Turbo Tax Online ---- Doing Your Taxes With Terrible Customer Service and Internet Delays
Written: Feb 23 '06
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Pros: basic filing is cheap, all online
Cons: TERRIBLE customer service, lack of a good database, slow phone and internet services
The Bottom Line: The site helps you do taxes completely online, but lacks any kind of decent customer services, so it is not worth the stresses.
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| three_ster's Full Review: Quicken TurboTax for the web |
Before finishing up my taxes in 2006, using a new program that I have been asked to use, I wanted to finish up a review of the program I used to file my 2004 taxes. Having grown tired of filling out my taxes on paper and sending them in through the normal mail, I decided that I would look into filing online, and came across TurboTax as an option to file everything online. Because I didn't have a lot of information that I needed to submit, and because I didn't think that my taxes were going to be too complicated, I was willing to give it a shot. Popping up the main web-site, I saw that there were three options available for filing my taxes online. The first option was the 1040EZ which is a basic federal return that costs $9.95. The second one is the Deluxe version that offers a step-by-step guide to filling out the forms and finding out extra deductions. The highest level of filing was called the Premier level, which offers more help and tax savings for investments such as IRAs and for real estate and Schedule C.
Knowing that I was just going to be filing some basic income information off of my W-2's, and knowing I wouldn't be working with much other than the standard deduction I signed up for the EZ method of doing the taxes online. The site asks you a variety of questions including your personal information, the information off of your W2's, and all then asks if you would like a check or direct deposit of your refund. If you don't have a refund, it asks which method you would like to use to pay off your taxes. The process went pretty quickly for me, and was painless in the fact that the site never crashed, and it wasn't all that difficult to figure out how to enter my information into the site. Submitting online, they told me that a form would be sent in the mail that I would need to sign and return to the IRS in order to have my entire return processed. So, when it comes to basic use of the site, on a smaller level, I think that TurboTax could be a site worth checking out.
My review however does not end with my first experience on the site, because I have recently spent a lot of time working with TurboTax to attain information from my last filing period that I think is important to add into my overall review of the site. When I first submitted my return, as I stated before, I had no problems, and it was basically just plugging in some numbers so that I could have the filing done completely over the internet. I never had to deal with customer support, and I didn't run into any issues that would have caused me stress with the site. Having said that, if I had written a review right after I used the site the first time, I probably would have given Turbo Tax 4 or 5 stars out of a possible 5. I had seen no flaws, and I had no reason to say anything negative about the site. Unfortunately when I went back for a second try, my story did not turn out quite as good as the first time.
As I stated earlier, I was asked to use a different online tax program this time around (The H&R Block online site), so I needed to go back to my Turbo Tax account and get the Adjusted Gross Income to put into my new tax return. Doing that insured that I would be able to do everything online, and that I wasn't going to have to send in any additional forms. It seemed like an easy thing, so I headed back over to the Turbo Tax web-site to log in. The first problem was my fault, because I could not remember my password to log on to the site. In order to retrieve it, I needed to answer the security question. This is where the problems beyond my control started. This page would not accept anything, and kept crashing my browser. Talk about completely annoying to the extreme. I tried a couple of times with no success, so I went back and guessed on my password for a few minutes before I decided that effort was futile. At that point I decided to do two things at once. I decided I was going to call into their help desk, and attempt to find online help at the same time. I figured that one of the avenues would be helpful if the other one didn't turn out to be.
Calling the Turbo Tax number (1-800-440-3279) I was put into a queue that first gave me a 2 minute speech, and then finally put me into a tree of options. 5 minutes later I was able to hear it ringing, and I thought I was being sent to a customer representative. Instead, I was sent into a hold pattern, with a computer voice that told me that all representatives were busy, but that I could go back to the web-site if I needed immediate help. Of course I was going to wait, and thank goodness I had unlimited cell phone minutes to do it. I put my phone on speaker and focused on getting into the live online chat with a different customer representative. I loaded up the window which said it would be a maximum 20 minute wait, and watched as it loaded up slowly. It did finally come up, and showed that I was #153 in a line of customers within the queue. It appeared that many, many people were having problems that they needed answered quickly as well, so I decided to let the queue run me through while I was on hold.
10 minutes passed. Another 10 minutes passed. Soon 44 minutes has passed and I was both on hold, and still waiting in the online queue. There is not just some good music that you get to listen to on the phone either, but a woman with a shrill voice telling you to go back to the web-site to find the answers to all of your questions. Do people really hear her say that, and go find the information on the net? I would think that people calling had already exhausted their other options. I was at #104 in the online queue when a customer representative finally clicked over to me on the phone. He asked for my login ID and my e-mail address to help me with my password. Another problem came up for me because I wasn't sure which e-mail I had used, because I use several for work, others for home, and still others for some sites that I am active on. He laughed when I told him I only had my login ID available, and I asked him if there was another way for him to verify who I was. Seriously. He laughed. Apparently they have no way to access anything in their database without an e-mail address to type in to their screen. It seemed unreal to me, and it still does, but that was what he told me. We discussed it for a little while, in which he made a lot of snide comments and was flat out rude, and eventually he said he had a link where I could go to solve my problem. This was after 15 minutes of him telling me he couldn't tell me any of my information, and that even with a Social Security Number and Login ID that he couldn't access anything without the active e-mail address. He asked for an e-mail address he could send it to and he said it was sent, he thanked me for my time, and we got off the phone.
Heading over to my e-mail, I discovered he had sent me the form to change my e-mail address. In order to change it, you must have your old one AND the password. So, either the worker was just incompetent, or he really just didn't want to deal with me anymore. This was more than an hour after I had started trying to log on to the site, and I looked up just in time to see my online queue number drop below 100. It was at that point that I decided I was now done with TurboTax. From having a relatively easy time submitting all of my tax information the prior year, and being quite happy with the results, I was turned into a bitter guy, simply through the lack of customer service or assistance that they were willing to offer a paying customer. Maybe it was because I wasn't paying to be a premium member, or maybe it was because they just don't have the capability to help someone in my situation, but regardless of the result, I won't be going back there for any reason. My recommendation you ask? If you don't need anything but a method to submit taxes online, and you don't think you will ever have a question then I recommend the site with reservations. I never thought I would have questions either, so I caution anyone else about thinking that. If you need help with your taxes, want a site that loads quickly and cares about your business, you may want to go elsewhere.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 9.95
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