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Consumer Help Web has long given high marks in reviews of various Intuit products, including two of their flagships: Quicken and TurboTax. Members of our staff have even participated in beta testing with the company, and the company agreed those years not to review the products.

Intuit’s once legendary customer service had fallen on hard times in recent years. Consumers complained about product activation (although in reality, Intuit had found a huge percentage of tax preparation was done with “borrowed” copies of TurboTax). Customer service and tech support also became difficult, with the company often charging customers for basic issues. But the consumer community was whispering that Intuit was changing its ways.

Those whispers proved true last week when the company announced it would provide more than $10 million in refunds to consumers after a late glitch in its TurboTax program caused taxpayers to miss the deadline. While we would be the first to criticize a company that didn’t acknowledge its responsibilities with such an important piece of software, we were delighted to see the company proactively reach out to the Internal Revenue Service and save trouble for its customers. The government agency agreed to extend the tax deadline for those customers by another two days.

“We deeply regret the frustration and anxiety this caused our customers,” said Steve Bennett, president and chief executive officer of Intuit. “This is not the experience customers have come to expect from Intuit. It’s not acceptable to us, and we will do right by our customers who were impacted by this delay.”

Those are usually words written by Marketing in a last ditch effort to save face. In this case, the company did do right and deserves praise.

Posted under Customer Service

The marketers of Seasilver, an alleged phony cure-all, have been ordered to pay almost $120 million for failing to comply with an earlier order requiring them to pay $3 million in consumer redress.

In ads for Seasilver, the promoters claimed the product, a liquid dietary supplement containing aloe vera, phyto-silver sea vegetables, herbs, cranberry concentrate, and other ingredients, was clinically proven to treat or cure 650 diseases, including cancer and AIDS, and caused rapid, substantial, and permanent weight loss without dieting. The FTC alleged that the claims were false and unsubstantiated.

In March 2004, the defendants agreed to settle the FTC’s charges. The settlement, filed in federal court, barred the defendants from making false or misleading claims in the future. It also required the defendants to pay $3 million in consumer redress and included a suspended judgment of $120 million, which would become due if the defendants misrepresented their financial status, or did not make the payments as they agreed.

To date, Seasilver, USA, Inc. and Americaloe, Inc., and their owners, Bela Berkes and Jason Berkes, have paid less than $1 million of the consumer redress they agreed to pay. Under the Court’s order, entered on June 20, 2006, the Seasilver marketers are now jointly and severally liable to pay the full amount of $119,237,000, plus interest.

The FTC has secured liens on the defendants’ assets, including a nursery, an aloe farm, and equipment. The two largest distributors of Seasilver, who were named in the FTC’s complaint and settled the charges, have made their separate court-ordered payments of $1 million and $500,000.

The hotline number for this case, 1-866-408-2536, contains more information for interested consumers.

Posted under Customer Service

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reports that more than 1.7 million taxpayers are due more than $2 billion in federal income tax refunds for 2001.

The IRS estimates that half of those who could claim refunds would receive more than $484. In some cases, individuals had taxes withheld from their wages or made payments against their taxes out of self-employed earnings but had too little income to require filing a tax return. Some taxpayers may also be eligible for the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit.

“The window is closing for 2001 refunds,” IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson said. “As soon as you send us your tax return, you’ll get your money. But if you don’t file, you won’t get anything.”

When no tax return is filed, Everson’s office states that federal law allows the money to revert to the federal government after a three year period. The agency posted a list of tax refunds due by state and has embarked upon a massive public relations campaign to reunite taxpayers with their refunds.

For additional help, consumers can also call the IRS toll-free help line at 1-800-829-1040.

Posted under Finance