Warning: H&R Block 2009 Tax Rapid Refund Anticipation loan complaints

WOW!! The $300.00 is ALOT of money for a Rapid Refund. I've been doing the Rapid Refund since it 'came out' with HRBlock. My fees were NEVER that high. I'm not saying someone ELSE'S fees aren't that high, but, there obviously has to be a reason..ya know?

I can only assume it is because their filing is more complicated like extra forms for EIC, retirement, mortgage interest, mulitple W-2s or 1099s etc.

The fee does not upset me. It is high BUT If the customer is willing to pay it to get their money faster then that is their call but they are not getting the money early and they not being warned ahead of time that that could happen.

The fee to get their taxes done/filed are one thing but there are extra fees for the RAL.

This is exactly why I have not done a single one of these Bank products in over 15 years - they just cost too much and when the bank says "no" I'm the one who looks like the fool.

To straighten out the misunderstandings, the bank fee is automatically adjusted to what the taxpayer actually gets.

Let's say the bank offers the following:
Instant Refund in ten minutes - fee $200
Refund Anticipation Loan in 2 days - fee $150
Preparer's Fee deducted from refund when IRS pays Refund - fee $50

The taxpayer signs up for the Instant Refund but the bank declines and gives the Preparers Fee deduction when the IRS pays the refund. The taxpayer will not be changed the $200. The taxpayer will be charged the $50. Th4e preparer still looks like an idiot to the taxpayer even though there is nothing the preparer could do about it.

I know YEARS ago when we went in and had our taxes done we did the RAL a couple times. We had HUGE refunds then and the last one cost us $265. But again that was years ago, then the fees were based on how big of a refund you were getting.

But also I remember a few years back there was a class action lawsuit against the RAL. I forgot for what, but it ended up we overpaid in fees and we got a check from the lawsuit.

Don't pay those fees, I did my daughters taxes and she got her state in less than a week and her federal is expected sometime this week.

they did the same to me,I was denied the rapid refund due to credit check and I am stii waiting for me refund s of 12 days ago. HR BLOCK are the biggest theives and everyone should report them to the Better Buisness Bureau.

Well.......I have a friend who prepares taxes. According to her, you can get your Refund in 1-2 days OR 8-10 days. She told me she DOES do Credit Checks, for Rapid Refunds. If someone has on their credit that they are behind in Child Support, behind in IRS payments, defaulted Student Loans, etc. they will not qualify for a Rapid Refund.

Then H&R block, or any tax preparer for that matter, should tell the customer that before they pay the fees for the Rapid Refund.

You are SOOOO right..they should. However....as I've been reading the posts on this thread, I'm STILL very 'AWWED' why people are paying so much in fees??!! the last 2 years, that I have gotten a Rapid Refund, I haven't paid more than $150.00 ( give or take) in fees.....and THAT amount included the Tax Preparation.

Did you return include any extra forms for interest, EIC, retirement etc?

I'm sure that the reason they do the credit check is because if you have any of those things (back child support, student loan, back taxes, etc), you're not getting a refund--and this just protects them, which is understandable.

They are also turned down if their return includes a EIC or the rebate recovery.

I am not against them doing the check, as I had said before, but they need to tell the customer they are doing it AND that there is a possiblity they can be turned down AND if that happens the RAL fee is not refunded.

These people who say their " RAL fees" were $300 are too stupid to realize that $250 of their fees are actually for TAX PREPARATION, which they must pay, whether they get the RAL or not. If the RAL (Loan) is denied, yes, they still have to pay the $250 plus the $29,95 bank fee for having fees withheld. Loan fees are NOT charged if the client does not get a loan.

Perhaps if these people BOTHERED to READ the forms before they signed, them, maybe they would understand that TAX PREPARATION isn't FREE.

Don't blame the tax prep company if you are a moron and spend your refund before you receive it. It isn't their fault if you are being evicted or whatever your financial problem is. You should realize that if you are in dire financial straits, the lending bank has ways of finding out, and they don't want to loan you money!

I don't think these people are stupid or morons. Many of them had no problem paying the fees last year and getting the RAL.

The problem seems to have come up this year which means something had to have changed and they were not made aware of it. If they had I am certain they would have done their own taxes.

I think the ONLY reason they were willing to pay the outrageous fees is to get their money in 1 to 2 days and that is not happening this year. Many were long time customers with out bad credit but they had EIC or a recovery rebate so the banks are denying them for that reason.

This is a board to help people get out or debt. Calling them stupid or morons is not how we work around here.

Look, I agree, RAL loans are a very bad idea. What I am trying to point out is that people do not understand the breakdown of the fees they are paying.

Someone earlier in this thread seemed to think that the loan fees were $150 and the tax prep was $50. That is completely incorrect. The tax prep fees are completely separate from loan fees, and are charged based on the complexity of the tax return, NOT the size of the refund, and have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the client chooses to get a LOAN secured by their tax refund.

If these people can't review the truth-in-lending documentation they are given PRIOR to signing them, why would you think they could correctly prepare their own taxes?

Perhaps the people here are an exception, but reading that everyone is blaming the messenger(the tax prep company) for their loan denials indicates to me that they do not understand how credit functions.

People only hear half of what you tell them, and they only retain about 1/4 of it. Usually the 1/4 which makes it look like everything that happens to them is someone else's fault.

A refund loan is a service that is offered, which, believe it or not, is completely independent of tax preparation. There are hundreds of thousands, even millions of people who pay to have their taxes done every year and have the IRS direct deposit their refunds into a checking account, or who have the IRS send them a check.

Of course to do this, one must pay the tax prep fees prior to filing, which would require the customer to pay attention to what the fees actually are.

Don't blame the tax prep company if you don't educate yourself about what you are actually doing when you go in there. Seriously, I don't know what could be done to explain it any more clearly. You will have to believe me when I tell you that people just don't care.

These are mainly the people receiving $5000 refunds because they receive a huge earned income credit. So they don't care if the fees are $300, because it's all the government's money anyway.

I used to try to talk people OUT of refund loans. After a few years I realized it was pointless, and in fact if people want to waste theirs, or the government's money on something like that, it is certainly their right, as Americans, to do so.

And I still think anyone who spends their money and doesn't bother to figure out what they are spending it on, IS a moron.

I agree with you that the RALs are bad and I agree with you that in most cases the consumer does not read the fine print but just because someone is uneducated about finances does not make them a moron.

Now if you educate them. Give them all the information out there and they still do it then maybe you might have a case of stupidity but just yelling out moron at people because they don't know is wrong.

I am sure there are subjects you know nothing about. Does that give others a right to call you a moron?

Ok, so maybe I came on a little strong, throwing out the word "moron" in my first post here. It's been a long six weeks, and I deal with these people every day, calling and yelling at me because their loans are denied and they think it's somehow my fault, and I should refund their tax preparation fees.

There really isn't anything else I can do to explain it to them any more than I already do, and it just doesn't sink in. Hence the "morons" comment.

I don't understand how many more times I can say the word LOAN and still have people who don't understand the fact that a RAL is a LOAN. The paperwork has the word LOAN in four inch high colored letters on it.