PLEASE READ THIS ALL: IT WILL SAVE YOUR CREDIT !!!!
(If i could give negative stars - i would here!!)
I went to H & R Block on Broadway last year to get my taxes done. In 2008 I lived 6 months in Indiana, 6 months in IL & bought a place..so there were many different forms and such I would need (oh, plus i had a 1099 form!), so decided it was a good idea to leave it to a "professional". BOY WAS I WRONG. This cost me dearly. Not only with my credit - but they also charged me $319 to do them (WTF!!?)
Pamela did my taxes, turned out i owed IN $824. I thought this was odd as I never have owed them more than like $60 or $70. Anyway - at the end of the visit I was getting a nice return from IL (My employment was in IL), hefty from federal (thank you homeowners credit), so no problem with paying IN $824.
Of course - i'm going to wait till as close to 4/15 as possible to send them any $, but in the meantime I received a letter from State of IN saying basically they didn't like how the $$ was allocated between states (IN and IL). So, I took this back to PAM, they "revised" my taxes and i all of the sudden OWED INDIANA NOTHING! Really? Why wouldn't they have done this for me in the first place?
I sent the revised form off, and in the meantime receive another letter from Indiana stating i owed them $824 + some other late fees and will be reported to collection!! I then called the parties involved - and believed that the paperwork just got crossed in the mail. I expressed my high concern of this being reported to the credit agencies as I would like my credit to remain good.
A few weeks later, i received a letter stating IN Dept of Revenue SENT me to collection!! Of course by this time the satellite office was long gone - and pam was of course unreachable, so found someone in the year round office on Clark to try and help. I faxed the IN Dept of Revenue the revised forms they apparently never got, then received a letter at the end of August, 2009 saying it's all good, and nothing more is required. (I never had to pay IN anything!!)
Fast Forward to February, 2010, when I am trying to refinance. My refinance lady expresses concern that there is a Tax Lien on my credit report! I could NOT BELIVE IT! I do have good credit, but this definitely was hindering my report - and will remain on my record for 7 YEARS? What happens to sh*t H&R Block? Nothing. Great. Real fair isn't it?
I've been working the last 4 weeks to get this off of my credit report by sending them that final letter from IN saying all is good - and TransUnion is the only one that took it off. The other two refused. (I don't know how the hell thats possible..but what do i know?)
Moral of the story: 1)DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GO TO H&R. THEY'LL OVERCHARGE YOU AND PROBABY RUIN YOUR CREDIT 2) GET YOUR FREE CREDIT REPORT (1X PER YEAR) FROM WWW.ANNUALCREDITREPORT.COM 3)Go have a beer :) (just because). UUUGH ! WHAT A MESS.. read more