Came here to avoid going to a commercialized place like H&R block. I'm from out of state and thus…read morehad to do 2 state tax returns, which i figured would be complicated. There weren't a lot of the yelp reviews for tax services, so i figured I'd write one.
I called to schedule an appointment for my partner and I, which didn't take long as tax season has just started. When we arrived, check in took about 10mins, which didn't seem too bad.
Our preparer was Yana, a nice enough young woman. It took our preparer half an hour to log in to their system, but i suppose that may have been out of her control. Once started we let her know we just moved from another state and that we'd have to file in both states. She got started and asked us a few questions and that was it. She didn't really let us know what was going on and if she had any questions, she would ask the owner, David.
I knew our taxes were going to be a bit more complicated than the usual taxes she works on, but being new to the state and oblivious to taxes, i was hoping she would at least be a little more transparent with us so we can learn about what was going on.
Finally she asked us for about 10 signatures, on the first one, we asked what we were signing and she said, " it's so I can begin processing your taxes." Fair enough. On the second, we asked again. She said, "same thing, it's for the taxes."
Mind you, she was not showing us her screen or anything. All we had before us was a 3x8" digital signature pad and her description of what we were signing. At this point, i was onto her and was not doing my signature, just long horizontal slashes on the pad.
Once she finished, i asked for print outs of what we signed and a breakdown of the costs. We were charged a lot, but again, i figured it was the dual state taxes.
We arrived 2hrs before closing and left 1 hour after. We probably spoke 5 times in that whole duration and we left questioning everything and honestly, feeling robbed.
So I got home and reviewed the signatures. Most of them were standard federal forms that I've signed before, but about 3 or 4 of them were about consenting to sell my information to third parties. I was angry because she didn't tell us that at all.
The next day, i received a call saying I had to go back in to re-sign because they found they made an error and couldn't submit my documents. I went in and i asked her to retract the other signatures, but it was too late for my partner, because her taxes had been submitted. So she said we can just cancel the spam texts, or if they're calls, just ignore them. So that's great.
Long story short, we went to the H&R block on Division and Burnside and worked with Dana for a "second look." She was wonderful, and let us know everything she was doing and even had a second monitor for us to see. She let us know everything Yana did was correct, but that they overcharged us.
Lesson learned for next year. Be forewarned. DO NOT sign anything without them showing you.
