Last month, Farkle Barkle wrote in about how H&R Block totally messed up Farkle’s tax return.

We have an exciting development.

See, the great thing about the world of anecdotal reporting is that the stories, quite literally write themselves. In this world, what follows constitutes breaking news.

But seriously, H&R Block really sucks and we’ve got the hearsay to prove it, after the jump…

Farklebarkle writes:

“I wrote you guys a while back about H&R Block screwing up my 2002 tax return and not caring. Thanks for posting it, btw.

After that, I sent the H&R Block lady who was supposedly handling the whole thing all the documentation via snail mail (my original preparer was MIA, and the new one originally insisted I fax her the documents at my expense). I also sent H&R Block corporate a nasty letter (having looked up their address after the H&R Block preparer wouldn’t give it to me). A week later, I got a phone call from someone at H&R Block corporate, and after much phone tag with the tax preparer, Corporate Lady called me back and said that it turned out that the state of Massachusetts actually OWED me $170.

Whoopee, right? Wrong.

Less than a week later I got another letter from the state of Massachusetts, saying that my “application for abatement” had been denied and that they would bill me for any blah blah blah. I didn’t know what that meant, so I called (sigh) the H&R Block tax preparer AGAIN. She insisted that I fax the letter to her AGAIN at my expense. Then, again, she didn’t call.

You know what I wound up doing? Calling the Massachusetts Dept. of Revenue myself, which is what I should have done in the first place. I got someone right away. Very nice people. The guy looked up my account and said “Well, from the way I interpret this, we don’t owe you anything and you don’t owe us anything.” (I love that he had to “interpret” it. WTF.)

Some days later, the H&R Block tax preparer finally called and I filled her in.

So that’s where it stands now. Do I owe? Do I not owe? Nobody’s really sure, but so far there haven’t been any more letters. We did our own damn taxes this year.

Here are the posts related to it on my blog:

http://farklebarkle.livejournal.com/242288.html

http://farklebarkle.livejournal.com/246227.html“

Previously: H&R Block Gets Man in Tax Trouble, Doesn’t Care

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