

Let me know if you need more information.

Thanks in advance.

[gregbarnes]

I also am having the identical issue: savings/checking work, but the Visa does not. I have followed many steps that others have tried including answering all 3 questions in the order provided on First Tech's site; answering just 1 of the questions (tried with each of the 3); and answer none of the questions and all fail with the same message: "We need more info!" I've also tried adding the account WHILE logged in to my First Tech site to see if I'm prompted for information or given a warning and I am not.

So I'm wondering:
1) Is mint.com using the same URL for the login page for 1st Tech Visas as it is for the Checking/Savings?
2) Is there any way to set up a test account and ask a few select users to try alternate configurations (if you HAD a way to have alternate configurations)? (Most users of First Tech are members because they are employed by Microsoft and/or other technology based companies so it may not be difficult to find tech-savvy people to help with this).
3) Users have reported that it worked at one point, then stopped working. Was a change made here, or via First Tech?

*I have called 1st Tech to ask them if they purposely restrict any 3rd party sites from accessing their site and they said that they have no restrictions (that they knew of) that would specifically prevent a site such as this from gaining access with the correct info.

I know there are hundreds of financial institutions out there, but is there anything I/we can do from a user standpoint to facilitate this?
-Greg

[Dharmansible]

3) Users have reported that it worked at one point, then stopped working. Was a change made here, or via First Tech?

...

I know there are hundreds of financial institutions out there, but is there anything I/we can do from a user standpoint to facilitate this?
-Greg
Read previous notes by Damon above. Unfortunately, it's not First Tech or Mint.com, it's "the provider" that facilitates the data going back and forth. Apparently this provider is in none too much a hurry to help Mint get this straightened out. From my following Damon's comments on the matter so far, it sounds like at least once the provider has said, "That's it! It's fixed! It's working now, thanks for calling!" when in fact the problem has persisted.

I understand that Mint is at the mercy of this provider and that unless the provider plays ball, nothing gets done. So I can't fault Mint for this third party's failure to resolve this.

What I think we all would love to know is what Mint is doing currently, as a paying customer of this provider, to lean on this provider to resolve their broken service and products.

Is this some monopoly situation where this provider is basically the only one? Can you switch to another provider if this one is failing to show results?

[acamp]

I'm still having the problem. Further more, I can no longer update my security questions through mint. As asked, I have not deleted my credity card account. When I goto my accounts page, I have my saving account just fine, and my credit card account says, 'we need more info!' I click okay, and a new page come up, saying to go to firsttech and answer any questions, and then try re-adding my account (which I've done many times). I then click update, and mint.com tries to authenticate. After about a minutes, it fails, and I am at the same point, where the accounts page says 'Cancel' or 'OK' for my credit card account.

At one point, mint.com would aske me for my security questions, but this no longer happens.

[Dharmansible]

from Mint <team@mint.com>
reply-to Mint Feedback <feedback@mint.com>
to xxxx
date Wed, May 14, 2008 at 5:30 AM
subject Welcome to Mint!
mailed-by mint.com

mint.com - Refreshing Money Management

Hello,

Thank you for trying Mint.com. We're eager to get to work for you - organizing your spending and finding you savings.

If you were unsuccessful in adding a financial institution recently, we apologize. Here are some tips on how to get started:

* If you did find your bank on our list, it's worth trying again. We're continually improving our connectivity, and you may find that you can add more accounts today.
* If you didn't find your bank, please let us know. We're adding banks all the time, and we will email you as soon as we add yours.

We're looking forward to helping you see where your money goes, easily and automatically, and finding you ways to reduce your bills and increase your savings. Put us to work for you today!

Cheers,
The Mint Team
feedback@mint.com

Why do you tease us so, Mint.com?!?! :mad: Sufficed to say, our issue here is not resolved as of this mass announcement.

[romans]

Dear Mint Team,
Any update on this issue (Firsttech + Visa)? Any estimate on whether/when it will be fixed? Even bad news is better than no news :)
Thanks,
Roman

[anujm]

I have the same problem with First Tech VISA. Though Mint did suggest possible solutions none of them seem to work ( I have tried all combinations). Thanks.

[userxian]

Been waiting for a resolution on this issue for quite some time now (First Tech + Visa). I am chiming in because I haven't seen an update from Mint since 5/6, almost a month now. Is this issue still on the radar, or should we walk away with our heads down, kicking sand?

To quote Damon's last response: "I've re-opened the bug with our provider. Please make sure you attempt to add the account & then leave it attached (can't file bugs if the accounts aren't active."

Making an assumption that the provider is not prioritizing this issue... What can we--as a Mint user community requiring this feature (FTCU Visa)--provide that will put more weight behind these escalations? Are there too few "attached" Visa accounts? Something else? Help us help you.

Any additional detail on the delays here would be appreciated. I am trying to remain patient, but I find that I am coming back to the Mint site less and less often. Having access to only half of my financial data for categorization/trending/etc isn't useful beyond that of a tech demo. And I really, REALLY want to love this product (everything else has been great).

[DBear]

I too have had no luck getting my FT Visa to download into Mint. I called FT today and asked them about it since this thread appears to be working the Mint angle. They simply say "We don't support Mint.com. Only Quicken and MS Money. So essentialy they are saying they won't even work with Mint to figure it out.

So my suggestion is that we have to get our Credit Union to know we want this and we want them to work with Mint to resolve.
I suggest we all contact FT immediatley and often. Email and phone calls.

REMEMBER - We are MEMBERS - NOT CUSTOMERS. This is OUR credit union. Some of the folks at FT remember this philosophy but many do not. The dweeb I spoke to today has forgotten.

Jerry

[DBear]

Oh yes - I forgot to add one note on my last reply.

If I don't have my FT Visa on Mint.com - Then Mint.com is USELESS for me and I will not be using it.

(Nor will any of my mutlitudes of Hi-Tech brethern here in the Silcon Forest if they ask my opinion on Mint and they have a FT account which almost all of them do.)

Jerry

[grahamismyname]

Just adding to the thread to keep it fresh. I'm also awaiting a response from Mint or Yodlee.

[dynastar1]

Not working for my FT visa either... this sucks.

[snwbrdwndsrf]

I have tried adding my First Technology Visa account every couple of weeks over the last few months with absolutely no success. This is my main credit card, and as such mint.com is virtually useless to me. I will now delete my account here; if others with the same problem do the same maybe they'll pay a little more attention to this issue.

Simon

[romans]

I wrote to FTCU today and got a quick reply:


Thank you for your email. At this time, we do not have any plans to address issues directly related to access by mint.com.

I apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.


Seems that we are out of luck there. Unless there is a critical mass of people complaining at FTCU, they won't put any effort in this.

Roman

[Damon]

The issue, unfortunately, is in the hands of our provider. I've escalated the issue again & hope that something can be done. I realize it has been dragging on for some time now, but I don't have any direct control over resolving it.

[romans]

Another update:

I got a second email from FTCU today:

We wanted to follow up with you and provide you with additional information regarding adding First Tech credit cards to mint.com. We have been working with Mint for about 4 months and will continue to attempt to assist Mint with correcting this issue. Unfortunately, we do not have an estimated time as to when this issue will be resolved. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

So there is hope, it seems.

On a side note, I found out something interesting. I created an account with Yodlee and there, the FTCU Visa works! They had a bit of a quirks in the list of security questions, but after changing my questions at FT according to what Yodlee was offering, I could add the account (I probably shouldn't say that here, but Yodlee, albeit not as web 2.0ish as mint, has more or less what I was looking for). Now what puzzles me is that - afaik - Mint.com uses Yodlee as a provider, so why would it work there but not here?

Roman

[kmlorenz]

It is unfortunate that Mint has not been able to work out this issue because the interface is slick and easy. But Yodlee has been able to add all my accounts without issue and after waiting for months on Mint, I am moving on. :(

[philedry]

Well congratulations for you. Still no love here. Just checked. Same results.
That's weird -- I didn't realize it works for some and not for others. My question list is the same as my banks. I did really simple questions that were all numbers, like number of siblings and graduation year, and I did them in the same order. If anyone figures out why it works for me and not for others, let me know!

[acamp]

Just a note that I have failed to add my account for months like everyone else, tried today, and it worked for me. So there is hope.

[Damon]

Ok, there was a recent form change to First Tech that was pushed with the fix earlier this month. Can you please try to add the card again (remove and re-add)?

If not, we will have to file the bugs individually (similar to the B of A issue). If you file a bug with customer service, please make sure that you leave the account attached...even with an error message.

[bethfishman]

I changed my password on my First Tech Account. Mint is unable to access my account because I can't find where to update my account settings in Mint. Mint says it is "authenticing", then gives me the message "Could not find the account" (even though I can see my account when I login to First Tech) with the option "Learn more about this error? OK / Cancel". If I click "OK", I get asked the same question again ("Learn more about thsi error" but without the "OK / Cancel" this time"). I I choose "Cancel", I get asked "do you want to delete the account?". At this stage I'm really lost as to how to update my password in Mint. I could delete the acount and add the accounts but that would mean I'd lose all the tagging I did. Can someone please help me update my password as Mint is totally unusable now? If I can't solve this, I'll probably have to give up using it.

[bethfishman]

At this stage, I think I'll have to give up on Mint. Pity as I liked it but it is bizarre that there is no way to change your account settings after changing your bank password. Based on the threads above, I'll start looking in Yodlee.

[pattu]

Time to quit mint? I like it a lot but having to try and get my visa to work by reentering my login data endless times just isn't working for me. I hope Mint.com will get this working - First Tech seems to be powerless about getting the visa to work... but refuses to explain the path forward, but just asks for patience. The problem being that they said the same thing many many months ago. Looks like it's time to look at another options.

[kgdavis]

I mailed FirstTech yesterday and got this:

On 2/3/2009 you posed a question to First Tech which was noted as inquiry 175275.Response:
Dear Kevin,

I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Unfortunately, this problem is with MINT.COM and their service provider, and not with First Tech's service. Mint has acknowledged to you that the issue is on their part and are working to correct the issue. Unfortunately, it is not our service or one that we support; therefore, we would encourage you to continue to contact Mint regarding this issue.

Thank you for your understanding.

Mint has said that the problems with FirstTech visa cards are with their provider. As far as I can tell, their provider is yodlee.com, which appears to work fine with First Tech, and with other banks.

Has anyone heard anything from Mint in the past few months?

[lovespresence]

I had this issue and RESOLVED by setting the Mint First Tech VISA questions and answers to the exact same security questions and answers on my profile at First Tech.

[brendanp]

I'm unable to get my bank accounts, loan information, or credit card info from First Tech into Mint. Truthfully, this entire thread is incredibly frustrating - this problem's been going on for over a year, and there's still no resolution?

My symptoms are the same as everyone else's - I enter my First Tech info, including the three challenge questions, and after I hit "Add it", I'm returned to the screen where I can select a new account, but no First Tech account is authorized or added, and there's no error message.

After reading through everything here, I opened an account on Yodlee, and it had no problems pulling in my information, despite being similarly "unsupported" by the First Tech IT people.

Is there any news at all? Mint is useless if I can't pull in the my bank account balances and credit card information.

[brendanp]

Perhaps predictably, the First Tech customer service people have responded to my inquiry by saying that the problem's on the Mint side, having resolved the issue they had before:

"The previous issue that Mint had was that their site was not set to successfully download information based on our security settings. That was resolved on their side quite a while ago. Mint has not been in contact with us to resolve any new issues they may have had and we have had no new reports from other First Tech members. In the past, you would need to submit a service request with Mint. Mint then troubleshoots on their end and can get in contact with the proper administrators at First Tech. We can not trouble shoot their system as we have no administrator rights to Mint."

[brendanp]

Just to be very clear about the repro steps here:

1. Login to Mint account
2. Click "your accounts"
3. In the "Enter your bank's name or URL" field, type "First Tech"
4. Select "First Technology Credit Union"
5. Enter username, password, and select the three appropriate security questions and answers in the same order in which they're presented on the actual First Tech site.
6. Select "Add it"

Expected result: The next dialog should, like with brokerage account and mortgage, show a progress bar that tells me it's "connecting" or "authenticating" to the site, and presents an error message if there's a problem.

Actual result: The dialog shows "We’re now connecting to your First Technology Credit Union account." but never shows any results from First Tech. There's no error and no indication that anything's failed, so there's nothing obvious to correct. The result is the same if I type in complete gibberish to the preceding dialog.

I've attached a screenshot showing the final dialog.

thanks,
Brendan

[Charmane]

Hi brendanp,

I am forwarding this issue to our Engineering team to find the root cause then eventually solve this problem. Sorry for the frustration this is causing. We will keep you posted for any update and once when we know it has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience.

[brendanp]

Hi Charmane,

Has the dev team been able to reproduce the bug? I would be happy to provide more information about my environment if necessary. It should be trivial for a tester to attempt a repro.

thanks,
Brendan

[daimajin]

I'd like to log an issue around this my account is having. Whenever I add more than one secret question, the "add account" dialog will never do its job. It will seem like it just added the account and give you the "I'm done" button, but nothing ever happens. If I fill in a single security question, then this will work fine and add the account. The problem with that is the account will give me login problems within a day.

What I do is:

1) Log into first tech
2) Add an account ("First tech credit union - credit cards")
3) Fill in my account login/password
4) Fill in the 3 special questions (the same as in my firsttech account)
5) Click Add it

At this point we end up with no error that the account failed (I mean it shouldn't have). However, the account is never added to the list of accounts.

If you replace step #4 with 1 special question, then this will work fine without issues. You used to be able to add all 3 special questions, but now I can't even add more than 1.

I've attempted to use the contact form to reach someone who could help me with my issues but all I get are automated responses telling me how to fill in my information. I've tried three times but never have anybody address my question.

Mint used to be my favorite iphone application until this whole account hassle and I'd just like to have it working as well as it used to.

[brendanp]

Ah, great catch!

Yes, if you answer just a single question, leaving the other two blank, Mint at least attempts to add the account.

So, presumably this is entirely Mint's responsibility (or their data provider).

I was able to suck in my First Tech data using this approach, but I anticipate that it will stop working shortly given that First Tech requires you to define three questions. Therefore, it's a crap shoot as to whether or not Mint is going to give the correct answer, as it's only got a 33% chance of getting asked the one question you populated.

[daimajin]

I wasn't aware that the special questions were cycled so frequently on login. That would explain the intermitency with logins. I've never had luck in getting a login working for more than one day, so that 33% seems a lot lower to me :P

This used to work which is the worst thing. I started using mint around January before all of these issues started and I was able to add all 3 questions. I decided to change my bank password recently and had all kinds of problems. I figured deleting and readding the account might work well enough but clearly that's not the case.

It's almost a daily ritual to readd my account at this point and guess the special question (which always turns out to be the same one).

If you guys would allow me to enter all 3 secret questions, I imagine this would be pretty simple.

[fmr]

Ah, great catch!

Yes, if you answer just a single question, leaving the other two blank, Mint at least attempts to add the account.

So, presumably this is entirely Mint's responsibility (or their data provider).

I was able to suck in my First Tech data using this approach, but I anticipate that it will stop working shortly given that First Tech requires you to define three questions. Therefore, it's a crap shoot as to whether or not Mint is going to give the correct answer, as it's only got a 33% chance of getting asked the one question you populated.

Same thing for me - entering just one question works; Mint pulled my savings account. Entering three questions fails. There is no "progress box" at all. I tried at least 5 times, on two browsers (Safari, FF3.0), on 2 different laptops.

[brendanp]

Yeah - of course, as predicted, my data will no longer update, presumably because the one security question that I've got in my account details doesn't match whichever of the 3 possible questions they're being asked.

I realize that this product is free to us, and that there are certainly other bugs that warrant fixing, but the general lack of response on all of the threads in this forum is troubling. It would be nice to have a confirmation from the support staff or test team acknowledging the current status of the bugs that've been reported.

The entire foundation of a financial aggregation site like this rests on the ability to provide me an up-to-date view of my finances. I guess I'll give Mint a couple of weeks to get this fixed before cancelling my account and deleting my data.

[daimajin]

Just a heads up, it finally worked for me this morning. I'd recommend other people trying as well.