“Important Message” in Quicken

I’ve been using Quicken for many years … and for the past 8 years or so I’ve had this annoying problem. Every time I would download transactions from my bank, I would get this dialog box popping up …

Important message from Bank One (Chicago)

Of course Bank One had been bought out by Chase a few years ago, so the message was clearly wrong.

I finally got fed up with the annoyance and started searching for a solution … and I found one on the Quicken Community forums.

Here’s what I did to fix the problem …

  • Back up the data file (just in case).
  • Go to the “Online” menu, “Online Center”.
  • While holding CTRL and F3, click on “Contact Info”. A dialog called “FI Action Required” should open.
  • Locate and highlight the institution contained in the “Important Message” dialog, make sure it is the exact same one (in the case of credit cards there may be different states involved.
  • Click “Delete”
  • Click “OK”
  • Perform a test one-step update to see if the message is gone.

In my case, when the “FI Action Required” dialog was displayed, I saw this …

FI Action Required Dialog

Notice the two entries for “Bank One”? When I tried to delete the first Bank One entry, I got an error indicating that accounts were associated with this financial institution. But when I tried to delete the “Bank One (Chicago)” entry, I just got a warning message, and it deleted.

Then I ran the “One Step Update” and didn’t get the “Important Message” dialog!

29 thoughts on ““Important Message” in Quicken

  1. Pete

    Bravo! I’ve been annoyed by this for years and finally searched and found the answer here. Thanks for posting.

    Reply
  2. Adam

    Thanks so much! I have had the same problem for years! This worked perfectly. I really appreciate it!!!!

    Reply
  3. http://emailtoid.net/i/15b0a791/59992ff8/

    I have tried this. Firstly, when I use control-F3-Contact Info, I don’t get the FI action required box. Instead I get “refresh online transaction information” box. Secondly, the institution from which I get the error message is not on the list. Thirdly there is no delete option to click. Does anyone have additional info that will help me?

    Reply
  4. Rich

    Thank you so much! This got rid of the message for ” ZZZ – TD Banknorth NA -OLD “, which was driving me crazy!

    Reply
  5. Damon

    This doesn’t work for me. Could it be because I run Quicken 2008 on a virtual XP machine on a Mac? CTRL+F3 does nothing. But CTRL+COMMAND+F3 gives me “Refresh Online Transaction Information” box.

    Reply
  6. David Sclove

    If you are using Parallels Desktop for MAC, you can define keystrokes to be equivalent to Control+F3. Go into Parallels Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse and you can define keystrokes. I set up “Control+3” to be used for “Control+F3” and now it does what it is supposed to do in Quicken.

    If you have different virtual machine software, perhaps there is a similar capability.

    Reply
  7. Damon

    Thanks! Actually using VMWARE FUSION, but fiddled with the keyboard shortcuts and got it to work! I’ve been seeing that TD Bank error message for so long, I’ve forgotten what a clean startup and close looked like.

    Reply
  8. Kaufkin

    Thank You!! ‘ing Quicken Tech support couldn’t get it done, but you managed to provide an easy fix. and it worked. Thanks!

    Reply
  9. Jeff P

    Thank you for your research and help on this issue. This problem has plagued me for over 5 years. I came to hate it. Your simple solution resolved this multi-year problem for good!

    Reply
  10. Jason P

    You da man! Six months of TDBanknorth bugging the heck out of me on every single update transaction and your post allowed me to resolve in in 2 minutes. Much appreciated!

    Reply
  11. John W

    Awesome … got rid of ZZZ-TD Bank North that’s really annoying. Worked in Quicken 2010, just switch to classic menus. Thanks!

    Reply
  12. Devan

    Thank you so much. This works in Quicken Premier 2010. Tools > Online Center > Ctrl-F3 click contact info. This bothered me for a year! Great tip.

    Reply
    1. David

      Thanks so much. This has been a problem for at least 6 months. Could they hide it just a little better?? Geeze!

      This woprked for me on Quicken 2010 Delux

      Reply
  13. dave

    Yahoo! That fixed it! Plus I found the account that was reporting the error still had bill pay active. Reset that and all is good

    Reply
  14. Lauri

    June 2011 – Quicken Premier 2010 Win7
    Works! Hallelujah. I’ve been searching for this fix for years. Thank you!

    Reply
  15. Cathy

    Thank you for sharing this; you could have fixed your own problem and been done with it. It is surprising how annoying that little bug was!

    Reply
  16. LG

    I have no idea why it took me so long to google this problem but THANK YOU SO MUCH! OMG that was so annoying for so long.

    Reply
  17. Michael Poulin

    Thank you SO much! This finally eliminated the annoying problem I’ve had since TD Bank transitioned their services. Ahh…relief… Much appreciated!

    Reply

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