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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."
"I will be moving to Taxcut permanently from now on."
I'm not sure if TaxCut will be my choice permanently, but I am sure that I'll forever look for something other than Intuit.
Call me a jerk about it, or whatever. I just don't see why I ever need to give a business a second chance after they've been a ball-muncher. I just say "good bye" and never look back.
Intuit issues an apology? It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission How about Intuit starts showing their conscience by sending cheques to registered owners of the crippled software. Only then would I be convinced they mean it.
Trolling is a art,
If Intuit was a monoploy, they would have stuck with their plan. But, since there good alternatives, they have to change their ways or give way. I wonder if such a backlash will work against WinXp activation. My guess is it won't due to the monopoly.
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
You mean the store chain that has people arrested if they bring a pad and paper and copy down prices to compare? (Washington DC a few years ago).
Or perhaps the Best Buy that advertised that NVidia (I think) video card, then took it back and said the offer was no good, and then called the cops when the one customer came in with the coupon and wanted his video card (That one was on Slashdot).
That must be the "customer friendly" Best Buy you are talking about.
They're showing that companies can actually listen to their customers. Support them and maybe other companies will take notice.
This is great and I would be more than happy to support them after this, but this biggest sticking issue with me and Intuit is the apparent incompatibility with their data formats between the Mac OS and Windows of Quickbooks. What is the deal with that? They say that databases can be transferred "once", but going back and forth is impossible.
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I used to work for the big H&R Block Taxcut tech support center in Kansas City, MO. I essentially worked tech support for their tech support... made sure their computers kept operating properly and such.
Anyway, my real purpose for posting is this: only switch to Taxcut if you absolutely have to. Even the people who wrote Taxcut openly admitted that TurboTax was by far the better software. Taxcut went into production largely untested at that point anyway (2001 tax year). Just my two cents I guess.
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Remove the Greed which plagues mankind.
Quicken has apologized to its customers and I can respect that. As an ex-quicken customer (buyer of over 5 years of its financial planner and tax program), I remain unmoved. There are several companies which have earned my "wrath" through betrayal of trust (Wachovia Bank, America West, Air Tran and Jet Blue Airlines being fairly prominent members on the List). It is inconceivable that I will do business with any of these organizations in the future....and so it goes for Quicken Corp. I have no personal vendetta against the employees of Quicken corporation, but I firmly believe in using my dollars (and the dollars of friends and family) to kill the corporate culture which gave rise to the concept of CD-Dilla. What can the corporation do to "make it up to me?"..nothing..the trust I had in the corporation is gone, and considering the alternative options available I see no reason to ever pay attention to attempts to restore it. I hope the corporation can make good use of its 2003 revenue stream, because they have lost at least 40 years of future revenue from myself, my family and friends. And yes - I'm still pissed.
Pyrmaid scheme o
True, and also, remember that WinXP isn't just an application like TurboTax, but the operating system on which all of your applications depend.
I'm utterly dumbfounded (or maybe just utterly dumb) at the number of tech-savvy people who allow their entire machine to be controlled remotely by Microsoft. I do not accept the notion of DRM in mission-critical software like my OS, which is why I'll keep running Win2K until I can no longer buy software for it.
The delicious irony of it all is that Intuit thought they could get more sales by treating their customers like criminals. Now the apology letters are flying and they are trying to get their market share back. I hope the RIAA is watching.
-R
Intuit's methods last year caused me to seek alternatives to their products. I had used TurboTax for 4 or 5 years, and use Quicken 99 still. I tried TaxCut and have no reason to go back to TT. If I ever get the opportunity, I'll switch my finances away from Quicken also (I need the online banking features. And no, I'm not going to use anything where my account info etc. is all stored anywhere but my local computer.)
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
We need this action (Intuit's use of DRM) to have a PERMANENT reduction/effect on their bottom line. Only then will other companies realize what a bad idea it is and not follow suit.
BC
Except in this case Intuit decided that it would be a great idea to implement their product activation by writing information to the boot sector of the hard disk without bothering to warn the customer first.
As a result, many bootloaders ceased to operate because they were being overwritten by the activation. There is no justification at all for using the boot sector as a casual data storage area.
I used Turbo Tax last year, now I have C-Dilla on my HD. Everytime I scan for malware the only thing I leave is C-Dilla because I need it to run Turbo Tax to check last year's filing. My question is can I use my frikin legally purchased copy of Turbo Tax now without C-Dilla. I don't give a crap about an apology. They treated me like a pirate for buying their software. I want that shit off my HD and I want to use my licensed software to check that digital copy of turbo tax for the next several years.
Can I? Anyone?
P.S. If after a bit of research I find I can do my taxes with another piece of software I shall. You can support these assholes if you like, I'm going to find someone I can trust more with my important financial data (that trust is about access to my own data as well as privacy, privacy is NOT the only concern), that right now means anyone who makes decent tax software and isn't called Intuit.
I used TurboTax, and its predecessors, all the way back to 1985. That was three or four companies ago. It was always very satisfactory, and there seemed to be no reason to change, so I didn't change.
All they had to do to keep me as a customer forever was to not screw up.
Well, last year they screwed up. So I switched.
And you know what? As you'd expect in a highly competitive environment... the differences between TurboTax and TaxCut hardly amount to a hill of beans. In fact the general design of the programs is pretty similar and I barely had to consult the online help. On balance, EXCEPT for the product activation nonsense, the two products are roughly on a par.
If there had been any doubt in my mind, a few bad experiences with Intuit's so-called customer support resolved them. (I don't know how H&R Block's compares... because I didn't need to use it).
I _did_ need to re-enter a lot of my basic information from last year.
Switch back? Why should I go to the effort? I am now a TaxCut customer. And there's no reason at all H&R Block shouldn't be able to keep me for life.
All they need to do is not screw up.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
"If Intuit folds, it could mean bad things for the industry."
When Divx died, DVDs went up in price.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I'm glad they eventually learned their lesson, but I'm with a lot of folks here on /. After being ripped off by Intuit once, why should I go back?
If Intuit had the only decent tax software out there then I (and probably many others) would go back. But Intuit did this at a time when they face rather stiff competition from TaxCut and other software. I found TaxCut just as easy to use as TurboTax, not to mention slightly cheaper. It also did my taxes right the first time -- my wife cross checked things by doing them online w/ TurboTax and we spent a couple days figuring out why they came up with different numbers.
Oh, and as it turns out, TurboTax did it wrong. And fixing it required you to start over from scratch.
Yeah, I think I'll be sticking with TaxCut for the forseeable future.