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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."
here and here
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
They're showing that companies can actually listen to their customers. Support them and maybe other companies will take notice.
Use the web version. One cost, no malware, and usable from anywhere with a browser!
$ man woman *
-bash:
To appease former customers, Intuit will be including a free Speaker Bracelet in-box with a purchase of next year's Turbo Tax. According to President Lardass of Intuit: We've got candle trucks of these things ready to go!
Intuit drops DRM feature from Turbo Tax
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
The headline is confusing to $50 - $75 percent of customers.
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.
Ok, here's what I want to know: Why is it that Intuit got such a backlash from this that they removed the protection scheme and even issued a public apology, but Microsoft gets away with the same thing and even worse yet with their Windows XP product activation? It baffles me how this kind of thing is just ignored when Microsoft does it...
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.
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
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.
Too often companies hear only negative things and don't hear from customers when they do the right thing. They boned up, apologized, and have said they won't do it next year. So why not let them know they did the right thing? At the bottom of their page with the activation numbers is a rating and comment box for how effective the solution was.
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
Just sayin', ya know...
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Why are people so afraid of 'em? You get some slips in the mail, you copy the numbers over onto the forms, do a little math, and presto, you get some money back.
You're forgetting that this is America. More than half of the shops around here would shutdown if their calculators/computers stopped working (let's ignore the inventory control here). True story told by a (calculus II) professor of mine: he and his wife went to a movie theater and was about to pay for tickets when told by the clerk it's free today. Later, he goes and buys popcorn and drinks..they were given free also. He asks why the tickets and food were free today, the clerk says "our machines are down, so we can't charge any money."
$cat
There were like 15 million TurboTax returns in 2001 - and 5.5 million copies of TurboTax sold.
/. After being ripped off by Intuit once, why should I go back?
This does not mean that there were 10 million pirated copies of TurboTax. This means that people did their own taxes and their mom's taxes and maybe their neighbor's taxes with the software they bought. I don't care what the EULA says, that is not piracy. You don't have to buy a new copy of Microsoft Office each time you write a letter.
It gets into another big argument, but the idea that companies can tell you how you are allowed to use their product after you legally purchase it is pretty flawed. The reason so many average people commit the crime of piracy so often is because the restrictions companies are trying to place on ridiculous. Why would someone think it would be illegal to do their mom's taxes with the software they bought? You don't have to buy another car if you let your friend drive it.
One of the advantages that using software has over using a CPA is that it can be used over again for the same price. Part of Intuit's problem was that what consumers saw as a big advantage in using their product, Intuit saw as a crime. In order to stop this percieved crime, Intuit took away one of the big selling points of their software.
I'm glad they eventually learned their lesson, but I'm with a lot of folks here on
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
They do not listen to customers, they listen to revenue. They put in DRM believing it would increase their revenue; as the article says, "[Intuit] predicted that revenue would increase, since customers who had previously purchased only one TurboTax program would have to buy a separate copy for each computer in the house". No part of that plan serves the customer. Similarly, the only reason they changed it is because they lost a ton of money.
It just so happened in this case that customers were able to weild enough power to hurt their revenues. Thinking that they "listened to customers" is to miss the fact that they would have continued to screw customers as long as they could have squeezed more revenue out of them by doing so. That they changed course here is not to their credit in any sense other than that they're not pathologically oblivious to the failure of their plan to screw customers.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
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.
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.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.