Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/13/2023

  Type:Sales and Advertising Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I have had Small Business Accounting Tax and Bookkeeping (SBATB) file my tax returns for my personal and company for the past 5 years. Due to customer ********************** issues alongside an outrageous price increase which is substantially higher than other tax and accounting companies within the area, I had decided to file my 2022 taxes with an alternate service provider. My new tax service provider reviewed my returns and voiced concerns. I emailed SBATB 3/15/23 asking for clarification about a concern. ****************** replied same day with a response, 3/15/23. I sent a follow up question about another concern 3/20/23, then a follow up email requesting a response 3/23/23 and I received an out of office reply stating she would be out 3/23/23. I emailed the office and her team 3/23/23 asking for assistance but I did not receive a reply. I sent a follow up email again 3/27/23 and ****************** responded with no useful information to answer the questions about the additional concerned of how my business taxes were filed. She stated she would not respond again until after the deadline. On 4/12/23 I responded to the email stating I received a letter from the *** and forwarded the letter. I sent a follow up email 4/13/23. On 4/14/23 I received an email from one of her CPAs, ********************, stating they reviewed the letter I received from the *** and found it odd that they were making a claim that the extension SBATB filed for my business was the wrong filing as they had been filing the same form since 2017. They asked for me to sign a document to allow them to call the *** to look into the situation. On 4/15/23 I sent the signed form granting them the ability to speak to the *** on my behalf. Since 4/15/23 I have sent 4 emails and called the office trying to ask for an update. ******************** Only responded 2 times stating they are still working on it. Last communication from ******************** Was 4/26/22. I am unable to get them to see the severity of the situation and prioritize this.

  

  Business Response

  Date: 12/15/2023

  We appreciate the clients frustration on this issue, but unfortunately she is not relaying the whole situation or all the pertinent facts.
  
  We made a decision to increase the prices of our services as we had invested in education and technology to allow us the ability to better serve our clients. We understood that not all of our clients would choose to retain our services after we made this change, but we felt it was a change that we needed to make as a business. These changes were communicated to the client well before we had begun any preparation on her taxes and she asked us to make an exception for her so she could stay on under the old pricing structure. After we were unable to make an exception she chose to take her business elsewhere.
  
  It is true that she reached out with a question about a tax return that had already been filed. We provided her an answer to her question and after she sent a follow-up question we offered further clarification. However, she continued to send us questions. We wanted to make sure she received what she was looking for, but we were also in the middle of a tax deadline, which is an extremely busy time of year. Because of this and the fact that her question was about a prior year tax return we told her that after the tax deadline we would be able to circle back and provide her with any additional information she needed.
  
  In regards to the other item she noted in her complaint, she did receive a letter from the *** asking for additional information for an unrelated issue. This item was also pertaining to a prior year issue and it was something that neither we nor the client had ever been made aware of and we told her that we would contact the *** and figure out what the issue was. She asked for a timeframe on how long it would take to get a resolution and we told her that because the *** phone lines were extremely backed up we could not provide her a good timeline. We asked her to remain patient and apologized for not being able to provide a good timeframe as the *** phone lines are not something that we have any control over. She reached out to us and said she was afraid that we would not let her know when we spoke to the ***. We tried to reassure her that we had not forgotten about her and that the phones were just backed up and that once we had an answer we would let her know. Unfortunately, this was not good enough for her and she continued to call and email for updates. We told her we were trying to work on getting it resolved, but she wanted an answer ASAP and we once again asked her to be patient and said that we would contact her when we had an answer.
  
   We were eventually able to figure out what needed to be done to get the issue resolved and it was communicated to her on 5/17/23. She said that she has not heard from our office since 4/26/22 (we think she really means 4/26/23), but again this is not accurate. The client asked for an in-person meeting to discuss what needed to happen and we told her that at the time we were unable to accommodate that, but we would be happy to have a phone call to further discuss the findings. The client eventually agreed and we had a phone call on 5/23/23.  During the call the client said that she wanted to take care of sending everything to the *** herself. As she was no longer a client we provided her the items that she needed to get the issue resolved and we have had no further contact with the client.
  
  Hopefully, this helps clarify the entire sequence of events. If you have any other questions or need additional information, please let us know.
  
  Thanks,
  
  *****