Taxmasters
- Thread starter barman
- Start date
I did some consulting work for JKH (one of the big 3 from that industry) last year before the whole bankruptcy thing...overseeing their online advertising. There was some kind of deal going on where TaxMasters was going to buy them or merge with them or something...but I'm not sure if that ever happened because I stopped working with them pretty quickly for a number of reasons I won't mention here.
I do remember flying down to their offices in SC, though, and not being particularly impressed with the industry as a whole. Thousands of dollars in charges to people for something they could very easily do themselves, were they not so terrified of confronting their problems head-on. A lot of customers claimed the service was terrible, too, and caused them to miss deadlines...and there were a ton of complaints from people who said they paid a bunch and the company just kept asking for more or threatening to stop the whole process and leave them stuck. Apparently, it was a pretty standard claim against all the companies, though I don't know how much of it was truth and how much of it was people misunderstanding the terms of what they agreed to.
The guys who started the company told us how they did so after ordering some back-of-a-magazine course on how to make lots of money doing it, and they seemed to loathe their customers. For some reason, it always irks me to see companies that don't have at least a minimal culture of respect for their customers.
Ultimately, I ended up refusing to work with them after a few months' time. I don't find this news surprising at all. The entire industry has been plagued with AG problems for quite a while now, and most of the complaints seem pretty valid (not that the customers themselves didn't share some blame).
I do remember flying down to their offices in SC, though, and not being particularly impressed with the industry as a whole. Thousands of dollars in charges to people for something they could very easily do themselves, were they not so terrified of confronting their problems head-on. A lot of customers claimed the service was terrible, too, and caused them to miss deadlines...and there were a ton of complaints from people who said they paid a bunch and the company just kept asking for more or threatening to stop the whole process and leave them stuck. Apparently, it was a pretty standard claim against all the companies, though I don't know how much of it was truth and how much of it was people misunderstanding the terms of what they agreed to.
The guys who started the company told us how they did so after ordering some back-of-a-magazine course on how to make lots of money doing it, and they seemed to loathe their customers. For some reason, it always irks me to see companies that don't have at least a minimal culture of respect for their customers.
Ultimately, I ended up refusing to work with them after a few months' time. I don't find this news surprising at all. The entire industry has been plagued with AG problems for quite a while now, and most of the complaints seem pretty valid (not that the customers themselves didn't share some blame).
Are the fees these dupes paid for the IRS help that they never received going to be tax-deductible?
I actually talked to them about rep management two years ago. They didn't want to spend any real money to solve the problem. Their solution was to place their web address prominently in their television ads and just pray the client wrote it down or just called and didn't Google them.
Rep management for a company like this would be like trying to boil the Pacific ocean with a Coleman camp stove, very hard to get the desired results.
When you offer an instant and painless solution to a desperate and highly motivated buyer, but then simply take their deposit money and ignore them... they can get kind of "pissed."
Here is what they missed: It is reasonable to expect that the Attorney General is going to Google potential targets when deciding to pursue a case.
When they Googled these guys it was page after page of "they took my money and ripped me off" and "why doesn't the government do anything."
If the company had spent just a few hundred thousand of the many millions rolling in on damage control they may have been able to keep their income rolling in for another year or so.
Or even better, if they'd spent some of the money on actually giving customers what they paid for, they might not even need rep management.
Whoa! A company that was founded from a bizop became this successful? See FTC, proof google cash works.
That's a really good idea! Never thought of that one. But it's too late to suggest that now....
I remember a while back hearing about how all this company did was filed a form for you that wasn't common knowledge. They just charged a good $5k to do it.
I could never take any fox news hosts seriously after hearing them plug this and other obvious scams on their radio programs. I think one night I actually heard Hannity plugging a google bizop scam. I have no clue how these people still have any credibility.
I could never take any fox news hosts seriously after hearing them plug this and other obvious scams on their radio programs. I think one night I actually heard Hannity plugging a google bizop scam. I have no clue how these people still have any credibility.
