There is no acceptable excuse for hidden costs. Period.
Be up front with your customer or don't sell your product at all.

I purchased their download of the Basic edition to do my taxes this year. I expected my costs to be about $50 with a quick review of their explanation of charges, but was slammed with an extra cost for the state update that wasn't mentioned anywhere until I had already purchased the software and begun my return.

They charged me for the Basic software, the State software update, and state eFile.
I expected the first and last charges, but right in the middle of my return I found out they wanted an addition $30! This is extremely low and unacceptable business practice. I will never be using TurboTax again and have been advising all of my family and friends to avoid it!

Intuit might as well start distributing smitFraud spyware; they've lost all respect from me.

Yep, I've been using TaxAct since the story on slashdot about this:
[slashdot.org]

I have been very happy with the TaxAct.

I feel like the money we spend is a more powerful vote than the one we cast in the elections. Spend your money on companies you like even if they are a bit more expensive (which TaxAct is not).

@shepd: I've used H7R Block's online software for the last 3 years and have been pleased with the results for the money. Easy to use and my refunds come back really fast.

@blackmage439: From the ones I read the people who were upset were those who print multiple copies of their return. They either need extras for whatever reason or they do their returns multiple times to try out different scenarios and print so that they can compare them.

All I said was that I spent more on this software one year than the stamps since, and that it is easy to fill out the forms at irs.gov and Alabama's state forms auto-calculate your taxes.

Very shady practices... I won't be trusting Amazon reviews ever again if they remove criticism that praises a products free competitors for being free...

This is from a PC Magazine column by Bill Machrone dated March 18, 2008 which is why since 2003 I have been using H&R Block's TaxCut.

SafeCast, however, does a number of bad things to your system and leaves pieces of itself all over the place. Even the uninstall doesn't remove it completely, although Brett's report tells you what to look for and how to get rid of it. One of the things I like least is that the program writes to an undocumented sector on the boot track, which may interfere with other security systems, differently formatted hard drives, or multi-OS boot programs.

"TurboTax Deluxe costs $15 more this year. However, last year we charged a separate $17.95 federal e-file fee. So for the majority of our customers who e-file, they will save $2.95."

"Customers who prepare multiple returns with TurboTax will be charged $9.95 for each additional return, which includes federal and state preparation/printing and/or federal e-filing at no additional charge. That means customers who e-filed one or more returns last year will actually pay less this year. For example, a customer who used TurboTax Deluxe software last year to prepare and e-file their own federal return and then prepared and e-filed a second return would have paid $80.85 ($44.95 for the boxed software and then $17.95 x 2 for each e-filed fed return). This year, that same customer will pay $69.90 ($59.95 for the boxed software and only $9.95 for the second federal return). Customers who didn?t e-file last year and want to print multiple returns will end up paying more."

To sum up: previous E-filers will pay LESS this year, even with up to two extra returns.

So either all of those 270+ negative reviewers didn't E-file last year, or people have just confirmed that they are ignorant and fickle by nature. The E-filing was a big thing for my mom, and my father would hit the fan if he knew how much she was spending on E-files. This new version of TurboTax will SAVE my parents money. I will not argue with that.

I don't really care either way. I'm happy using TurboTax's and Illinois' free E-filing on their websites. Yay for 1040-EZ!

The activation issue was in 2002
[www.amazon.com]

I switched to Taxcut in 2002 because of that and never looked back... You'd think intuit would learn; you don't lose a customer for a year, you lose them for life

@bmeighan: Well you had the activation thing in 2003, i think there might've been something else, and now this stupid, idiotic, pointless idea of only allowing 1 tax return. You say you listen to your customers but how about you listen before you do stupid things. Do you even run this by a focus group before releasing the product? You should have known people wouldn't like this so this experience just reeks of you trying to sneak it by and assume people will pay because they already shelled out $60. My mom already had the CD shipped but she didn't pay for the license yet. When I told her, she searched high and low on the cd case and inside to find the notice of pricing changes. of course it was in smallest print on the back. it leaves a bad taste all around and i still think my family is better off going to once of the other competing products.

Thanks for the free coaster, Intuit.

Bob Meighan
VP, TurboTax

Bob Meighan
VP, TurboTax

Too bad the high number of outliers in this sample cause a rational buyer to read through them for a true picture.

I'm not sure I would call all 28 out of 306 "outliers"

Or did you mean to say that the 278 bad reviews (out of 306 total reviews) are outliers? If so, you may want to reconsider. Call it an unfair sample if you wish, but 278 out of 306 isn't even remotely close to "outlier" territory.

It may be unfair, it may wromg, it may be biased. But those 278 bad reviews are NOT outliers. if antything, the remaining reviews ARE

It's kind of like asking if you can undo evil by doing good, but on a lesser level. What Intiut did wasn't evil, but simply reversing themselves isn't an affirmative good.

Now THAT's what I call a Mass Effect! ;)

It should be added that Mr. Meighan DID participate, and the changes got made. Hopefully someone in some department got fired, tho, for such poor market research before the fact. Intuit has been going off the rails for a few years (I have been advising my clients against QuickBooks for some time), you has to wonder how many mistakes like this a company can make before they just give up on screwing the customers and go in the other direction--customer-friendly!

Too bad the high number of outliers in this sample cause a rational buyer to read through them for a true picture.

Sure, maybe it gets the job done when nothing else does. But it's still petty and juvenile.

Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.

Interesting. I successfully convinced my mom, my gf's parents, my friend's parents and my aunt to stay away from turbotax because of these new fees. they all use turbotax to do family taxes and this price hike would have affected them. They were either going to use taxcut or taxact. With turbotax's history, i might as well let them explore new options because i wouldn't be surprised to see turbotax institute these stupid restrictions some other way next year.

There was also the author who spoke out about the Mass Effect sex scene, and admitted she never actually played the game.

Her book was trounced with 1 star ratings. It prompted her to actually, you know, research the subject a bit.

I think it's worth applauding Intuit for not only claiming to listen to their customers, but for also acting on the feedback. I'm not saying they're the smartest people in the room (only greed can blind people to not have seen this coming), however, they did respond to feedback in an admirable way for any company.

All of that being said...I'm still not going to use TurboTax.

@pockygt: Amazon is actually a pretty powerful forum for users to express their dissatisfaction with a company. I know a lot of people my age who use Amazon for most of their online purchases, so Amazon feedback can have a huge impact on a company. And this isn't the first time it's been used in that way... just a few months ago users sent the ratings for Spore plummeting because they were unhappy with the restrictive DRM.

@Jordan Leventhal:

If you took the time to read the article instead of commenting blindly you would know the answer.

@Jordan Leventhal: I think the fee is for filing additional returns. So it sounds like they just won't charge you.

But what about those who purchased this before the price drop?

And during the long, hard, cold winter they ate Sir Turbotax's minstrels...