Web Finance Follow-Up: Bailing Out
About two weeks ago, I reviewed three Web-based personal finance programs -- Mint, Quicken Online and Wesabe -- and noted in an accompanying blog post that the story was not complete.
I'd have to close my account at each service to see how difficult that might be. Would I be able to click a few buttons to bail out, or would I have to battle my way through a squad of phone reps as I'd had to do with other subscription services? The results:
Mint: After logging in, I clicked the "Your Profile" link at the top of the home page. That led to a second page with a "Delete your Mint Account" link -- in red type -- at the right. An alert popped up, asking me to type "delete my account" and my password. A moment later, the page refreshed to report that "Your account has been deleted. You should receive an email confirmation shortly." In this case, "shortly" meant "a few seconds," the time needed for that message to land in my inbox.
Quicken Online: Much like at Mint, I logged in and clicked on a "My Profile" link to reach a page with a link titled "Cancel my subscription - Stop your subscription and delete all your info from our servers." Clicking that brought up a screen on which I could confirm my decision and explain why by selecting a reason from a pull-down menu ("I'm a journalist and I've finished my review" was not a choice). With a click of a large, orange "Complete Cancellation" button, I was out -- sort of, in that my account will actually remain open until the start of the next billing cycle.
Wesabe: Not seeing a "my account" link on the home screen, I instead clicked on my username, which took me to a profile screen with a "Manage your Account" link. At the bottom of that page, a heading invited me to nuke my membership by typing my password and clicking a "Delete My Account" button. With a click of an are-you-sure? prompt, I was... taken to the home page, without a confirmation on the site (or in my inbox) that my account was gone. But when I tried logging back in, Wesabe rejected my username and password.
Considering the pain that my wife and I have gone through to cancel some other Web and telecom accounts (hint: never, ever, ever pay for any of these services with an automatic debit from your bank account), I can't complain about these three experiences at all, even if Wesabe was a tad inelegant compared to the other two.
I will probably return to one of these sites, depending in part on how they live up to their promises of new, added features. So which one should it be -- any of these three, or another Web financial manager?
By Rob Pegoraro |
June 3, 2008; 10:38 AM ET
| Category:
The Web
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Posted by: Rosie | June 3, 2008 12:24 PM
Man I totally agree, I man how could I not, I use my position at visible technologies to aid in my adventures of adultery, hell I get to sleep with coworkers they they don't say no cause I'm a ceo!
Posted by: david burcham | June 3, 2008 12:41 PM
Based on your earlier review, I decided to try Mint. So far, I have really enjoyed it (I find myself logging in daily to see updated stats). However I did not try any of the other services, so I can't really compare them.
Two things that Mint needs to add:
1) Customizable categories. This is huge and I understand that they are comming this summer.
2) A way to budget non-categorized transactions. I have set up budgets for all the categories that I had in my "paper" budget before joining Mint. But a lot of my transactions are in categories that are not "budgeted" (i.e. Cash / Miscellaneous). With this scenerio, how do I know how I am doing overall for the month?
Posted by: kjh | June 3, 2008 1:10 PM
I'm in the same place as the user above. I took the Wesabe tour and didn't like all the (IMO) extraneous features, like goals and the social aspect of it. I like Mint a lot better, but they are having some issues with categorization. Still, the few times I've sent questions to them, a real person gets back to me very quickly. They also monitor the "bug" forums. Very helpful.
Posted by: cbr | June 3, 2008 1:24 PM
I pay very few via an automatic payment. All of them are connected to the credit card, not a debit card.
EZ-Pass, a couple of magazine subscriptions (NatGeo, The Atlantic), and a couple of memberships. When the card expires I have to re-enter all the data to keep the subscriptions going. Which makes it painless if I decide I don't want to renew this time.
Posted by: wiredog | June 3, 2008 1:27 PM
I heard that Mint will start tracking car loans soon. Can you try to find out when that will be? That is the last piece of the puzzle for me.
Posted by: Baby Fishmouth | June 4, 2008 12:55 AM
I tried mint and also found the inability to customize categories very frustrating. For now I'm still with Microsoft Money until they get that fixed.
Posted by: Jon | June 4, 2008 10:37 AM
"Is there any way to confirm that your data has actually been completely deleted from these sites -- not just no longer available to you but GONE FOREVER?
Posted by: Rosie | June 3, 2008 12:24 PM "
Um, no, they'd have to give you access to their servers and OTHER PEOPLE'S data for you to search all their records and positively confirm that yours is no longer there. If you trust these companies to have access to all your financial data in the first place, then deleting it when you ask is comparatively a very small thing.
Posted by: The Cosmic Avenger | June 4, 2008 12:26 PM
The article and comments give great suggestions on features that service providers should have. I write web applications. The "delete my account" and bug tracking / support forum are great suggestions.
Kind Regards,
Dave Faulkmore
http://www.usguyintokyo.com
Posted by: Features customers demand from service providers | June 10, 2008 10:02 PM
I will try the other ones, but have already decided Quicken Online is not ready for me to pay for it. I have used Quicken on my computer for over 20 years and it has been excellent. My current good credit numbers reflect how well it has aided me. But the online program is nearly impossible to set dates - for some reason it likes the last day or two of one month and the next 99% of the next month and that messes up my cash flow picture. I get no rent payments or two. Why not get all of May and nothing else? They tried, but we never got it right. The categories are not descriptive enough for spending and income. Next to the computer product, it is not worth the monthly payment.
Posted by: Gary E. Masters | June 14, 2008 11:29 AM
The Cosmic Avenger
>>If you trust these companies to have access to all your financial data in the first place, then deleting it when you ask is comparatively a very small thing.
And I don't trust them so I don't use them. :-)
Posted by: Rosie | June 23, 2008 7:51 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
Is there any way to confirm that your data has actually been completely deleted from these sites -- not just no longer available to you but GONE FOREVER?