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My credit card was recently compromised, which luckily my credit card company caught in time.
They called and asked if I had made some strange transactions. When I answered that those were in fact not my transactions, they immediately deactivated that credit card and sent me a new one by FedEx overnight express.
Problem solved, right?
Well, after I updated all my online bills with the new credit card number I thought everything was taken care of. Then I went to reconcile my accounts in Quicken and was informed by Quicken that it couldn’t connect to my credit card account.
How to resolve this problem?
I tried resetting the account as prompted by Quicken, but that did not solve the problem.
Then I came across this solution. The problem with connecting to my credit card account was caused by Quicken having a different credit card number than the credit card company.
In order to keep the same account, but change the credit card number associated with it, you have to deactivate and reactivate One Step Update for that account.
This is a simple procedure that only takes a few minutes. Here are the steps:
- Go to the Account List (Press Ctrl+A or look in the Tools menu)
- Find the credit card account and click “Edit”
- Click on the Online Services tab of the Account Detail window and click the deactivate button
- On the General tab, delete the account number and enter the new account number
- On the Online Services tab, reactivate One Step Update
- When prompted, make sure to choose “Link” instead of “Add” and choose the correct account listed in Quicken
Using these steps saved me a lot of frustration when I had to update my credit card number, but keep the same credit card account in Quicken. Everything worked flawlessly and I was able to continue downloading transactions to the correct credit card account.
I hope this short article proves helpful to others who have run into the same problem with a changed credit card number.
Thanks for visiting this site. If you found the article useful, feel free to share with others and/or leave a comment below.
Nate Phillips has been using Quicken and TurboTax for over 20 years. He has spent part of that time as a Quicken beta tester, helping identify bugs and annoyances with Quicken updates before they are released. Nate holds a master’s degree in Computer Science and has numerous technology certifications.
Mr. Nate,
Thanks for taking the time to post this – it’s a life-saver!
Thank you so much! This is exactly my scenario and your steps worked perfectly for me. Such a time saver!
Thanks. Worked perfectly. It’s a shame that Quicken Help isn’t this informative. I searched for “new credit card number” in Quicken and found nothing helpful. Quicken is pitiful, but there are no alternatives.
Thanks, saved me a lot of time
Thank you, Nate. Your step by step guidance saved me a lot of time. I truly appreciate your article and guidance.
Tried several times and acts as though it works but will not download and when I look, it does not make ANY changes…still on old credit card number and deletes new account number inserted. Rididculous!
This procedure does not work with the online version of Quicken Canada 2020 Version 25.22 Build 27.125.22.
The easiest way is to create a new account if the account does not show in the link list, anything else will screw up your system.
The first time I had a card at this bank compromised, Quicken identified the account in the Link list and no problem it linked. The 2nd card was also compromised and Quicken would not allow a link as the account now did not show in the list of accounts. Why can they not be consistent in application? I have been a Quicken user since 1989 – the one problem this company has is consistency.
For some reason this did not work for me. I am using Windows 10 and the subscription service Quicken Premier. I think it may have something to do with Citibank’s setup. but am not sure. I got a replacement card, not due to a lost or cancelled card, but because Citi was issuing new cards with enhanced security stuff on them. Following the steps outlined in the article, all went well until I reactivated. Quicken actually re-downloaded 9 months worth of cleared transactions AND created a new account with the old account number (Yes, I selected “link”, not “add.”) The whole “created a new account” tells me Citi was still transmitting data from both the old and the new account numbers, even though I had deactivated before changing the account number in Quicken. So, I restored my backup that I made last night, and simply added a new account in Quicken after renaming the older account with the word “old” after the account name. Once I did that, the downloads worked fine, and I moved the one pending transaction from the old account to the new.
Nate,
I really messed up. I clicked “ADD” instead of “Link”. Then I saw that i now had 2 accounts and to make matters worse, I deleted the wrong one. Any advice on what to do now.
I am using Quicken Deluxe for Mac, Version 5.15.3
I don’t have a “Tools” on my menu and Control-A Doesn’t do anything.
My credit card bank issued a new card with a different account number. None of the suggestions offered above help me change the account details.
Thank you, cousin Nate. New card entered and linked with ease!
I have your web page bookmarked in case I run into trouble again.
Jack Phillips
Thanks for the article. Do you think something has changed? When I follow these instructions, it sets up a new account for me and then downloads 90 days of transactions 🙁 It does not merge it with the old card of which I have transactions going back 14 years.
I have used this page before, and it helped. But today I tried to link a credit card account to connect a new card number for a credit card that has two previous numbers. When I select “link,” I see other credit card accounts, but not the one I want to change. Is there a solution to this?
Didn’t work for me. I changed the account number but then it asked to set it up as a new account so now I have the new credit card number with 3 months history and not the true history of the account going back to 2018. I also still have the old account number still listed.
Nate, I have Quicken for Mac 2017 and your solution doesn’t work. Help!
Thank you. That worked. Very helpful.
Thank you! You saved me a LOT of aggravation!
Thanks for specific, accurate, and informative instructions. As others have remarked, Quicken help is often less than helpful, tasking customers to wade through counter-intuitive menus and indexing, only to find themselves relying on opaque jargon “Quickenese?” instead of plain English to instruct appropriate steps and preferences even relatively sophisticated find buried in obscurity (eg, Quicken “help”)
Thank you! Great info. I didn’t have the new credit card number yet (in the mail), but this worked…
Follow steps 1, 2 and 3, above then:
New Step 4, 5 & 6: From the Tools, Add Account…, select Credit Card, select financial institution, input login credentials, then “Link” new card to old account.
Later you can go back to edit account name if you wish, e.g., I name my Quicken account using the last four digits of the credit card number, like “CostcoCitiXX5678”
Thanks Nate. I needed this!
Thank you for posting this, It saved me a lot of time. Quicken Help was worthless.
Absolutely perfect, Nate! The quicken help offered nothing, and your steps took less than two minutes. Fully grateful. Thank you.
No problem, glad it worked for you!
Unfortunately i hit the wrong button and clicked on Add instead of Link.
Now i have 2 credit card accounts. the old one and now it added the new one.
Thanks
After deactivating the old account, and adding a new one, then activating the new one, both accounts are activated and I get duplicate items
Thanks for the help Nate! This was quick and simple.
the deactivate button does not work for my credit card. I get a message that says to contact my bank which is stupid. Can you tell me how to fix this? Thanks
I have a couple of ideas to try, not in any particular order:
1. Make sure any downloaded transactions have been accepted so there are no pending transactions.
2. Try using the account reset button instead of the deactivate button and see if that does anything.
3. Go to Tools-One Step Update. Then click on Settings then “Manage Passwords” and delete or change the password for that account.
If none of these work, you might try contacting Quicken support at https://www.quicken.com/support
You would think that Quicken would provide help instructions for changing a credit card number. Thank goodness you figured it out, Nate!
Glad I could help you!
I did as you instructed above in Quicken 2015 and it works except that it downloads many old, duplicate transactions as well (even though I chose “Link” and not “Add”). Furthermore, it keeps erasing my account number except for the last four numbers so I have to keep going back in and repeating the process (including deleting old, duplicate transactions each time). Any suggestions?
Thx
Bob,
The problem with duplicate transactions is usually caused by your bank not properly formatting their data when it gets pulled into Quicken. In this case, it might be easier for you to create a new account in Quicken with the new credit card. You can still keep the old account in Quicken for your records, but deactivate the online updates for the old account.
Thanks, Nate. Quick and easy.