Mint.com staff have a reading comprehension problem.

I’ve been a Mint.com user since early 2009. Unfortunately, almost a year ago Mint.com inexplicably stopped supporting Prevail Credit Union, where I keep my main checking and savings accounts, basically making Mint absolutely worthless to me.

Earlier this month, when Prevail announced that they were switching to a new online banking experience, I decided to ask them if this change meant that they would resume support for Mint.

Here’s what I asked Prevail:

I am curious whether this new online banking system that is rolling out tonight will also come with renewed support for Mint.com. If not, are there plans to provide compatibility with Mint.com in the near future?

And here’s the response I got the next day from a Prevail “Member Service Consultant” Crystal B. (emphasis mine):

We would love to offer that service to our members, but unfortunately Mint.com is not compatible with our website because transferring online account information to Mint.com violates our privacy agreement that we have with our web service provider.

Our new online banking system will also not be compatible with Mint.com because Mint.com will not sign a security agreement with our web service provider. Until Mint.com will sign a security agreement or until we move to another platform, Mint.com will not be compatible with our website.

Although I was of course disappointed that Mint would not be supported, I appreciated the prompt and succinct answer from Prevail. Armed with this information, I sent the following message to Mint:

I contacted my Credit Union to ask why Mint was not supported, and they gave me the following response:

“Mint.com will not sign a security agreement with our web service provider. Until Mint.com will sign a security agreement or until we move to another platform, Mint.com will not be compatible with our website.”

If you could please work with my Credit Union to sign the security agreement with their provider, I would really appreciate it. I used to be able to use Mint with these accounts but it stopped working a year or two ago.

Here’s the response I got the next business day from Jeffrey M.:

Thank you for contacting Mint.com.

We’ve been informed by our data provider that Prevail Credit Union is currently blocking our data aggregation efforts. Until the block is lifted, the issue you are experiencing with this account cannot be resolved. We are in the process of working to address this issue.

We apologize for this inconvenience and hope to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.

Have a good day!

Did Jeffrey even read my message? I know that Prevail is blocking Mint. I told him exactly why it is happening, and what the solution is. Totally unsatisfied, I sent the following response:

Hi, did you actually read my message in its entirety? Your efforts are being blocked because “Mint.com will not sign a security agreement with our web service provider.”

You didn’t really answer my question at all, which was “could [you] please work with my Credit Union to sign the security agreement with their provider.”

If you guys sign the agreement, my credit union will stop blocking you, and everyone can be happy.

Here’s what Jeffrey responded with about an hour ago:

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Our Engineering team are still working on this issue. Please be advised that it may take time to fix the issue. We will keep you posted on any updates. Sorry for the frustration this has caused.

Have a good day!

*bang*
*head*
*on*
*desk*

EARTH TO JEFFREY. Hello? Is anyone at Mint actually reading these emails?

This is not an engineering problem. All that needs to happen is for Mint’s lawyers to call up Prevail’s lawyers, and sign a security agreement. How hard is it to read the words I am writing to you and give me a straight answer to my question?

Too hard, apparently.

5 Comments

    Teb

    I’ve had very similar problems with issues that didn’t even require them to reach outside their engineering team. Their responses on the forums are completely dense and don’t address the questions asked.

    On the customer support email they answer like 1 of every 3 emails.

    I’m still using Mint. I’ve just had to find workarounds for multiple issues. Luckily none of my issues have been as major as yours.

    Einstein X. Mystery

    Keep calling them until they 1. understand your question, and 2. address it.

    Don’t let lousy customer service be victorious.

    Maureen

    I started using Mint this year and have had SO many problems! In one case, a paycheck deposit never showed up in my transactions even though my account balance is correct. I have been waiting for 3 MONTHS while their “engineering team is working on this issue.” Similarly, I’ve been waiting forever for a proper response as to why in budgets for two different months, the total dollar amount they show I’ve spent in the category “everything else” does NOT match the individual transaction amounts if you add them up. That’s a serious problem! I mean, we are talking simple arithmetic here that does not work properly for budgeting software! The customer service reps acknowledge the discrepancy but have done nothing to resolve it. And their email system is maddening- why can’t they give me the option to call someone, or at least have a live chat session like every other online product out there?? So frustrating!

      Steven

      I signed up for mint just a few days ago. And I agree with all of your problems. It is already August 2012, and they still have a lot of arithmetic issues.

      I don’t understand how they got so many awards when their transactions and accounting don’t even add up.

    Soda jerk

    You should be so lucky if you were dealing with Mint. The problem is you’re really dealing with Intuit, who bought Mint a few years ago . Intuit is the most unresponsive company I have ever come across. Ask anyone who is forced to still use Quicken for Mac 2007 because they can’t seem to figure out how to produce a functional replacement.

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