Complaint Review: Jack Sisk And Company

To whom it may concern,

I am new to the Houston area and have heard quite a bit about you. I work for Houston Community Newspapers, and my editor at The Villager, Donna Wick, strongly urged me to email you about our situation with our taxes.

My husband and I just moved to Houston from Manchester, England, after he received his Masters degree. Upon returning to the United States, we had to get our taxes done. We were going to go to H&R Block, as they did our taxes last year, but at the last minute, Jack Sisk called me (I left a message for him the day before, just to ask a few questions) and told me to come see him in person as to discuss our situation.

I went down to his office with my tax papers and discussed our finances with him briefly. I was there for two hours, where 15 minutes of that time we discussed taxes, and the rest of the time, we discussed traveling, his family, and what there was to do in Houston. It didn't phase me at the time, as we were just having friendly conversation and we weren't even sure if he had all of my papers. He didn't even get around to asking how we wanted to file and price wasn't discussed as of yet.

That night, I went home and asked my husband if we had any other documents that we needed to file and he said no, that the accountant had everything. I called his office on Friday and told the receptionist that he had all of our up to date papers, and asked if I could speak to him. At this point, I wanted to ask him how much this would cost us. She said that he was with a client and that he would get back to me shortly. This was on Friday, the 31st of March. He never got back to me, but his receptionist got back to me on Monday, the 3rd of April. She told me that my taxes were done and that I owed $480.00. I asked her to repeat this total, and it was $480. I was at work and couldn't discuss it but I did tell here that I would call her back in a few minutes, that I needed to speak to Jack right away.

I called back, and another woman answered. I asked first for Kim, the one that originally told me the total, and she said that Kim had left the office. I then said that I needed to talk to Jack, that $480 was never agreed and that I hadn't even discussed my taxes or even how I wanted to file. She informed me that he wasn't picking up the phone right now and that I didn't have a choice; I had to pay them. I told her, we can't afford this, we didn't even have an income in the US last year, and we were just filing our foreign income to do the right thing. I informed her that we didn't give them permission to do our taxes, and there wasn't a verbal agreement, a signature, or anything. She suggested that I pay them to file an extension, and then give them payments until we could afford it and hung up.

I called back again 10 minutes later and Kim (who left the office) answered. I asked her for Jack, and again, he wasn't available. I told her, I had to speak to him and ask him what on earth was going on. I told her that I could not understand how they even did my taxes without asking me questions about how I wanted to file, individually or separately, without giving me a quotation, and how they could get our final information on Friday and say they were going to call me back right away, and call me on Monday and say to pick up my return, my taxes were done. She told me that she'd leave Jack a message, and he would get back to me right away.

It's Wednesday, April 5th, and my husband and I have both tried to call him, and he still has not called us back. I don't know what to do, but he has all of our documents and we feel betrayed and taken advantage of. Two other accountants quoted us at $80 and last year we paid $197 to work with someone over the phone from England. I feel that we're new to the area and he saw a great opportunity to take advantage of us. Please help!!

Nicole
Houston, Texas
U.S.A.