March 2013 by Kelie H.
H & R Block is super expensive, as most people know, especially if you have simple, uncomplicated taxes. Our taxes became a little more complicated than we could handle due to a marriage, home purchase and other stuff, so we needed professional help after years of doing it on our own. I was given a recommendation for this particular office by a friend, so I went in a little less wary than I should have. Just in case, I worked up my taxes on my own before going in so I could compare. The woman we met with was super nice, but a lot on the slow side. We waited eons for our appt to start because she was still in with her previous client, and we saw why as soon as we got in there. Our appointment went way over, too, and when we left we saw two clients waiting for the same lady. Yikes. Anyway, she did a fine job with preparing the taxes initially, it just took awhile. She did get us more credits and things than we knew about, so the extra money was a pleasant surprise and made us feel like the $400 fee was probably worth it. We were missing a document, so we had to come back another day to finish, and this is where I think the problems stem from. On our return visit, suddenly our return amount was half of what she had told us previously, and she couldn't figure out why. Turns out, she was forgetting to input some of the education credits (that she had input previously--where did they go?). We got that all added back in and were finally ready to file. She was clearly overwhelmed by her workload and with the sheer number of clients she was scheduled to help each day. She let us know there was a slight delay due to congress, yadda yadda. We'd heard about that. Well.....we waited for-ev-er for our return. We were never notified of any problems, so we started calling and bugging her two months later. Turns out, she made a mistake and put my minor daughter down with her social as the person receiving the education credit, when it was actually supposed to be an adult in the household. She also casually mentioned that a bunch of H & R Block customers returns were being delayed due to a company wide mistake. Say what? First we'd heard of it. Some googling produced an even more bleak situation. H & R Block never notified us of their mistake and as a result, some money we were waiting on to put down as earnest money on a house was severely, severely delayed. And now we have to file an amendment due to the mistake she made. And no offers of compensation, money back, nada. Not happy.
