That is until now. I have recently had an experience with the Intuit Corporation that really defies all attempts at trying to figure out how this company hopes to survive in the future. It is really manhandling its existing customers and clients who are loyal users of the product.

I need to give you a little background history. From 1995 until 2001 I used Microsoft Money to keep track of my finances both business and personal.

Suddenly in 2001 I got a notice from my bank that they would no longer be able to support my original version of Microsoft Money and I would have to upgrade.

Of course this caused me to begin looking around at what my alternatives were. I discovered Intuit’s Quicken. It was priced comparably to the Microsoft Money upgrade, and it had much better capabilities of tracking invoicing in accounts receivable which had become an important part of my accounting needs.

So I took the leap from Microsoft Money to Intuit’s Quicken. Now I regret that decision big time. About a month ago I got a notice from the software that as of April 15 my current edition of Quicken would no longer function . . . Say What? Surely you jest!

You got it, I was going to be forced into buying a new product when my existing product was working just fine.

I was outraged that to discover that my software would explode on April 15. Reading further I realized that in the fine print when I purchased the Intuit Quicken product was a little sunset provision that some future date my software would become unusable.

Nobody reads these license agreements we trust the reliability of the brand name. In this case Intuit and Quicken were well known brand names so I had no reason to question their business practices

The thought of transferring all of my financial data to new software was not worth the $59 they wanted for the upgrade, so I bent over and upgraded.

In setting up the new upgrade with my existing banks I discovered that the upgrade was incompatible with one of the banks that we do business with.

I got on the help line with my bank to see if I could get it to work. I was told that Quicken had come up with a new technology that required all the banks to upgrade their existing server software and of course pay a license fee to Intuit for the privilege. Now two of us had been screwed by this Quicken upgrade . . . Me and my bank.

This bank had decided not to participate in this type of blackmail and has chosen to opt out of the Quicken program. (They earned some new respect).

I went to the Quicken support users group to find out if there were some sort of a work around. Lo and behold I discovered that I am amongst hundreds of users who are mightily out raged about this issue.

They quicken people have no intention of providing us customers with any type of work around for banks who have opted out of their program. In fact they had the audacity to recommend that we change banks.

Of course, I have asked for a refund and I am no longer recommending to my students any Intuit product. I highly recommend that you consider Microsoft Money instead.