Dealing with debt can be extremely stressful and scary. Michael and his team made going through a…read moredifficult time so much better. Michael came up with thoughtful, innovative ideas to handle my situation and helped me out immeasurably. His experience and relationships working on 4000 debt cases showed. He came up with an affordable, tailored strategy that helped me out of a very tough spot. Most of all, Michael cares about his clients and it shows. I cannot recommend Michael and the Financial Counseling Center strongly enough. Highest recommendation. Good people you can trust.

Great service, great team. Definitely recommend them for your debt management and or/resolution…read moreissues. The process felt like family helping me in a stressful time.

Requested a free consultation, and Tony was very helpful and honest during our online meeting…read more It's hard to find companies with knowledgeable individuals who can provide valuable opinion as many are like robots so it's refreshing to have someone understand your needs and try to give you their best advice. Hope to work with Tony at Crosdroads Planning for our future tax planning needs.

TL;DR: Worked with Garrett Jones at Crossroads Financial Planning for tax prep. Misquoted our taxes…read moreby nearly $4,000. Poor customer service -- impolite and dismissive. Once paid, they offered little further assistance. Significant miscommunication between staff members on essential elements of our filing. Longer version: We hired a tax preparation service to help navigate changes to our filing status after getting married. Our tax consultant, Garrett Jones, began working on our application with the wrong filing status. After correcting this error, there was poor communication regarding important changes that needed to be followed up on, which resulted in IRS notices arriving in June. When I raised my concerns with Garrett, his guidance was vague and he offered no clear timeline for resolution. Weeks later, with no progress made, I was left with the impression that once he had been paid, his investment in us as clients had ended. I spent approximately 10 hours on the phone with the IRS trying to sort out the status of our account. Throughout this process, Garrett maintained that I owed approximately $2,000 to the IRS -- when in fact I had a pending refund of approximately $2,000. In the end, we were left with a significant miscalculation, poor customer service, and no choice but to resolve everything ourselves. I'm still unclear what the fee we paid to Crossroads Financial Planning actually covered. Highly recommend taking your taxes elsewhere.

Working with Kyle Clark has been a standout experience from start to finish…read more After a deeply frustrating experience with another financial advisor program, I was cautious about starting over, but working with Kyle has been a complete 180. From the start, Kyle was thorough and patient. He walked me through transferring all of my existing funds, helped me establish clear savings goals, and gave me concrete, actionable guidance I could actually act on. What impressed me most was his timing: all of this unfolded during a period of significant personal transition for me, and he handled every step with professionalism and calm. The results have spoken for themselves. My portfolio has reached record highs, and for the first time, I genuinely feel in control of my financial future. If you're looking for an advisor who is competent and steady under pressure, I can't recommend Kyle highly enough!

I've pretty much exhausted my ability to manage my retirement account now that it's entered…read more"Antihistamine money" territory (It's nothing to sneeze at) so I thought it would be a good idea to hire a fee-for-service fiduciary to look over my multiple accounts and give me some advice. Which ones do I combine? Am I investing too aggressively or not enough? What the heck is this fund? Nick Licouris did a fantastic job - we met twice, and he mapped out a detailed roadmap for me to get my financial house in order over the next few years, explaining everything in plain English anyone could understand. He confirmed I was headed in the right direction, but also pointed out a few things I was unaware of. He also correctly predicted how many hours it would take, so the cost was no surprise. I am very, VERY pleased with the results and I've recommended him to others and will probably hire him again, once I've executed the plan.

Unprofessional people. That Victor & Wendy just keep on promising to do the job, will ask you to…read morepay sercive charge in advance to do the job but they will not do it on time. Even if you call the office, no nobody will answer, if you leave a msg no one will call you back, if you send email they will not reply on time, office is close always and very hard to get an appointment. These people are rude, unprofessional & cannot be trusted. If they can't do the job on time they should not accept it, they will only make your business with them pending for long time. Not recommended to public to get get their services, unprofessional people especially Victor & Wendy. Don't try or you get dissapointed only.

Could I give less than a 1 star???…read more We have used Casablanca in La Puente to prepare our taxes for many years. After Suzanne passed away Victor Ruiz took over our case. Forward to 2025 doing our 2024 taxes: February 2025, I sent my tax information to Casablanca and received a notification on 2/24 they received our paperwork. About a week later got a call informing me my taxes were done, and they asked for my credit card payment information. I paid. Wendy asked if I wanted electronic or paper copy of my package. I said please mail my copy to me. I waited 2 weeks and had already received my refund from the government. Still no copy of my tax package from Casablanca. I called and asked Wendy where it was, and she said it was being mailed out that day. A few days later I received my package in the mail. Upon reviewing what they electronically filed I noticed a significant error on line 6a listing our 1099 income. Then looking across to 6b was a different totally random number. I checked the 1099's I submitted to them and saw their check marks noting all amounts looked at. They just input the wrong amounts! Numbers and accuracy should be very important for someone being paid to process taxes!!! Alarmed I immediately called Casablanca and spoke with Wendy again. I reviewed the errors I caught. She asked me to email a copy of the 1099's again and said Victor would reprocess the entire package again and correct errors. Of course, this means an addendum needs to be done and we now stand a chance of being red flagged for an audit in addition to now owing the Fed repayment. Forward to the next week. Still NO RESPONSE from them. I emailed and called the office again. Wendy told me they should have this taken care of by the end of the week Friday or Saturday. Forward to the next week. Still NO RESPONSE! So, Monday I sent ANOTHER email informing them I would be going out of town April 6 and wanted to know if this would all be taken care of before then. Again, NO RESPONSE! Tuesday, I called the office and was informed Wendy was "in a meeting" and they would take a message and that she would call me. I told them that I was not feeling confident about the entire process of the abilities of their office. I understand the end of filing date is close and they are more than likely busy. However, I feel their screw up has made me very anxious, I want it addressed ASAP and should be a priority. Hopefully this is addressed before the 2025/2026 filing year. Would be nice if I could submit a positive comment how they intend to address and repair this fiasco. After this posting I got a quick response! I now owe the Fed a little over 1K I will keep you posted if I get an audit notification due to additional errors.

Yes, this financial specialist were amazing. My advisor - JC, he's amazing & does explains…read moreeverything we need to know. TFA did my living trust review & we were satisfied. Perfect! I don't normally trust anyone specially in regards to our financial savings. But through the help of JC , we (husband & me), we believe in him, trustworthy. He spends time to explain to us word for word in a matter that a layman person will understand.

Manuel and TFA are great. We wanted to get life insurance for our family and they guided us to…read morewhich plans would work best for us for our needs. Very responsive and friendly, would recommend if these are the types of services your family is looking into

Very informative seminar. I learned a lot and I am impressed with Brian's presentation and the…read morevaluable information he gave me for retirement planning purposes in the future including SS and capital gains information.

I would highly recommend them. I reached out seeking high level guidance on a variety of tax,…read moreretirement, financial topics and Brian took the time to patiently coach me through it. His time was invaluable!

When we first reached out to Michelle, my wife and I were feeling lost and honestly a bit desperate…read moreto get control of our finances. Living paycheck to paycheck--despite having solid incomes and no kids--was frustrating and stressful. We initially expected to walk away with a simple budget. What we got was so much more. Michelle didn't just organize our numbers--she gave us clarity, confidence, and peace of mind. She removed the fear we had around money and replaced it with a real plan and direction. More importantly, she set us up for long-term success and a stronger financial future. We truly can't recommend her enough.

I was so confused with which direction to invest to add better security my finances. I decided to…read morework with Michelle, and I realized she was so much more of an asset to me than I ever expected. She has me so much more confident in my financial decisions, especially when she is right there with me when I need to make them. I can definitely say that I am much better off with her than I was without her. I appreciate her so much, and I believe she would never steer anybody wrong. She's a very savvy lady when it comes to financial matters. Give her a call and see for yourself!

would like to take a moment to write an honest, sincere, and genuine review about Second Chance…read moreFinancial. Back in 1998, when I was trying to purchase a house, I needed help repairing and improving my credit. That's when I met an incredible team at Second Chance Financial -- John, Karen, and Wayne. From the very beginning, they treated me with kindness, honesty, professionalism, and genuine care. Thanks to their help and guidance, I was able to buy my home back in 1998. Now, 28 years later, I find myself reaching out to them again for assistance, and to my surprise and gratitude, Karen and Wayne are still there. That alone says so much about the dignity, integrity, and stability of this company. It shows not only how they value their clients, but also how they treat and respect their employees. What always made them different is that they never treated me like "just another client." Over the years, they would occasionally call simply to check on me and see how I was doing. That level of humanity and compassion is very rare today. If anyone needs honest and trustworthy help with their credit, I truly recommend Second Chance Financial. These are good people who genuinely care about helping others rebuild and move forward in life. Thank you, Karen. Thank you, Wayne. And may God bless the memory of John, who is no longer with us. Your kindness and help will never be forgotten.

I had the BEST experience with Karen Molina! So kind, so patient with me and responded to any of my…read moreconcerns, questions right away!!! Very sweet!!! My credit score went up tremendously thanks to Karen and the Second Chance team!!! Amazing to work with you!!! Highly recommend!

We have been going to Gilbert for a couple of years now. My hubby retired 7.1.22. Gilbert made our…read moretransition easy. Let us know what we need to get together, Stocks assets et cetera. Once together, he put it into a plan that makes so much sense. I'm definitely pleased.

My family and I work with one of the founders Gilbert Cerda for the last 3 years…read more Gil has allowed us to better plan financially- from budgeting, taxes, investment strategy, to overall financial health - Gilbert and his team were there. We have then been able to graduate to be able to optimize our investment portfolio. We are saving more and putting our money to work. Gilbert and his team are warm and attentive but the best thing I like about Cerda Advisors, aside from being a Trojan, is the level of trust I have for them and knowing they are doing whats best for me and my family. That's priceless. I highly recommend.

Maggie was very helpful over the phone with questions and I would definitely use her services again…read morefor tax prep! I had questions about how to manage my retirement funds effectively and how to mitigate tax penalties and Maggie was very knowledgeable about the potential impacts using just a few statements from my brokerage account! If I had known it was this easy I would not have spent months agonizing over what to do when we were able to answer my questions in less than an hour! Maggie is very responsive to inquiries sent through on the website and to phone calls!

Maggi was great. Super smart and passionate about investment planning and the tax consequences. I…read morestrongly recommend and would use her again.