TaxMasters And Other "Tax Relief" Companies May Be Ripping Off Consumers

Meiselman, Denlea, Packman, Carton & Eberz P.C. is currently investigating a potential class action against TaxMasters, Freedom Debt Relief, JK Harris and other “tax relief” companies that mislead consumers and falsely claim they will help with tax-related debts. Many Americans owe significant debts to the IRS. Although some reputable companies properly help people dealing with the IRS, many unscrupulous companies lie to people with tax debt, take their money, and do nothing to resolve the victim’s issues with the IRS. If you were victimized by this scam, please contact us immediately.

Companies like TaxMasters convince people to pay them thousands of dollars upfront, in exchange for lowering their debt to the IRS. Then these companies simply pocket the money and do nothing to lower their victims’ tax debt, all while the interest on the tax debt increases. To make matters worse, TaxMasters and other scam artists then use illegal and harassing debt collection techniques to try to get money from victims of their scam.

A former employee of TaxMasters blew the whistle, telling reporters that the company “told sales representatives it was okay to lie to potential clients to get their business.” ABCNews has exposed TaxMaster’s history of fraud and deception:

The scam is so blatant that the Attorneys General of Texas and Minnesota have both sued TaxMasters. The company recently settled with the Minnesota Attorney general, agreeing to pay over $500,000 for its wrongdoing.

The Texas lawsuit is ongoing and Texas’ Attorney General recently announced that a full “investigation and nearly 1,000 customer complaints indicate that the defendants routinely misled customers about the nature of their tax resolution service agreements – and worse, attempted to enforce those improper agreements through unlawful debt collection tactics. The state’s enforcement action seeks to prohibit the defendants from continuing to violate the law and seeks restitution for the financially struggling taxpayers who were harmed by the defendants’ unlawful conduct.”

If you gave money to TaxMasters or another tax relief company and were then treated unfairly, you may have been a victim of fraud. Please contact us immediately to discuss your legal options.

D G.

I used to listen to talk radio during my commute to and constantly hear ads from Tax Resolution Services telling you over and over to “be a man and call them”. I had some old tax debt that I had wanted to resolve nothing too complex but they made it sound like they were the only ones that were successful in this field with a 90+% success rate. I did a little research and saw endorsements from people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity and a basic Google search showed no complaints on the first few pages so I called them and met with Brian Compton President of the company. I explained that I wanted to pay these old taxes but the interest and penalties was more than I could handle and I was hoping to negotiate those down. He told me that would be no problem and walked me to the reception area and pointed to a huge binder full of letters of appreciation from all the people they had been successful doing this for a average of $0.13 on the dollar.
I was very hopeful and wanted to proceed. He told me it would be $6,000 flat fee to take care of everything. This was all the money I had but I thought it would clear things up for good. I signed some papers and gave him a deposit of $2,000 and made the rest in monthly payments that were quite a hardship on me at the time.
Now after 3 years of sending them endless amounts of paperwork and getting the runaround when trying to speak with someone
2 months ago when I called about a lien notice from the IRS my rep at TRS informed me my case had been completed in Oct of 2010 this was all new to me and I had asked when I had agreed to this. She informed me that they set up a payment plan for me and how she worked very hard to make me un-collectable status.
The fact was I had lost my job in July of 2010 and had no income so it was this that made me un-collectable on its own and when I did get a job I would then again be collectable.
In July of 20010 I had told my agent to let the IRS know I had lost my job and was told they had been informed. But an agent at the IRS informed me they had not had contact with TRS since 2/2010 which was 5 months before I lost my job.
When I asked why I was not told they had completed my case and my intent was not to set up a payment plan which I could have done myself for free. She told me a letter informing me was sent. I asked if it was sent certified and they said they did not do that. And she offered to email a copy to me.
Now I have now job , no money and much more tax debt than ever. When I called to speak to the head of the customer relations Debbie Edwards she hung up on me after I had asked to be taken off speakerphone explaining that because of a hearing problem I could not hear what she was saying.
Ms Edwards is also the Media and in house PR person. When I did get her on the phone again and I asked her if she could show me where I saved any money at all using their services her response was “I am going to hang up on you now” then the phone went dead.
This was the person in charge of customer satisfaction. In 3 years I never spoke one time with the lawyer that I was told I had been represented by or a Licensed CPA
When I asked for the names of the lawyer and CPA that handled my case I was told “it would be hard to find out the names of everyone that had touched my account”.
As a client I had the right to know this information.
These guys are slick they use search engine tricks like press releases and blog posts to keep any negative reviews out of sight in a Google search this causes you to find link after link of fluff that they post about how great a company they are.
Would you consider this a great way to treat you if you were the client? BBB complaints are pointless with and the new “Trustlink” service is just a way to counter the legitimate complaints.
One look at the dates and the comments you can see that it is clearly done as PR too. How many accountant or lawyers do you know that have in house PR departments?
Don’t be duped like me. They are no different then any of the other snakes out there. There are many others just like me that would welcome a class action against Tax Resolution Services these people belong behind bars for ruining lives and preying on those needing help. And these high profile spokesmen should have to answer for this as well for misleading the public.
Darlene

We need help taxmasters pulled funds out of acct before we rec contract which they mailed to us using USPS to commit such a crime they never did anything but take our money.