H&R Block Sells User's Info to Spammers?
Cior used H&R Block's online service on April 9th to do her taxes and everything went just hunky-dory, except for one, small, dangling modifer:
"Now I'm receiving an insane amount of spam from all manner of scary loan people, mortgage companies and so forth. All of the spam seems to be financially related, and all of it refers to me by my full legal name (which is a thing I have never associated with any of my dealings online with exception to my hrblock.com return). Now, I'm receiving phone calls on my cell phone, from mortgage lenders, credit card companies and scholarship "opportunity" sources.I'm receiving literally hundreds of spam messages each day.
I blame HR Block. All of the spam, all of it, started on April 9th."
The same day she used H&R Block, w~e~i~r~d.
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Comments:
You shouldn't have to click those boxes. They should have to ask you to opt in. Who wants to have their personal information sold? The rare person, I'm sure. If she is correct in her assessment, this means you pay H&R Blech to do your taxes and they reward you by seeing that people harrass the living crap out of you? Nuh-uh! Wrong. That's why my accountant is a nice, ethical guy who cut his teeth at a big firm when he was in his 20s, knows his tax shit every which way and upside down, and now works out of his house. He'd sooner run naked through the streets in a bra and panties than sell his clients' info. For all those people who think they're saving money at these firms like H&R Blech...think twice.
Whether or not it's ethical, it's pretty common for companies to pre-check the boxes they want you to check and force you to go through and uncheck them. One should always be careful when signing up for anything and make sure they don't leave anything like this checked.
And how exactly would someone run through the streets both naked and in a bra and panties, Amy? ;)
i've used their online service, too, but if i remember correctly, there's some boxes you can click so that they don't share your information with people who have offers that they think you may be interested in. she may have just overlooked it. either that, or h&r block really is just plain evil.