I am a second year franchisee and my second year was worse than my first. My first year I was told during all the briefs before you sign up, that liberty was a great company. Lots of support for new franchisee. And you basically have an area developer to help mold you, hold your hand and tell you what you need to do or be doing to get your business moving.
I DIDN’T GET THAT. I received a brand new area developer, who knew nothing about taxes, or liberty. Basically just what he read in the manual. NO CORRECTION, not even that. I recall calling him when I first started setting up my computers, and I asked him how do I get on Zee-net (Liberty corporate website) and what’s the website I use. His response was I don’t know. Which at the time was very unsettling to me, but I told myself he’s new and I’ll give him a chance.
Next came, getting my computer set-up. Tech support at liberty was horrible. My computer did not get set-up until after the season had started. Which of course, right from the start I had to turn away business because I didn’t have the support. You call and call, and leave emails with liberty support, and it takes them two to three weeks to get a response. And when they call you back, they call you in the middle of the night or at 6 am.
Next issue was, I didn’t have checks to print tax preparer’s returns. I put that issue on zee-net as well. I didn’t get checks until the end of February. And anyone who’s been in the Tax preparer business knows, you don’t start preparing any returns for anyone, unless you have the checks to print to get people there money. Unless you want a riot in your office, because customers know exactly what day there money drops, and they want their checks that day. So of course I missed peak season my first year. Now let’s not forget that during this whole time I have office rent $1100, utilities, and staff to pay.
So I let my Ad know of all the issue I was having, his response was the lovely corporate one, increase your B to B, do more free returns. He didn’t like my response.
So of course my first year at Liberty didn’t go so well, but I didn’t want to give up so easy. I was told that Liberty would be offering 24 to 48 hour ICA loans (rapid refunds), and since liberty had their own bank, they had the jump on everyone else. So I drank the Kool-Aid and I said I’ll give it another go.
Year two, I decided to go with a Walmart kiosk, thinking that business would be much better, since Wal-Mart has a lot of traffic in there stores. Not the case. Before you get a Wal-Mart Kiosk one should ask themselves, why does Jackson Hewitt not want to be here anymore? But that another conversation.
Year Two: HORRIBLE.
TECH SUPPORT: just when you thought year I was bad, year two even worse.
Well I started the season advertising and promoting our 24 to 48 hour ICA Loans. Doing B to B, renting billboards, basically just letting everyone know what we offer at Liberty. Well everyone knows that the IRS push back the filing date, which you would think would give Liberty Tech two additional weeks to get their act together. Not the case. So I start getting customers, right away I’m having issues, bank pages won’t prints, just minor stuff, not really a big issues, until our first couple customers come in to get their approved $950 ICA refunds.
Their approved and the moneys their but the checks wont print. Ok I say no problem. I’ll just put in a support issue to tech support. It took them two weeks to call me, and they call me at 11:00 PM to tell me that there’s an issue with the software and not to do anymore ICA Loans. And that all one ones we’ve done will be converted over to regular tax refunds. My response: until when, cause I have customers who’ve been waiting for their rapid refund for days and they want their money. His repose, there are kinks in the system and don’t do any more for the rest of the year. Of course I had a lot more questions, but somehow I was disconnected with no call back.
So I break the news to my staff and the customers, and there not happy. Now once the customers refund finally come in, I notice right away that the ICA loan money has been taken out of their checks, plus fees. So it takes Liberty an additional 10 days to get each of these ICA loans that were done, there refund. So of course I know right away these customer and their friends won’t ever use my services again.
Liberty SUPPORT IS HORRIBLE. And I think they knew about all the issues they were having with their system, and just failed to tell the franchisee, so they could make their money. All I think about is how much business I turned away and lost due to liberty. AND HOW MUCH I WILL LOSE IN THE Future.
I HAVE SINCE TERMINATED MY CONTRACT WITH LIBERTY AND I AM STILL WAITING ON THE LETTER

as a customers we have a bad experience racist paperwork with wrong owner and complete paperwork with wrong #

Went and made the mistake of having my taxes done by Libert tax service in Knoxville, Tennessee. My wife and I have to file an injured spouce allocation form 8739 due to a debt on my end. We both went in asking questions, and taking the neccesary precautions to make sure we: 1 wanted to know if we qualified for a RAL, and if so how long would the bank wait for our check to come to avoid Republic bank and it's collections department to need thier money back? Note: lie number 1. He states that being we are filing that form they would "understand the circumstances". I recieved my first "Demand to pay immediately to avoid further action" today. 2: We asked "How long in your experience do the 8739 form applicants have to wait comparitively?" Note: lie number 2 "In my experience 3 weeks to a month." To make a long story short, we filed on Jan. 25th, by feb. 6th, still no word on the RAL, or acceptance of the return. I did recieve 1 phone call from him Jan 28th stating: "The irs is having issues and we are not sure what is going on. We will call you and keep you updated". Fair enough, I didn't think too much of it. A week went by and still none of the above, so I called the IRS myself and according to them his EFIN number was expired/suspended/never issued. I did recieve confirmation on feb 7th that the RAL went through, do the math, 2 weeks for a 24-48 hr window to get that loan is how he explained it. I found out it went through by calling the bank and IRS wheres my refund site that they had been recieved after it had been rejected 6 times due to the EFIN number issue. I had to call this man myself and ask when i could come pick up the loan check, his receptionist stated they had a problem with the printer and it would be an hour and a half, and she would call me. Two and a half hrs went by, no call. My wife called again because i was all ready quite agitated all ready. she not only recieved a bad attitude but was also told "I told him to come get it"!!! Rediculous! Basically calling me a liar, after all the garbage i was being fed all ready. I know the 8739 form can take up to 8-12 weeks to process, granted. But here we sit 8 weekslater with an estimated 6 more weeks to wait. The only reason I am mad at this point is the lies from not just Liberty Tax, but the unproffesional demeaner of Republic banks collections agents. I have a friend in a similar spot having to file that 8739 form that did hers on Turbotax feb. 2nd, and has confirmation her refund is being direct depoisited Mar. 14th. So people i guess the moral of my story here is this. Don't pay other people to do your taxes, the loans are not worth having smoke blown at you, and to have these prepares point fingers at everyone else. I paid this man 400 dollars to do just that to me??? If i was an idiot, all of this may have been acceptable. Unfortunately I am not, I have been in contact with the IRS, Republic bank, and liberty tax all along. Besides the man I spoke with today at Libertys corporate office, the IRS is the only information I have recieved that wasn't bogus. Please learn from my mistake people and don't waste your time or money trusting people who overcharge and lie constantly.

I think you misunderstood. If you have to file the injured spouse form you do may qualify for the RAL, but that does not mean the bank can beat the IRS. Basically, what the IS form does is take the spouse's portion of the debt back and give it to you. It is not an instant process. Ours takes about 8 weeks to get our refund due to my husband's previous debt. One thing we tried this year is filing married, separately. Don't know how it worked out yet.

Oh, and the IRS was having issues the first of the year. It was all over the news about the refund delays.

I too once owned one of their franchises and I totally agree with all your statements. The amount of miss information spouted by the Area Developers and Liberty Tax Corp is sad. I know of other owners who poured their life savings into the franchise and wound up bankrupt, losing a home, their cars and other assets because of the unscrupulous leadership from Liberty Corp. I have filed a report with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and encourage you to do so also. Maybe if more owners file complaints we can get a class action lawsuit started against Liberty Corp. and stop more people from flushing their life savings down the drain with this sham of a company.

Unfortunately, Liberty Tax Service is a scam. It sells air. I know of several franchise owners who have lost their life savings after being duped. John Hewitt from all accounts (if you look at all his trickery, gimmicks and formulas) demonstrates himself to be an egomaniac, driven by what?