Nick recorded his call asking Quicken why they commit extortion. Intuit cripples older software versions after a few years, forcing users to pay for an upgrade or lose major chunks of functionality.

Both Quicken and MS Money sneak these “sunset” clauses in their end user license agreements, giving them carte blanche to completely disable major parts of their functionality if they feel like it. These features include online bill pay, downloading any financial information, portfolio tracking, and more. Basically, all the cool stuff.

Intuit’s rationale is that Quicken ’07 has more advanced features than Quicken ’04 , and disabling ’04 will help them roll the features out more fully.

Quicken only lets you save data in their proprietary format. Otherwise, you can only manually cut and paste 3 years worth of financials into another system, a method they advise in their help documents.

The transaction info doesn’t flow through Intuit’s servers. It’s only between you and the institutions. Not disabling the software wouldn’t incur Intuit any costs.

These types of clauses are made in bad-faith, are extortive, are not legitimate ways to recoup costs for the company, and should be illegal.

As an alternative, here are 7 Free Personal Finance Management Programs. — BEN POPKEN

RELATED:
Quicken, Quickly Retired [Washington Post]
MS Money 2004 Expired… [My Personal Finance Blog]
Intuit Pits Its Customers Against Its Partners [InfoWorld]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.