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FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

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Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#11

Post by Loughla »

turrican wrote: post #6
lapetitejort wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other sites are no better. This yeah I went through the whole flow on H&R Block, and only at the end did they say they couldn't file my taxes because of one 1099-NEC. However I still had to pay full price to print out my forms. Which I had to print and send myself.

I’m not going to shill too hard for a tax prep company, but I’ve used FreeTaxUSA for years and am satisfied. Cheap, simple, no hidden fees I’ve noticed.

I've used them for five or six years. They keep getting better. The name sounds super sketchy, but they're legit.

They do charge for oddball forms, but they're super up front about that. Like when you select the forms they tell you the price. I have multiple income streams and multiple weirdo tax situations (farming, day job, three consulting firms, my own consulting) and it still only takes me 30 minutes to do my taxes with them.

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#13

Post by _jal »

electrondood wrote: post #3

Intuit is guilty of using a whole range of dark UI patterns to trick people into paying for products they don't need. Last year I almost paid $80 (surprise at the END of the entire TurboTax flow) and clicked back 10 steps to realize that they showed a deceptive screen that implied that you had to select that option. Their marketing emails are particularly deceptive, and if you try to opt out of them and unsubscribe,…

It is interesting to note how ideology ends up being used as just another marketing tool in situations like this.

Resisting simplifying tax filing, to keep the tax system annoying, is seen as a way to build anti-tax political support. Among other things, that creates opportunities for barnacles like Intuit to scam people out of money like this. And once Intuit funds those pols' re-election bids, the cycle of life is complete.

Coalitions are funny things. Sometimes it is hard to tell who is suckering whom.

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#16

Post by BlackjackCF »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #8

After a surprise bill of over $100 from H&R block I've been using FreeTaxUSA and have been very happy to pay $15 for state filing. The UI is just as good as TurboTax or H&R block.

What was the surprise bill of $100 for?

My god, at that rate you might as well just hire a private accountant.

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#17

Post by [deleted] »

BlackjackCF wrote: post #16
datadrivenangel wrote: post #8

After a surprise bill of over $100 from H&R block I've been using FreeTaxUSA and have been very happy to pay $15 for state filing. The UI is just as good as TurboTax or H&R block.

What was the surprise bill of $100 for? My god, at that rate you might as well just hire a private accountant.

[deleted]

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#19

Post by madcow2011 »

somehnguy wrote: post #4

Glad to see they're facing consequences for this misleading nonsense. They got me one year where I went through the entire process only to find out at the end it cost money if I wanted to input my student loans. Due to that (and many other dark patterns noticed during the process) I will never voluntarily use an Intuit product again. FreeTaxUSA doesn't pull any nonsense & I've been happy with it every year since.

I've used FreeTaxUSA for the past two years as well, and have been very happy with it. I'll put all my info into turboTax, and let it calculate my refund, then put the same data into FreeTax and verify it's the same. It's saved me a LOT of money.

Re: FTC judge decides Intuit’s ‘free’ TurboTax ads misled consumers

#20

Post by thousand_nights »

lapetitejort wrote: post #5
electrondood wrote: post #3

Intuit is guilty of using a whole range of dark UI patterns to trick people into paying for products they don't need. Last year I almost paid $80 (surprise at the END of the entire TurboTax flow) and clicked back 10 steps to realize that they showed a deceptive screen that implied that you had to select that option. Their marketing emails are particularly deceptive, and if you try to opt out of them and unsubscribe,…

Other sites are no better. This yeah I went through the whole flow on H&R Block, and only at the end did they say they couldn't file my taxes because of one 1099-NEC. However I still had to pay full price to print out my forms. Which I had to print and send myself.

i've been seeing this pattern on so many posts on hn that criticize basically anything. i'm not trying to have a stab at you specifically btw, this is more meta

> x is bad because of this obvious reason that it is bad

> "but y and z are also bad!"

what is that supposed to be a rebuttal to? is the implication that we should.. do nothing because everything else is also shit? i don't see why turbotax in this instance shouldn't be punished. that would set a nice precedent at least

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