Complaint Review: Turbotax

I am a very long term customer of Turbo Tax (since it first came out), and I used to recommend it highly. For years, I have been paying for and using Home and Business without any complaint or difficulty, but I will not use this company again. I am very willing to pay reasonable, fully disclosed fees for service, but Turbo Tax has lost me as a customer forever just to gain a "gotcha" fee of $29.95.

I am an accountant and I still got suckered by the refund processing fee of $29.99 for processing a $16 state filing fee through the Turbo Tax refund deduction "service." I feel this fee is deceptive as it is not fully disclosed up front, in advance of the filing screen, and after the filer has done a series of click-throughs. Regardless of what Turbotax posts, says or claims, this is obviously confusing to users based on complaints posted on this and other sites. I had no problem using the screens last year and avoiding this "service."

University National Bank of St. Paul is the 3rd party that gets your refund, deducts the state filing fee (and gets the float on your refund) then charges and deducts $29.95 for your having the privilege of being "served" by them -- when you could pay just the state filing fee directly. 

I will be filing complaints with the FTC, my state tax authority, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal agency that regulates the University National Bank of St. Paul. My spouse (a lawyer) is looking into a class action suit.

I further felt that the debit card option is sprung on filers without adequate disclosure and it would be easy for a user to inadvertently end up with this option and its potential fees. Finally, it is extremely difficult to contact customer service, staff are outsourced and cannot accomplish anything to assist, and it is impossible to go back and review what happened on the payment pages after filing.