Mint Connectivity Issues?

[Goldielocks]

I am having trouble with Mint, and thinking about cancelling. 
It was wonderful for the first two weeks, with almost all my accounts (finally) showing up at one time for net worth tallies and easy spend tracking.   Then connectivity issues and broken passwords / links abounded.  At best, an account breaks down about every month to three months, and others need resetting EVERY time.  At this rate, it may be better to just download individually again...??

But -- Maybe this is just me?  What is the larger group finding?  So many of you recommend it highly.

My other problem is the auto-coding the invoicing. 
I live and shop near the town of "Delta", and anything with "Delta" in the name show up as Delta Airlines, unless I reset it to another (single) default which is essentially the same problem.
e.g., Delta Water, Delta cable, Bank in Delta, Grocery stores in Delta, Shell Gas Station Delta, etc., etc.  are reset to a single purchase category requiring manual fixing.

Any tips for either issue?

[Sarnia Saver]

My other problem is the auto-coding the invoicing. 
I live and shop near the town of "Delta", and anything with "Delta" in the name show up as Delta Airlines, unless I reset it to another (single) default which is essentially the same problem.
e.g., Delta Water, Delta cable, Bank in Delta, Grocery stores in Delta, Shell Gas Station Delta, etc., etc.  are reset to a single purchase category requiring manual fixing.

I had similar issues when I first started with Mint, but I don't notice that occurring very often anymore (misplaced categories).  I was under the assumption that if it is changed once, any subsequent entries from the same vendor would be categorized under the category it was manually changed to.  I could be wrong however.

As for the connectivity issues, bear in mind that is likely an issue with your financial provider changing security features.  Do you often log in from different IP addresses?  Also, when you are having connectivity issues, make sure your bank's website isn't under maintenance so you don't get upset unjustifiably :).

[Dollar Slice]

I don't have too much trouble with connectivity issues. It hasn't been without problems (I've been using it for years) but overall it's pretty good. Some of the connectivity issues are (supposedly) on the side of the financial institution and not Mint so you would presumably have that same issue with any other software/website/app. It tends to go in cycles - I'll have trouble with it for a couple of weeks and then it's smooth sailing for a long time.

I've had some trouble with auto-coding, too - the most annoying one was having it continually confuse Harvard Vanguard (where my doctor's office was), the Village Vanguard (a jazz club), and Vanguard investments. But it wasn't one of my monthly bills, so it is a much less frequent annoyance than yours is. I would think you'd be able to set them all to their own defaults, though - if it says "Delta Water" do one thing, if it says "Delta Cable" do another, etc.?

I use Quickbooks at work to do similar work (assigning all payments and purchases to categories, etc.) and it is much more annoying to use than Mint is. It constantly is doing stupid stuff - if I make one bank deposit into "subscription payment" then it wants to make the default for ALL BANK DEPOSITS into "subscription payment." Ugh. Who would ever want that setting?

[Frankies Girl]

I have had periodic issues with Mint, but most of them are just annoying. One major issue was it decided to randomly just duplicate my investment accounts - all of them. I had a moment of pure panic seeing twice what I thought I had logging in that day. The only solution offered was to close and hide the duplicates, but they are still there if I look deeper and that is quite annoying since they still can't explain why it happened, or if it will happen again.

My connectivity issues happen enough that I started checking the main sites, and they were down sometimes for maintenance. One credit card account has had an issue for the past two months... but it's not technically a problem with connecting. I have an auto pay bill on that card and that is all it is used for, and I got a two months free offer, so there has been no charges to the card at all for the past two pay cycles - zero balance. Mint sees that as a connectivity issue since there MUST be stuff charged on a credit card (apparently?) and it can't accept the zero balance over a long period of time.

Agree with assigning it a specific name if you can for "delta water" "delta cable" and such. I can have bills come in that are always named the same, and it can randomly decide it is a different thing altogether. Like my electric bill has always been "Reliant" and for some reason it now spells it "Rel Iant" and can't figure out what it is now, so I had to go in and tell it to rename and label as electric bill... but it's still better for me than keeping up with it in paper or even spreadsheet forms, as I'm not a spreadsheet wizard like most folks on here. ;)

[Goldielocks]

I have had periodic issues with Mint, but most of them are just annoying. One major issue was it decided to randomly just duplicate my investment accounts - all of them. I had a moment of pure panic seeing twice what I thought I had logging in that day. The only solution offered was to close and hide the duplicates, but they are still there if I look deeper and that is quite annoying since they still can't explain why it happened, or if it will happen again.

My connectivity issues happen enough that I started checking the main sites, and they were down sometimes for maintenance. One credit card account has had an issue for the past two months... but it's not technically a problem with connecting. I have an auto pay bill on that card and that is all it is used for, and I got a two months free offer, so there has been no charges to the card at all for the past two pay cycles - zero balance. Mint sees that as a connectivity issue since there MUST be stuff charged on a credit card (apparently?) and it can't accept the zero balance over a long period of time.

Agree with assigning it a specific name if you can for "delta water" "delta cable" and such. I can have bills come in that are always named the same, and it can randomly decide it is a different thing altogether. Like my electric bill has always been "Reliant" and for some reason it now spells it "Rel Iant" and can't figure out what it is now, so I had to go in and tell it to rename and label as electric bill... but it's still better for me than keeping up with it in paper or even spreadsheet forms, as I'm not a spreadsheet wizard like most folks on here. ;)

Thanks, good suggestions.  I think you are right about it being the security features on my bank's side -- like needing to answer the challenge question.  Very common with our institutions and does not work well with Mint. I did not think about the zero activity and yes, that is definitely true for many of the accounts.

Like you, I also had the duplicated accounts that I had to hide, but traced it to logging in with my husband's password on our joint account one month, then using my login the next month.

I did try changing the default settings -- it works well, as everyone suggested for the repeating ones, but as the "Delta" is often in the address, every one-off vendor in that city that I go to is classified initially as "Delta Airlines"..  and if there is a repeat purchase using different forms of payment like Visa vs Debit vs Mastercard, that vendor's name can appear slightly differently.  Maybe after a few months I will have more entries, and it will be less annoying.

[Lis]

Biggest issue that I have with Mint is that it shows my retirement savings double what they actually are. How I wish it could actually double my money :) On the home screen, it shows the correct amount, but once you click on the investment, suddenly the number is doubled! And slightly off. So from Mint, I never get the correct percentage. I tried working with customer service, but that was pretty useless. It's free, so there's that at least. I'd have more issues if I was paying for it.

That sucks about the Delta thing! I think it does start remembering what you categorize things as... my local Target comes up as "Central Checkout" and was always uncategorized, but I think it started remembering what I put it under.

[RockYourSocksOff]

I tried Mint years ago and had problems with it every time I signed in.  I also really didn't like how the budgeting functionality worked.  For what it's worth I've switched to YNAB (You Need a Budget) and haven't looked back.  It takes work but it has me constantly looking at my budget and has been amazing for my family.  I also use Personal Capital to track my net worth with little work on my part.  I do run into minor account update issues with that once in a while but not much.

[Goldielocks]

Thanks, socks. I will take a look.