Intuit Apologizes to Turbo Tax Customers

tstoneman writes "Intuit has issued an apology for aggravating $50-90 million in customers over their product activation code. Let's hope that they have learned their lesson, and that other companies will heed this warning. Nonetheless, I am still seething over their malware that they installed without letting me know, and despite the apology, I will be moving to Taxcut permanently from now on."

Comments

Alternative Link

[Sir Haxalot]

here and here

Use the web version

[HTMLSpinnr]

Use the web version. One cost, no malware, and usable from anywhere with a browser!

Blast from the past

[mao che minh]

Remember this?

Intuit drops DRM feature from Turbo Tax

It's a bit late, isn't it?

[-tji]

This was a hot issue in Feb-Apr of this year.. What took them so long?

I used TurboTax for my '01 taxes, but because of this incident I changed to Tax Cut last year. I will be sticking with Tax Cut.

I was pissed at Intuit before this incident anyway. They also play those shady rebate games. The TurboTax'01 box stated 'Free State Tax' forms. Once I opened it, I found it was not included, but needed to be downloaded - no problem. Go to download it, and they insist on charging me $20 for the download with the opportunity to mail in rebate forms for a refund. Screw them.

Other mechanisms for "securing" software?

[Not_Wiggins]

Personally, I was ticked off at the activation mechanism; it was downright stupid for them to require installation *and* running of a resident program to ensure people don't steal their software when that software is (usually) used only once. I really want CDILLA running in background all year when I took 3 hours ONE TIME to do my taxes. Or, of course, it has to all be uninstalled (bear in mind, you were required to uninstall TurboTax *before* you could remove CDILLA... otherwise you wouldn't be able to uninstall TurboTax!).

I read a bunch of suggestions that would have made more sense for their security. For example, generate a key that uses the address used to file the taxes... sure, you still have the annoyance of having to contact them for a registration key, but you remove the necessity of having separate keys for different machines, and reinstall is a snap.

Of course, you could also key it off of a SSN, but that's a little too "big brother" for my taste.

Although it requires more trust on the consumer's part (ok, admittedly, I don't have this level of trust for Intuit), they could expand their online version of the tax software... not only control who has access, but you eliminate the annoyance of keeping old copies of the software around (for tax revision, whatever), updates, and even storage of old returns. And they save tons of cash on not distributing media.
It could be spun as a "win-win" for the consumer.

Nope... they chose to put a resident program on my computer. Using my resources to "protect" their property. Unacceptable.

Despite the affiliation with Microsoft, I too will be switching to TaxCut.

Re:Best Buy?

[squarooticus]

"Consumer friendly"? When did I say that? When did I even imply that?

Besides, what you describe are isolated incidents, probably due to individual overzealous store managers. Who cares. The Divx situation was a lot worse: the Circuit City main office attempting to shove premeditated, primitive, and inconvenient DRM down all our throats through a deceptive advertising campaign and at the expense of whatever good will there was in the DVD consortium.

Yeah, all companies do some bad things along with some good things. You have to pick and choose your battles, and that was an important one, IMO.

Re:Best Buy?

[radd0]

You can't just go around making claims like that!

Atleast, not without backing it up!

-r

Re:As someone who's always used a CPA...

[JayBlalock]

The problem with all Tax software is that they are marketed primarily to those people LEAST competent to use them. People with some actual intelligence can do them on their own - doing your own 1040 is pretty simple, you just need a calculator. Or past a level of complexity, they recognize the need for a CPA. (both to make sure it's done correctly, and to get the best tax breaks)

Conversely, you get someone who's ignorant of tax law and *realizes* their ignorance, and they just scurry off to the CPA regardless of their return. (and, I note, there's no shame in this - tax law is *insane*)

And then, in the middle, are those who purchase TaxCut\TurboTax. They either A)think they know more than they do, or B)believe it's some sort of magic number-sorting program that will instantly produce a tax return for them with no amount of work on their part. I had some customers who legitimately believed they didn't even have to worry about the prompts, that the program would somehow magically "know" what was income, what was royalties, etc etc. (and, of course, if the luser manages to create for themselves a Schedule-C when all they did was have a garage sale, that's the program's fault, even though the prompts and explanations are written at about a middle-school level)

And don't even get me STARTED on those boneheads that thought they could use a $15 piece of software to cheat on their taxes like a $1500 CPA. "But I did this LAST year!" "Which means you got lucky and weren't audited, since it was illegal last year too." (I even had one guy *demand* I help him hide a home business under "Miscellaneous Income" because if a CPA can do it, TaxCut MUST do it for him. He got hung up on.)

I will say, if you know something about taxes to begin with, TaxCut IS a pretty good program. It had a few bugs in the calculations, but most were the staggeringly complex sort one or two people MIGHT stumble across through dumb luck. (and one REALLY idiotic bug involving proxy servers blocking e-filing, but that's another story) The problem is it's marketed (and priced) specifically towards those who LEAST need to be using it. So go on use it if you have a simple return, or if you have a decent understanding of home taxes and just need a hand with the math and specific forms. Otherwise, just get a CPA. It's safer.