I hate Intuit, the makers of Quickbooks and Quicken software. The reason is simple: Instead of relying on value to sell their products, they use trickery, deceit, and strongarm tactics.
Any accounting professional who uses Quickbooks in their work knows what I’m going to say without even saying it. Each year, Quickbooks comes out with a new product. This year’s edition is cleverly named “Quickbooks 2009.”
But it’s not really one product each year. It’s three. Yes, there are three different versions of the yearly software, Simple ($99), Pro ($119), and Premier ($399).
And in order for two users (such as a client and an accountant) to be able to share their bookkeeping file, they must be using the exact same version. If your client has Simple, and you open their file using Pro, the client won’t be able to access that file with Simple anymore. Unless of course one is using Premier… then the file will still work if the other user has Pro or Simple.
But you get the picture. You must use the same “year” of software, and also the same version unless you get the really expensive version. And of course, the fees I quoted above are only for a “one user” license. If multiple people in your office need to access the file, you’ll have to buy more licenses.
My hate for Intuit and Quickbooks goes deeper, though. This “version” scam is bad enough. But it’s gotten worse. Each year the software becomes more and more filled with advertising. You can hardly enter a set of transactions without at least one advertisement disrupting things.
“Need to email invoices? Buy this!”
“Need more check printing supplies? We have the answer!”
“Ever thoughttt of doing XYZ? Pay us to help!”
I’m sure the nice Intuit people would tell you they’re just trying to help with useful suggestions. We all know they’re trying to make a buck and disrupting work in the software which has been paid for. (Hint: Annoying constant advertising is most often reserved for “free” software.)
But it gets better. I recently purchased Quickbooks 2009, and in order to get the lowest price for it, I was required to accept a “free month” of their technical support service. Take that “free” service out of the cart, and the price of the sofware jumped.
About a week after my purchase, I got a welcome kit in the mail. Thanks so much for trying our technical support, blather blather.
I immediately went about canceling the service, as the teeny tiny lettering indicated that my credit card would automatically be billed monthly for the service unless I canceled. Finding out how to cancel wasn’t easy. It involved sending a note to customer service asking to cancel, using a particular form on the website.
I did this twice. Yes, I sent two notes to cancel, so that I could be sure that my unwanted subscription was truly canceled.
And guess what? My credit card was just charged for the service. Oopsie! We never received your request to cancel!
I always find it interesting that the purchases of software and services never seem to get lost. But the cancellations… those always magically get lost in cyberspace.
So now I will spend time this morning calling customer service in India. Going through several automated and aggravating menus. Verifying all sorts of numbers. Being transferred several times. Quickbooks will not make this easy for me. I should have paid the higher price for the software and refused to deal with this.
Lesson learned. Intuit sucks. Quickbooks sucks. How about relying on the quality and desirability of the product to sell it, instead of trickery and deceit? I realize there aren’t many options for accounting software anymore. Believe me, if I didn’t have to use Quickbooks, I wouldn’t. I hate you, Intuit and Quickbooks.
Here here! I also like of course how Quickbooks allows you to do things that are not Kosher in any sort of accounting, allowing neophytes to royally mess up their books.
Tracy,
I am an Intuit employee in the Accounting Professionals Division, and want to help solve your problem with getting your refund credited correctly to your account. I sincerely apologize for the headaches that we have caused you with your order of QuickBooks 2009. I will work with our Customer Service team to get this issue resolved promptly.
To meet the needs of accounting professionals who have clients on different versions of QuickBooks, we have the QuickBooks Premier Accountant Edition, designed specifically for accountants and auditors who serve multiple clients. The Accountant Edition serves as an “umbrella” master version that works with all client versions, including Simple Start, Pro, Premier and all the industry-specific versions of QuickBooks, but it keeps the clients’ file in its “native” format so that the clients can continue to use whatever version they wish.
Many of our accounting professional customers choose to join the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program, which includes the QuickBooks Premier Accountant Edition and the QuickBooks Enterprise Solution Accountant Edition, as well as unlimited technical support from a U.S.-based team dedicated to serving accountants.
I would really like to help with problems you raised in your blog. What can I do to make things right for you?
Regards,
Rich Walker, CPA
Intuit Inc.
You want to help? Tell us how to turn off the flags in your software which start throwing errors when you support expires. My bank didn’t change their software, so why does my reconciliation function stop? Con Artists, going to try Peatchtree next year. That will fix it. . . maybe.
Tracy – are you aware of the damage your company does to small businesses – I have had a horrible service from Intuit or Quickbooks in the UK. They offered a deal which I took them up on they invoiced me twice and failed to respond to emails. I am now taking the time and trouble to transfer all my data over to another platform. They just want to steal your money out of your account and ignore requests for credit. A horrible company
I HATE INTUIT ! They are the most disgusting company and under pay their employees.
Tracy, the issues you’re raising are NOT indicative of anything I’ve ever experienced in my 10 years of working with Intuit and their products. I’ve used QuickBooks, QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, and Lacerte Tax, and have found Intuit to consistently offer great products at a fair price.
lol this guy obviously getting his dick sucked by intuit
Hi Tracy,
I also work at Intuit in the Accounting Professionals Division, and before I came to Intuit in 2004, was a practicing accountant using QuickBooks to do the books for approx 170 clients. We used Accountant Edition, for all the reasons that Rich has outlined above – we didn’t have to have every version on our computers anymore, and we could send back the files to the clients in “their” version. So it was great for our needs.
But in those days, you DID have to on the same year as your client…. accountants didn’t like that, because not everyone upgrades each year.
So the Product Management team here created 2 options:
1) Accountant Edition 2008 and 2009 now support “backwards compatibility” – this means that if your client is on 2007 and you are on 2008, they can send you the Accountants Copy file, and you can open it up in 2008 and work on it, then send it back as a 2007 file. Same for 2009 (your client can send you a 2008 or 2009 Accountants Copy file, and you can work on it in your 2009 version, but still send it back in their year.) So that is a start, anyways. And you don’t ever “change or upgrade” their version – it stays the same as what the client is using.
2) Remote Access – we have the ability now in QuickBooks Premier Accountant, for you to use Webex from within the product, and “remote in” to your client’s computer! This allows you to work on THEIR SOFTWARE, completely solving the issue of versions and years entirely.
I hope this additional information is helpful? Bottom line – We are trying to make accountants aware of all the things we are doing to facilitate great relationships between them and their customers, but we haven’t been able to let everyone know!
Also – if there is anything I can help with in the future, please let me know!
best regards,
Alison Ball
Accountant Training, Intuit
Quickbooks 2009 is the absolute worst. I have used Quickbooks for years with no problems. I was forced to upgrade to 2009 and I have had nothing but trouble. I have had five separate calls to tech support to have issue resolved , after four or five wasted hours issue is resolved. Next day issue of error -6000 -301 is back again. This will not let you back up and all data is lost. What a joke this version is.
When you take care of her, would you help me, please.
Why is the registration service not open today? The phone message says open Mon-Sun …until 6pmPacificTime. I need to work on my books this weekend. All Intuit offices say they are closed today, Sat. May 2, 2009. Is it a holiday I haven’t heard of?
I started with QB 97, it was fairly good and hardly ever crashed. Then I upgraded to 2005. Much bigger and slower loading. Crashed a few times, the last time it corrupted my company file. Unfortunately I hadn’t been making backups as often as I should have. The QB tech recommended I upgrade to 2008 and use the convert older file feature. No luck. Now I’m running QB 08. It has to be one of the most bloated programs out there. It takes fully as long as XP to load on my PC (which isn’t exactly a cutting edge PC). Also, it seems to crash much more often, and I never have been able to get the multi-user networked part working. And believe me, I’ve tried everything in the books and then some. Definately would not recommend QB anymore. They (and their software) have gotten too big for their own good.
What about free GNU Cash?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuCash
–>
GnuCash is a free accounting software program which implements a double-entry bookkeeping system. It was initially aimed at developing capabilities similar to Intuit, Inc.’s Quicken application, but also has features for small business accounting. Recent development has been focused on adapting to modern desktop support-library requirements.
[…]
<–
Actual web site: http://www.gnucash.org/
I looked into that, but research said that it was more like Quickne, which isn’t robust enough for the business stuff I need to do.
🙁
I wholeheartedly agree with Tracy’s original blog post. Intuit should be ashamed of the way they run their company. If my company did that, we’d be out of business. Everything in that post is 100% accurate. I hate Intuit!!!!!
If there was an alternative (and if enough of us disgruntled Quickbooks users continue to be heard there will be) I would switch in a moments notice.
Shame on you Intuit. Scam artists…
I’m sorry that you had trouble canceling the support, but I’m glad to hear that the issue has been resolved.
I wanted to clarify a misconception in your post. You CAN use a data file between Simple Start, QuickBooks Pro and Premier from the same year. Those 3 share the same database. So, if the client has Simple Start 2009 and someone opens/uses the file in QuickBooks Pro or Premier 2009, the file CAN still be used in Simple Start 2009.
Michelle – That’s not true for 2008 versions and prior though, right?
I’ve found that the best way to handle erroneous credit card charges is with the credit card company rather than with the retailer. If you call the credit card company and let them know of the erroneous charge, they will reverse it. This means that the money is taken from the retailer’s account and placed back into yours. The burden of proof is then on the retailer to show that it’s NOT an erroneous charge. Since they won’t be able to do this, the issue is solved.
We have used QB since 2003 and find everything that Tracy has posted to be true. As a user, you are locked into worthless upgrades if you want to process payroll or use online banking. The 2009 version has no significant upgrades from 2006…just a bunch more advertising messages. I truly wish someone would come along and give QB some competition.
I realize that i am bit out of sync in my Intuit hate ’em issue but i noticed that Intuit people check this and maybe – just maybe i can get to right person…preferably a local one who has a brain (i’m in Mtn View so it shouldn’t be a stretch)
My file of QB 2008 has been in the service support loop for two weeks now. Today i was called a liar and then had my file destroyed before my eyes. When i asked the guy to fix what he just did he said it wasn’t his problem and he’d ask around as to how to fix it – this is a third level tech. I’m heading into a PricewaterHouse audit on monday the 22nd with no quickbooks…no wonder i’m barfing!
Their support is horrendous – worse i had to pay to be treated like that. grrrr my first thought was camp out at the CEO office but i may have to be re-entering data instead. or maybe i can do that in his waiting area…
It is a poor product, but people use it because it it cheap. Business owners think they can buy this and hire someone for five dollars an hour to do their bookkeeping(people who know nothing about accounting). Then they bring that heaping pile of dung in at the end of the year to their CPA and say ” you shoudn’t have to do much to this, its already all entered. I could wire someone’s home too, but that doesnt mean that it would be done properly. It is excellent for people who want to defraud their employers, because you can write a check, print it out, then go back in afterwards and change the payee name. It always creates about three retained earnings accounts on its own each year also, that mean nothing.
It’s funny because it’s true. Thanks for reminding me how much I hate this software and why I stopped recommending it to clients.
Recently My Computer crashed and I needed to re-install quickbooks Pro 2006 I do not have any reason to upgrade, now I had to re-register the product over the phone, well after spending 1 hour talking to India, I have been told that I could not register my product that I bought in 2007 and I have to upgrade for $399.00. Luckily I was able to save my Data. They are treating the consumer like cows Just milk. Go ahead intuit milk these suckers whenever you want.
Used QB for 10 years. Recently I had to call in to reinstall my program. They talked me into renewing my payroll. Fine, I did, updated & next time I went to use my computer my payments were not showing in my undeposited funds. I have 2 companies so I tried the other which doesn’t use payroll & it worked fine. I called tech support, they wanted to tell me I was doing something incorrectly & charge me for the answer to the problem. I said no thanks, I will work around it. Not to mention the guys accent was so strong I could barely understand him. After further investigation I found a change in my preferences. I never looked there because I KNEW I hadn’t changed any settings. So I went to the other work computer with QB still on it & looked at it’s setting. It had also been changed. I hadn’t use QB on the computer for over a month. So mysteriously, the company name registered on the software has a settings change out of the blue. I some how “forgot” I made this change twice. Also, I am the only one in the office that uses a computer. The tech person seemed very smug in his response it was NOT the download. Wonder how much money a download that changes something in your settings would generate for tech support?
After all the update purchases over the year & this episode I have a very luke warm opinion of QB. Not to mention automatic updates is turned off.
Quickbooks and Intuit sucks, PERIOD. This fact hasn’t changed just because an Intuit employee was sucking up on this blog after someone complained…the fact still remains Quickbooks is the worst software package I have ever used. I am an engineer that writes PC applications as well as uses on average atleast 10 different software packages from as many manufacturers every day. Navigation and data entry is horrible and extremely inefficient, which is what the program is used for 99% of the time.
If I am looking at an open PO, shouldn’t I just be able to right click or click a button on the PO to receive those items rather than having to go up to the transactions button, select receive items, then re-find that SAME PO again, the one I was just looking at!!!! Everything is done that way…extremely inefficient and confusing.
Why does it take 5 minutes for Quickbooks pro to load even on a fast machine like I have (probably have to load all those advertisements). It takes 8 seconds for QB to recognize a wrong password was entered…why so long. Even when not using Quickbooks there are still Quickbook services ( one is QB updates) running in the background taking up CPU and memory resources as well as connecting to Intuit over the internet without users aware of this thus further slowing down people’s computers even then they are not using Quickbooks. No way to shut those services down in the QB software so have to manually shut them off. I had to block QB from accessing the internet with my firewall program.
I hate this program and am actively searching for an alternative or may write my own. That must be why Intuit has an SDK program so people can write their own software to make up for the huge inadequacies of this program. For you accountants who like this program, you clearly are not doing data entry for day to day transactions that small businesses actually have to perform. My business is manufacturing of engineered products, not struggling through a horribly written bookkeeping program.
Shawn – I can’t argue with anything you’ve said. The fact is that I’ve been using QB long enough that I know some little tricks to get around the limitations of the software. The more time passes, the more Intuit does things to “dummy proof” the software, the worse it is.
I recently started using QBOnline with a client, and it was a complete nightmare. Talk about inefficient and time consuming. Not worth the $35 a month… in fact, not even worth it if it was FREE.
I use QB for the lack of an alternative that works for me. But I’d love to build my own package too. There has got to be something better.
I was just forced to upgrade my 2006 quickbooks so I could download credit card information into it. Because 2006 lossed support and can’t “validate” the credit card report you download. What a bunch of crap!
I was stupid and bought the 2009 I should have bought peachtree or something else. To make matters worse you have the “registration process” which basically is a way for them to bleed you for more money by asking a bunch of questions and hard selling you into buying extra products you don’t need. I could hardly understand the lady I was speaking to and she got mad at me. (I am sure it was because I didn’t buy all the extras)
BTW you can easily find out your payroll taxes here.
http://www.payroll-taxes.com/calculators.htm
I can believe I spelled lost like that. lol
for all you people that are in disgust at how INTUIT keeps ripping off its customers for worthless upgrades and having to pay for customer service. do yourself a favor. download the bittorrent version of the software, you dont have to throw your money away using crappy software and bad customer service!!!!
Have used the Q-Book products since 1996. Was forced to buy payroll function at around $ 50 pr year. Now it is up to almost $ 400.00 pr year. Intuit is robbing their customers blind with their marketing system. I also was tricked in to the monthly technical support at $29.00 with first month so called free. How can it be free if you pay $29.00 per month since you will not get the so called FREE month unless you agree to pay the monthly fee? This is my last year using the Q-Book products. I refuse to be robbed and tricked for coming years. Q-Book have market them self out of valuable market shares. They are using nothing short of Mafia tactics. In addition they are spying on your computer data and collecting valuable information unknown to you, the user, without declaring or informing you. Their sales force is paid by commission and will do anything to trick you and decieve you in to buying products and services. Wonder what percentage of customers are scammed with the technical support scam? Then, since they know, a percentage of the scammed customers will call to complain and try to cancel the non authorized purchase they have established a “call center” in India to handle the complaint where you have to talk to some one barely speaking english. I am sure the labor cost to handle the percentage of callers is far less than the profit they make on the original scam for those customers who do not realize the scam or did not notice the charges on their cc statements! Intuit, the Corporation and Q-Books are scam artists and should be hit with a Class Action Law-Suit! If there is interest and you want to get it started, please send me a note! Thanks for listening.
Lars,
Count me in on that Class Action Law Suit!
Please please please count me in on the classaction suit. I was just reseraching parties who have been secretly billed for services they trialed and cancelled but were continually billed. It has been over 2 years in my case a and cost me over $1,300 for NOTHING!!!!!
This is the biggest scam company in the world!!!
Today I received an email from Intuit telling me that they have acquired an online payroll service I use called Paycycle. As a user of Paycycle and a former user of Intuit software, I’d like to post my feedback letter to Paycycle; sent to them today.
Hello, Paycycle.
I really, really like your service. I have found it extremely easy to use and when I needed help the ease of contact and efficiency and demeanor of the staff were a dream. I have recommended you to countless friends.
Now that you are being acquired by Intuit, I’m concerned. My experience with their software is that it is needlessly complicated, not user-friendly and doesn’t INTUIT the kinds of things I need to do. Today I clicked the link in the notification email they sent me to try to send this directly to them. After ten frustrating minutes I still had not been able to make contact. The “feedback” links are broken; the customer support links force you to choose an Intuit software (which I don’t use) in order to submit a request for support, and there is no other contact method available. Typical of Intuit.
What a contrast to come to your Paycycle site, click the contact link on the bottom of the home page and immediately get easy to use choices of contact, like the email form I am using right now. So, please send this email to your new overlords at Intuit. Tell them I am concerned. I want Paycycle to stay the same. If anything, Intuit should learn from a company that’s doing it right, not impose its own flawed methods on Paycycle.
I am beginning research on other payroll services NOW, so that the minute Paycycle becomes Intuit-like, I will be able to change immediately.
Thank you for your previous FANTASTIC service. It is greatly appreciated. If the creators of Paycycle come up with something else, let me know.
Frances Limoncelli
If you hate Intuit like I do, or if you love Paycycle, speak out!
We were running 2005 QuikBooks Pro ContractorsEd and had rapped up 2008 taxes, all we needed to do was burn the file to a disk and drop it off with our accountant, just before we were about to burn it to disk a little window popped up requesting to download updates from QB…. Well we did, and low and behold it said 2005 was no longer supported,…..But it doesn’t stop there…. our 2008 data files were gone….. We called INTUIT, stayed on the phone for ever, so tech support could say we needed 2009 QB for $499 … We asked were our files were, he said he didn’t know, but with the new version they would be fine and would have our files back… the 2008 records were parsed or broken up and renamed… I tried “system restore” to early version, undelete programs, it all pointed to the QB updated and the same time the down load of the update from QB, at that time all the saved data was renamed and broken into multiple files with random registry entries pointing to multiple files… all the short cuts even pointed to broken renamed registry entries…INTIUIT you can keep your big dumb ass company, overpaid pr*cks and cr*p headed techs, and piece of sh*t programs… But leave our f*cking DATA ON OUR COMPUTERS ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I do hope business like this results another failed company mainly INTUIT and all companies connected to them… Greed and control has lead some great companies and countries to where we are today…The governments protects companies that keep them stuffed too the gills with cash stolen from their clients, then the governments try to bail out those companies with $ stolen from their citizens, what a great system.. We’re the clients, the tax payers, the mules…… Go hire an accountant, it’s cheaper and easier than buying another copy of QB, also try some other great software, PEACHTREE is a good one. LET THIER SYSTEMS FAIL… Email, Post, and Don’t Buy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve worked with QuickBooks since the turn of 2000. For the most part, it does what it needs to do: handle book work. When we tried to upgrade to 2009 a while back though, we ran into plenty of trouble. The file wouldn’t update, and tech support claimed we would need to have our datafile shipped off to be repaired for several hundred dollars.
After some careful google searches, I corrected the problem myself in about fifteen minutes (as it turns out, I needed to delete and re-enter certain damaged transactions, and run a rebuild utility.) Of course, Intuit tech support didn’t bother mentioning anything about this, they were quick to try and get us to send our data so they could charge us.
My second beef comes from the QuickBooks SDK. While I should give some kudos for a cross language API, I’ve found it to be a very sloppy, very ugly in design. There is an massive reliance on aggregate objects, which results in method calls literally 100+ characters in length. Don’t get me wrong, I like OOP, but that’s just obnoxious. Simple actions, such as modifying a customer, require query calls, which each have a large set of calls required to make the query, and then you have to mine the reply message set… very nasty to work with. Honestly, it feels more like Intuit exposed low level calls and decided to let the user make their own API: Which is exactly what I’ve had to do, make an entire sub-API to wrap the QuickBooks API. The calls are nasty, the structure is nasty, the whole system is nasty.
Does it really amaze anyone htat their sole concern is….for them and their shareholders? These are awesome comments, thank you for keeping alive their work in progress.
[…] few months ago, I posted a rant here about my hate for everything Quickbooks and Intuit. The problem is, however, that a lot of people use it (so that means I have to use it in many of my […]
I just “fell” for the same scam. I agree with Tracy wholeheartedly. One computer has QB2008 pro and I just bought 2009 through a Office Depot promo thinking I could finally do payroll at my own desk until finding out that once my data server was upgraded that the 2008 version would no longer work. Chatted with sales at Intuit and said I could only upgrade to 2010 for $199(they don’t offer 2009 anymore even though they shipped it directly to me last Monday..go figure. That means for both of my computers I’d have to spend almost $400 plus the $79 I just spent for the 2009 version. E-bay sell 2009 for $80 including free shipping. It’s all a bunch of crap ….holding small businesses hostage for software upgrades and features not needed by most. And the payroll subscription service is just another way of holding customers hostage….I agree Intuit and Quickbooks sucks and I’m seriously thinking of looking for another accounting program. Most unhappy!
I just want to end my trial with Intuit WebServices and there’s no way where taht can be done!
It’s really a fantastic way of making profit with the credit card number of anyone. Intui should take care of this abuse, as police in the States and where this company has offices. It’s an ultraje!
they will reverse it. This means that the money is taken from the retailer’s account and placed back into yours. The burden of proof is then on the retailer to show that it’s NOT an erroneous charge. Since they won’t be able to do this, the issue is solved.
Thank you for your previous FANTASTIC service. It is greatly appreciated. If the creators of Paycycle come up with something else, let me know.
I have the Quickbooks 2009…had to call customer service to get the software registered…was on the call for 1 hour and 31 minutes…over an hour on hold because I refuse to give a credit card number for the so called service plan…I asked the non English speaking rep to transfer me to a supervisor…she refused…out right refused…thank god there are other programs out there that do what Quickbooks does…you are completely correct….Intuit SUCKS…
Guess what…Paycyle is now bought by Intuit and now the service sucks. They made me redo all the direct deposit forms at the last minute when I went to do my payroll. They never sent anything in the mail stating why this had to be redone since I had direct deposit for Federal and my Payroll since 2005.
Then they asked me to fax it and would not accept email. Their fax line has been busy since yesterday and I can’t get the fax in…they tell me to “keep trying” what a disaster.
And once they get the fax for the same paperwork I sent years ago they will “reactivate” my direct depost after 48 hours. I smell a rat here…they obviously slipped something into the fine print now that Intuit owns it so they can jack up our fees later…its time to find another payroll company before the monopoly that is Intuit traps you in.
Just a few comments…I am an accountant and have to agree with all the comments posted. Intuit recently purchased Mint.com (in addition to Paycycle) because they more than likely saw the writing on the wall and in an effort to stay “big” will find a way to charge the end –user for those services. In regards to the recent problems regarding the updates and QB 2009, be sure to stop by my blog (http://www.bricodaily.blogspot.com/) for the latest regarding the continuing problems with the R9 update. Intuit recently released the R10 update, but that still has not resolved all the problems thus an R11 update is on the way.
Their (Intuit) business model is getting a bit old and they are moving toward an online accounting solution like QB Online Edition (thus buying Mint) for all of their service offerings. What most small business owners do not realize is there are quite a few solutions already out there and they should switch to those asap. Right now there is Netsuite, Accountants World’s Accounting Relief, Working Point and others. These solutions allow small business owners to work from anywhere (even on their smartphones) and have anytime access to their data.
My main reason for not liking Intuit is their deceptive marketing practices. Intuit plays both sides against the middle. On one end they sell to the small business owner telling them that their software is so easy that they don’t need an accountant. Then they turn around and come to us accountants and tell us that we should sign up for their Pro Advisor program so that once the small business owner screws up their books we can come in and be the savior all the while Intuit is getting money from both the small business owner and accountants. Sorry Intuit I’m not buying it. I can use your software just fine without purchasing your Pro Advisor membership and still service my clients with the highest level of professionalism and expertise. Just today in my inbox I get an e-mail from Intuit Pro Line (their new name) for a new Certified Intuit Pro Line Lacerte/Pro Series (their tax software for accountants) user training (intro cost $199/$249 after intro). This is just another way for Intuit to take money from accountants because I am sure accountants have been using their software just fine without being certified for years now. I could go on and on (esp. about how cloud accounting solutions are cheaper to implement than boxed software) but I digress.
Reporting the newest on me continuing being a victim of Intuits fraud. At this time it is the end of the year and i am finishing up my payroll for 2009. As we all know the system they have is designed to either trick you, force you or in any way possible make you feel that if you dont pay for another year of so called Pay Roll service and or purchase a new version of QB, the WORLD WILL END. As of now they have my CC number and after a few hours trying to delete it, change it, remove it or in any way make the CC number not useable to prevent them to do more charges I realize they got me!!!!! When you enter your customer data files information they have on file you can see your CC number but it is impossible to change it, delete it, remove it or make it in any way unusable. So what do I do now? I have not authorized them or asked them to make any other charges to my CC than last year BS charges whish was April 2009. In a few weeks time they will charge me for another year of products that I do not want or need. One option is to cancel my CC and ask for a new card number. Another is to wait until the charge shows up then dispute it. My point is that I dont want to deal with it or do I have the time to deal with it or should I have to deal with it. Since I paid for the last year of PR service I am entitled to use what I paid for however if I cancel the service (to be able to remove the CC #) then they make the product unusable. Please all you out there who are using the Intuit products NEVER NEVER allow them to UPDATE YOUR PROGRAM even the tax tables or forms. As soon as you do they plant the BOMB in your system and when the new year rolls around your Intuit will stop functioning. I know every time you use the PR function they ask you to UPDATE your PR files it is hard to not do it cause you feel you paid for it. The problem is that you will not get any updates but rather allow them to steal data, plant BOMBS and or make your QB not working. I am leaving QB after 15 years and will go to other programs. I will get back to you and let you know what program I have decided on fopr future use. Thanks for listening and for you who still wants to use the QB bend over and then good luck to you.
Lars
very annoyed, purchased an upgrade to QB 2009 in September, purchased a new laptop last month which runs on Windows 7. Ran into a couple of problems (not to be unexpected, a new version of QB – a new OS), called for help, QB teck told me there is and will be no support for QB2009 in Windows 7. For support in windows 7 my 3 month old version would have to be upgraded to QB2010 !! My first version of QB was in 1997, and I used Intuit before that. I think its a great program, and you can’t beat the price, but they are really starting to bleed us dry. Now that Microsoft money is gone, they’re going crazy.
We are a small business using Quickbooks Intuit Payroll services. This week we discovered our office manager was able to steal over $20,000 since April 2008 by manipulating payroll. We hired her husband and when she set up his payroll, she set him up as hourly instead of salary. Every week she would increase the number of hours he supposedly worked – at the end it was over 90 hours in one week! Why isn’t there a trigger for these obviously bogus hours? (Of course we all know you should have your own protections against this, a second employee doing the work sometimes – but we only have one office person – etc,) We’re going to an outside PAYROLL SERVICE to ensure this cannot happen again! And we’re going to see if Intuit promises fraud protection!
I have just purchased http://www.ihateintuit.com and am ready to build a site anti Intuit. This morning i am being told i have to pay at least $79 for assistance with an error code 3371 status code 11118 that I’ve never seen. I’ve had 2010, because of Windows 7, since i bought the computer in November of 2009. never had a problem since the original installation, never called support for anything since then, now all-of-a-sudden the error and they want to charge me $79?! They’re out of their minds! I call BS!!!
I hate Intuit because they charge too much to efile state tax returns in Turbotax. If a bank can make money filing an ATM transaction at $1.50, then Intuit should only need five bucks for a state tax return, especially since they already charged me for the software. Instead they want twenty bucks – that’s exhorbitant, and it’s costing our state governments extra work dealing with paper returns.
Wow, people are still commenting on this post. Wonder why? I have to work with qb in a production environment. The company isn’t too big (about 30 employees) with about six people using quickbooks. Let me just say the word “nightmare” hardly begins to describe my experience with qb. Crashes, lock outs, updates that break things, weirdness that defines description and on and on. Doing development work that integrates qb is even worse. I’m sure the intuit people would point to the vast numbers of people using qb as a defense of product quality, but what choice do they have? Once you get into qb it is almost impossible to get out again. And yeah, I came across your post looking for an answer to a qb problem that no one sees to know how to solve. Last upgrade I spent days fixing problems. I told the owner he should send intuit a bill for part of may salary. I would NEVER recommend their product to anyone…for any reason.
VERY BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE. PERIOD.
I PURCHASED A CHECK SCANNING MACHINE FROM INTUIT IN DEC. 09.
INTUIT DEBITED MY BANK ACCOUT FOR THE PRICE.
IN FEW DAYS, I RETURNED IT.
SINCE THEN, DEC. 09, I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR REFUND, NO LUCK.
THEY DON’T REPLY MY EMAILS.
I HAVE FINALLY FILED A COMPLAINT TO FTC, IN WASHINGTON D.C. TO CHECK THEM OUT.
I agree 100% with all the negatives about Quickbooks, now I am being forced to pay to upgrade when I don’t need to.
Sorry Quickbooks and Intuit but I am going back to my old methods of accounting procedures. You won’t miss my business and I won’t miss your strongarm tactics om May 31st 2010 Unless the email you just sent was an April Fool’s Joke.
WHY I HATE INTUIT: Please add me to the “Quickbooks sucks” list. THEY SUCK. I’ve been using QuickBooks since ’96. The so-called “small business” bookkeeping software. I cannot even handle my very very small business. Yes, I have a multi-thousand dollars coporation! Anyway, a few years ago I was having lots of problems with QB. After many many many calls to support I was told that my data file was too big and that the only way to solve that problem was to upgrade to Enterprise Solutions to the tune of $3,000. Unforunately, I bought their mantra hook, line and sinker. After using it (and after converting the datafile)I kept on experiencing the same problems and then talked to somebody different in support who told me that Enterprise Solutions would have NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on the pronblems I was experiencing supposedly related to a data file that was too large. Oh, great. Then come to find out that support is something like $800 a year. AND now that I have a new Windows 7 computer Enterprise Solutions IS NOT COMPATIBALE with Windows 7 and, golly, gosh, they had a “deal” for me. It would only cost $2,500 to upgrade to Enterprise Soltuions 9.0. What a deal! They can suck eggs.
I have been using QB since 1996. It USED to be a good product…..now, they want to nickel and dime you for everything. I’m sure the professional accountants are happy because it’s almost necessary for them to have all the bells and whistles but us small businesses just need the same feature-rich product it used to be. I am certainly looking to find a product where I can import my QBW/QBB files and run from Intuit. When they say IN-TO-IT….they mean into your pockets….over and over.
If anybody uses ZoneAlarm you would be surprised how often QB tries to “phone home” through the back door.
I agree 100% INTUIT and Quick Books are rip-off scam artists.
There technical support stinks, their telephone wait time is far too long.
I do not need to to or want to upgrade but I am forced to if I wish to keep
my billing system using Quick Books and I am locked out of my system.
We will just revert back to our old accounting methods and billing system
Quick Books can shove it where the sun don’t shine.
Harry Cunningham
I hate Intuit too! I was forced to upgrade to new versions of QB year after year, just to download my credit card charges. Nothing new to the software at all! If you add TurboTax to the picture, it’s even worse. Now I upgraded to QB 2010, but need to file tax with an old version TurboTax Business and it does not work! There is no way to convert my 2010 company file to an old version. Intuit just creates numerous impossibles and problems for their customers, with no other purposes but to get more money from them. This process never ends…..
I’ve been using QB for years and I only have one question. Why the hell does it take so long to open? At this point I’m running QB Pro 2008 on a brand new Intel Quad core Xeon 3520 with 6GB of DDR3 1333 Mhz RAM and a 10,000 PRM hard drive under Win 7 64 Bit. The program still takes more than 3 minutes to open.
If I watch the resources everything just sits at 0% or close to it the entire time. Until the very last second then there’s a spike on 1 core to about 60% and a blip on the network to about 30%.
What the hell is the program doing the rest of the time I’m waiting?
If there were a cost efective alternative I’d have switched years ago.
I love this blog. In-between trying to get QB 2008 Pro to work on my new Win 7 machine (it doesn’t- tried run as administrator, run in compatibility mode, etc etc ) the posts of your horror stories cheered me up a little. It’s not just ME!
On top of the incompatible versions and seemingly endless upgrades (extortions), just facing the UI and trying to get anything done is worse than getting a root canal for me.
I taught myself how to run the audio editing program ProTools and figured out how to build computers from parts, started my own investigative agency which is now a successful business— but the labyrinthine maze of this ironically-named “Quick” books makes me want to give up my business and go back to being an employee. Well, almost.
Thank you-all for sharing your tales of the Stepford Horror that is this awful software.
OH and the Intuit Corporate apologists on here= just priceless!
Intuit was nice enough to hold my parents financial records hostage in an attempt to force them to upgrade to the newer version, despite them not needing any of the new “features.” In my opinion, it was nothing short of extortion. In a nutshell, my parents downloaded the updated forms package for Quickbooks to allow them to do automated W-2’s for the tax year for their small business. When they did so, the software generated the forms, but it also locked them out from accessing their Quickbooks until they updated to the newest version to match the year of W-2 forms. Nice, eh? So they called Intuit and they were nice enough to say that the only way they could ever access the records again was to update Quickbooks….the W-2 add-ons could not be uninstalled. They were not happy. Luckily, the backup of their records was up to date, so I merely uninstalled the software and reinstalled it (sans the new forms). Funny tech support wasn’t “smart enough” to figure this out.
Plain and simple, Inuit’s business model is “how can we get more money from our customers without doing anything else to earn it.” And if they can’t “market” their way to it…what’s a little extortion gonna hurt? Lord knows they never say another dime from our family. Well, that’s not true. We did buy TurboTax once when we were getting more back from Intuit than we paid for it. We threw it away and used a competitor’s product.
I used QB Pro for many years, and found it to be very useful. I didn’t use it for about 4 years and am trying to go back to it (unfortunately, I already bought it). All I want to do is to use it and save it to my own flash drive, and everytime I go to open it, I have to go through phone calls, running QB tool, etc., etc.. I agree with an earlier poster. Once I get it open it is a long series of “buy this” “add this.” In my opinion, it has become a piece of junk!
Intuit has a new scam!!
Although I have not used Quicken in almost a year I noticed today, two charges on my bank account
10/04/2010 Other PERSONAL FINANCE SOFTWARE MONTHLY SERVICE FEE $5.95
This was on there twice, total $11.90 set as a monthly charge. $5.95 twice because I had an old and new version of Quicken.
I called the bank to see if they were now charging for my online backing or if this was a third party charge. Found if you ever used Quicken, even in the past and have not canceled Intuit as of August, is now charging your bank account for a service that I no longer use.
In this case the charges would be $142.80 a year, what a low rent scam.
I called the bank and they candled Intuit and credited my account.
Check yours!
I sampled quick books trial for 1 month, cancelled it, they billed me again the next month then I called again to re-cancel it as they couldn’t get it right the first time.
I just caught they have been billing me $39.95 for “online merchant services Credit card processing” for the past 2 years (24 months total) which I never consented to and have never used it, never asked for it, never was told I would be billed $39.95 a month and now im fighting to get my $958 back + $350 in overdraft fees from my bank.
I say we bring a suit against the fucks and get a mob of people who they have scammed too. I know there’s thousands of people out there too.
I FEEL CHEATED BY INTUIT, THEY WILL DOUBLE BILL YOUR ACCOUNT, YOU WILL GET IT BACK , BUT FOR A WEEK OR SO THEY HAVE STOLEN YOU MONEY. VERY UNHAPPY WITH INTUIT, WILL BE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE ELSE, MAYBE PEACHTREE.
Although I have not encountered some of the above mentioned pet peeves, I do agree that Intuit is a scam. I bought my basic program in 2007 and here recently the email link to send invoices to bill customers with has been discontinued. I am being forced to buy a new updated version to get this feature returned. If you bought a 2007 model car and in 2008 they updated some features and your 2007 model no longer had parts available. Bad scenario but you get the drift. The old phrase for this is Indian giver. They are strong arming me, stealing. Their entire program is so manipulative in so many ways that they must have hired Bill Gate himself to compose the program. Well, I could say a bit more but the question is what to do about it. Any solid ideas?
This happened to me with QB 2001 and I swore I would never buy it again, however, in the 08 brochure, they said that the emails were independent and we could always email invoices. I just received a notice that ….yup, as of May, we will no longer email your invoices. NEVER AGAIN WILL THEY GET ANY MONEY FROM ME!
how about the payroll update. originally was $35 a year to update the tables that hardly ever change, then had to update the payroll program $150, then the payroll would no longer work with that version of quickbooks , new quickbooks $199, then payroll yearly update went to $199, now its up to $299. the only thing updated is the tax tables that the irs give free. total rip off. Im now looking to change software
I am in the same boat as Dan (above). I’ve been using QuickBooks since 1993, and I too am absolutely furious about the jump from $35 per year to over $200 for the tax updates. I am forced to upgrade the program every 2 years when I would have been perfectly happy with my old QuickBooks 1997 version. With only one or two employees at any one time, the ’97 version had all the features I required. But Intuit claims that, not only are they going to charge us $250 a year for tax updates, you can’t use the new tax file unless you spend an additional $200 every two years and upgrade to the newer version of the program!….whether you need it or not!
I am also furious that Intuit has taken away a feature that I had for many years (and already paid for!)…the ability to print out employee W-2 forms on plain paper for my only employee. They now want me to pay an additional $200 per year for a feature I already had. They somehow went into my computer and REMOVED a feature from my software that I already paid for years ago! That is criminal!!! Where is the Federal Trade Commission when you need them? Perhaps they should be reading some of these comments!! Maybe I’ll be contacting them since my blood is really starting to boil now!!!
Oh yeah, how about the payroll update. $299 is cheap, only available if you are a “small business” with 3 or fewer employees. If you have more than 3 employees, its $374 a year, but “you get an unlimited number of employees”!! Well, with only 5 employees, the $75 difference sucks!! It’s outrageous and certainly not “small business friendly”. Intuit needs to rethink their “small business” ideas and get in touch with reality. And on top of all that it’s virtually impossible to get an email to anyone at Intuit who may have the slightest inkling to review the policy!! They really need to get knocked down to size!
The Co.’s selling door to door for Intuit are a scam as well. They lie from the very beginning, straight to individuals, and small business’. Co.’s such as Moxy or Keen Marketing and MMI Marketing in Pittsburgh, PA. Also, in the D.C. area, a Co. named East Coast Innovations is pulling the same scam on it’s customers. Both are pulling an employment scam in both these states, just to top off the deceit. The Manager is Ashley Allen.
…All their customers would be in your class Action!
Count me in on that Class Action Law Suit as well. I am mad that there is no other option, or is there? We have 4 employees and are paying way to much. And if I switch my quickbooks over to mac, then I lose the ability to pay my own employees and I would have to pay Intuit even more.
Quickbooks could be a good program, for the most part it works well but I also hate the lack of support. Their idea of “you’ll have to upgrade we no longer support” your three year old version is criminal. If I buy a program that doesn’t work it is their job to provide the fix. I want to know where to go for another accounting program.
This deceit doesn’t stop with quickbooks but is also with their web hosting and merchant service programs. The software they use for a storefront is just prostores licensed from ebay. WordPress doesn’t work there without an iframe. When I transferred my hosting to a new provider, precisionweb.net, the merchant services wont work. The shopping cart clearly has them listed as a supported provider, yet you get an error message. When called they say they can’t help me, try to sell me their hosting program again, and send me to a developer site to write my own solution. These dishonest people should be put out of business.
I don’t know if this works for your businesses as mine is quite small but I use a free program called Gnucash.
I am in with the class action as well. The last thing they care about is small business. I think its a great program until its time for an update, a backup, support, and they also manipulate the supposed ” quick books experts” because i’ve talked to two of them and they say. “You should really buy the support program” And as far as the backup, they are stupid, to not sell the backup that you didn’t purchase to you when you need it for a huge profit. They just won’t give it to you, but i’m sure they have it. They can take over your computer from millions of miles away but they dont’ have any backup for what happened. I say bullshit. They paint a great picture, try to sell 3-4 things a day and refuse to help or care when you have a problem. Typical big business. Its too bad small business really helped when it coudl. I’m a huge backer on a class action. A good step would be a contact at the I r s to see how many complaints they get about it. I don’t know. My opinion.
Please count me in on the class action as well. From the sunsetting of features to the payroll scams to the blackmailing that is “tech support” to the stupendously poor and buggy UI and feature set that you can’t even report bugs on without paying through the nose, Intuit is gouging us.
I work in software development and I have never dealt with a worse product nor company in my life.
I Have been using quickbooks for at least 10 years. I too am unhappy with costly upgrades. It seems to me that the early versions did not need any upgrades. I use the payroll version and believe I used to manualy adjust for taxes. Of course I did not keep those versions but think an old version may be the answer. Class action sounds like a great idea!
Is Peachtree any better?
Count me in that class action lawsuit…I hate QB…I used to be able to ignore their updates, as I knew their updates would disable my “old version”…I had to start using their Assisted Payroll…part of that submission automatically includes updating. Lovely. (I was able to hang onto a version for almost 3yrs…which didn’t make much sense, because I finally had to buy for that yr anyway, because the next yr hadn’t been released.) The whole point here, being…I held onto my money longer.
Me again, forget to mention, to “small” company owners out there:
The newest QB scam is they are bloating your files in QB. My little company file is now 105,000+MG. I was told that I need to by QB Enterprize because my small company of 4 employees is too big for QB to handle…and that my QB program would cease to work soon. Criminal!
Intuit is Satan and their products are his evil minions, dedicated to spreading misery and suffering to the world.
Today, after using up the 30 day trial of ISW in QB Premier 2010, I clicked the “Buy Now on the Internet” button – where I proceeded to purchase a license for $49.95. But, guess what – surprise surprise – the license did not work. So, I dialed up customer support – and honestly, don’t know what language the person I was speaking with was speaking. After about 20 minutes of being on hold and being shuffled between a few well meaning asian folk, I was told that in order to help me install the license that I just purchased from them – I would need to buy a customer support contract. Hell no. So, I call the Pro-advisor line. They shuffled me off to sales, where I was told that the license (that I purchased from my 2010 software, mind you) was for QB 2011. In order to get the license for 2010 – I was going to need to pony up another $70. So, I had to spend 2 hours of my life installing QB 2011 and upgrading a few files – just to spite the blood sucking devil ass vampire bastards.
Intuit sucks.
[…] article about why she hates Quickbooks for the same reason. It is kind of funny, check it out here: http://www.sequenceinc.com/fraudfile…nd-quickbooks/ Thanks for replies, […]
I have been using QB since 1995 and absolutely hate the changes. The latest way QB’s has found to rip users off; the 3 year MD process. I have the 08 version and I get a message my payroll wont work after May. So ok we’ll get the 2011 payroll version. It gets better, for the 2011 payroll version you must upgrade to QB 2011. OK, so I will upgrade, but wait I have a 3 license version and now I must rebuy a new 2011, 3 license version at like $640. NOW I AM MAD!!!! You already have to buy a new payroll subscription every year and the price keeps going up. RIP OFF!!!
I already purchased the right to a 3 version license, it is obsolete every 3 years with QB business model, this should be stated prior to anyone purchasing QB. HERE IS A REASON FOR A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT! They sell you a product that automatically goes obsolete in 3 years without letting you know. If the product is worthless after 3 years and requires a purchase like buying it new, they should have to tell you, make sure you are aware, sign a 3 year contract prior to purchase.
I hate this deceptive marketing, this is such an unscrupulous business practice. If I treated my customers like this, I would not have many customers.
If anyone has found a good accounting software program, let me know as I would love to dump these thieves!
[email protected]
Jerry Brown
I have used Quickbooks Pro since 1996. As the years go by I get angrier and angrier at their practices.They force me to buy their so called annual payroll updates, the last one was $332!!! Then they forced me to upgrade the program every 3 years!!! Now they are saying the $332 payroll update is “standard” and I need an upgrade that will go with the QB 2011!!! As near as I can tell QB 2011 is identical to QB 2008!!!Their phone staff all have heavy accents which works in Intuit’s favor because you cannot understand their justifications and you finally just give up and hang up in frustration. Companies like Intuit are what is wrong with America today, we are getting nickel and dimed to death. Someone PLEASE write a competitive program PLEASE. Class action suit, I am so IN!!!
I am a professional bookkeeper that uses QuickBooks Premier Accountants version. I have to purchase it every year, but I keep the old versions so my clients don’t have to. It is true that every few years you will have to upgrade your QuickBooks software if you are using QuickBooks Payroll, but I think you will find that is true for all bookkeeping software. I offer a payroll sevice that charges at least $60 a month. That is $720 at year, so upgrading QuickBooks payroll every couple of years doesn’t seem like such a bad deal. Also, there is a way to turn the popup ads in QuickBooks off in the preferences.
I will be happy to be in class action. Today my bank informed me that I can’t upload my transaction into QB 2008 PRO because they don’t support it any more. So I must buy a new version. But new version is worse than 2008. In general QB is a bad software taling too much PC resourses for almost nothing. Also when we buy software Intuit doesn’t tell us that it is for limited period of time. We don’t buy right to use (like with NORTON) we buy software that MUST work as long as we need. Also they started to order banks to stop service on old versions – it is absolutely illegal.
Contact me for CLASSACTION SUIT AGAINST INTUIT!!!!
Got the same thing from my bank…doesn’t support QB 2008 WHAT BS! Intuit has us all by the balls…what is this, cold war USSR? 2008 works great! I run a small business, accounting doesn’t change year to year! Inventory is inventory, receivables are receivables! I join you all in general annoyance at Intuit!
I just made a new website for the purposes of bringing quickbooks and peachtree issues to light, and to voice our general dissatisfaction with these products. I’d love your comments on there, as well as suggestions and any advice. It’s http://www.intuitsucks.com.
Am fuming mad that QB for Mac doesn’t do whatever the “good” QB for Windows does. Try finding out what features are lacking, or which reports you can’t get from an accountant or (even a “QB certified”) bookkeeper, and either they don’t know, or won’t tell you.
I’ve come to the conclusion that QB’s “business model is to treat users like mushrooms (keep them in the dark while feeding them sh*t).
QB’s ‘business model’ has to be to keep things so complicated that you still need to hire bookkeepers. And bookkeepers, because their careers depend on accounting being so complicated that you need them, love QB in return. So bookkeepers recommend QB, and once we’ve gone that route, it’s like we’ve entered the roach motel. Try getting data out so you can migrate to other software.
I can’t wait to move to NolaPro and will take however long it takes transcribe records into it to escape the da*n QB for Mac.
Quickbooks and Intuit are very shady! I have had the fancy enterprise version for only 1 year and it cost thousands of dollars. They told me when I bought it that I would get a free 2012 upgrade and it would last my company forty years. But I just started receiving calls to upgrade and renew for a small $850. She explained that if I did not upgrade every year, in three years quickbooks would stop working properly and I would have to buy new softwear for thousands of dollars. I was under the impression that I purchased software not a subscription for a period of time!!!I hate them. Thier support sucks too!
very hard to cancel, feels like a rat race around a maze. don’t buy it!!!!
Apparently in November 2010, after talking with a software developer friend who works at Intuit I signed on to a trial of their on-line bookkeeping services.
Not comfortable with the renowned lack of support that Intuit has for Apple computers, and the fact that I have run Mac offices for years, I decided to not utilize the Intuit offering.
I Never logged into, or used the trial, or the service in any way.
Reviewing my credit card billings for tax season, I noticed that Intuit was billing me $12.95 a month, and had been for well over a year.
No notice of these billings was made, and at no time did I log onto the site.
Upon calling the 800 number for Intuit service, it took 30 frustrating minutes to cancel my “account”, and was told that only the last one month of charges was refundable.
I have to warn anyone who might consider using an Intuit product that the business practices of this company is well below normal, and is in my mind criminal.
I agree Intuit are a terrible company to deal with, having cancelled my support subscription back in November which they forced me to take out because I needed help with VAT rate adjustments, it has suddenly reappeared on my statement today some 4 months later. You call them up and get put through to India which is awful, and they say they will get back to you and dont. I will never choose to deal with this company again. I have used quickbooks since 1995 and have never once had a satisfactory experience dealing with them, i might even change to sage the next time i have to buy something from them. choose Sage instead and save yourself some headaches.
Quicken has cost me thousands of dollars. Their software allowed my office manager, bookkeeper to steal $85,000 and hide it because quickbooks allows you to change entries without leaving evidence. Very unprofessional. And I don’t understand why they will not support older versions and now threaten to discontinue service to me because I won’t upgrade. I don’t need their upgrade nor their free offers.
I’m using Quickbooks 2009. It does more than I need and can handle. I’m not an accountant. I’m a small business.
Now I got this drug-dealer-mafia-like “extortion” letter from Intuit.
Online access will seize come May 2012.
I should fork over another $ 300 and something so I can do what I need to do and have been doing?? This is pure coercion.
Reading the “new” and Improved” “Features” I can say it is ripe for an Darwin Award of legalized empty upgrade scams!
Their official response (e.g. Amazon Reviews)as to why applying this attitude and concept amounts to about this:
For example, Microsoft would have to force you to upgrade Windows otherwise you can’t go online any longer since they have to make sure it “works with all ISP’s and websites”…?
Another example applying this Intuit concept: Ford GM or Toyota “force” you to “upgrade” to a new car ever three years reasoning that it has to be compatible with all the different brands and makes of gas, oil and what have you aftermarket 3rd party Mfg. items… If not you can’t drive faster than 25mph and only can gas up at Shell and only premium…
Yeah right!
Nobody would put up with that. The FTC would be on their case swiftly.
This is what you get when corporations have an uncontrolled unregulated free run.
They start to run your life literally.
Again, read what actually is improved in the 2012 version has very little to do with accounting!
I think it is time to start contacting the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection about these highly questionable unfair business practices.
“Now I got this drug-dealer-mafia-like “extortion” letter from Intuit.
Online access will seize come May 2012.
I should fork over another $ 300 and something so I can do what I need to do and have been doing?? This is pure coercion.”
ABSOLUTELY TRUE!
QB is the only software in the planet that does not allow a new version of the software to work with older version without forcing you to save the old file in the new version. I’m extremely irate at this company. I want to use Accountant 2012 so I can reduce the size of the file created in Premier 2011. YOU CAN’T! Unless you update that 2011 file to 2012, then we HAVE TO BUY the Premier 2012 3-user, for a whopping $800-$900!!! We already PAID that much in the first place for the software… I HATE INTUIT TOO.
How do they have an A+ rating at the BBB? Lets change that. Hit them where it hurts. What about a viral video like “United Breaks Guitars?”
I used to like Quickbooks but I don’t like the strong arming and the three year requirement to renew. Interesting the size of file excuse they give for people who are having problems which when upgraded makes no difference. I feel lucky we never went for that explanation. I am worried about the future of my data.
Sooooo….. When our company opened in 2005 we purchased Quickbooks Pro 2005 (Multi-Currency) only to find out that we could not upgrade for 5 YEARS because they had removed Multi-Currency from ALL forms until the 2010 VERSION! So we patiently waited….. and Upgraded to Premier 2010 Version x3 Users…..
Imagine my surprise when I tried to add ONE user to my license to be told that they are no longer selling user licenses to add onto the systems because we need to upgrade to 2013 version?? So instead of approx 300 pounds… to add one user.. they would like me to upgrade x4 users at over 1200 pounds??? So ONCE again Quickbooks you have gotten me! 2005 screwed me for 5 years… and now I have to Share a User and Log Out because YOU have decided that I need to Upgrade! Amazing! I shall be looking for better software!
Just buy Quickbooks with a credit card you are about to retire. Cancel the support subscription and then cancel the credit card. Let their conveniently predatory methods fold back on themselves. Maybe they will implode. Maybe Peachtree will match into town and make everything safe for bookkeeping.
I am so frustrated with Intuit. I already purchase their desktop version for mac. After I upgraded my mac, their software no longer works on my new machine. So after contacting them and them telling me that I would just have to buy their new version for Mac, I decided that I would try their online version, as I didn’t have the cash to payout for the software in full at that time.
I haven’t logged into Quickbooks in s few months (I’m not very up to date with my bookkeeping). Now Quickbooks online want to charge me the back payments for the months I have missed, even though I haven’t used their service… which is crappy, but I can kind of understand. What I’m most irritated about is now that I have the cash to repurchase their new desktop version that will actually run on my computer, I can’t get the online version to correctly download my files. Quickbooks, claims I have to use Internet Explorer to correctly download my files, but every time I go to my online account in the IE browser their site causes it to crash.
Very unhappy with how this company treats people who have already purchased their software and how hard they make it for you to leave their monthly paid online service when you want to leave. I honestly hate Intuit – very bad company to deal with as a consumer.
NEVER BUY QUICKBOOKS FOR PAYROLL.
Every three years your version is changed and they will not support the older ones. This means more wasted money upgrading and another $500.00 for tax information. Your old system will merely stop taking taxes out and you can not upgrade your tax information. They just stop supporting you as a customer. There will be no notices of this. You will spend endless hours on the phone with someone in the Philippines trying to figure what happened and them trying to sell you upgrades. If you are a small business this product is not for you. Unless you have deep pockets to waist money. It is a big rip off. Run the other way.
What is a good alternative for small business?
I too am having multiple problems with Inuit. They have been withdraing money from my account monthly even though I keep stopping the service that I didn’t sign up for. They keep saying I will ge a full refund in two days but only have recieved 2 months refund. They are predatory. It’s disgusting!
Wow, I hate Intuit!! I went searching for a place to tell the world how much I hate Intuit, this will have to do. I have hated intuit for over 2 years now but it has reached a point that I just can’t stand it anymore. It’s really just the company I hate not the product. I really like the product they offer, it is very robust and customize-able but with that comes it is very complicated and confusing. So, with that said, one would expect top notch customer support, BUT WAIT! This is where intuit falls off the face of the earth, “hello is anyone down there?” If there is someone down there I guarantee you they are from India and can’t really understand what you are trying to tell them. They might know the words you are speaking to them but they don’t truly understand them. This situation makes for a real nightmare for the customer on the other end of the phone who just wants to fix the issue at hand and move on. Not to mention it’s hard to understand them as well. It takes me on average 6 minutes just to navigate the stupid call prompts before I am put on hold for another 45 minutes just to reach someone who doesn’t really understand me. If you want my advise intuit, fix your customer service. Your customer service is by far, the absolute worst. What I am trying to say is, even Verizon’s terrible customer service comes no where even remotely close to being as horrendous as your customer service, it’s down right insulting!! I could really go on for days and be very specific but I am not going to waist anymore of my time. Intuit, YOU SUCK! I HATE YOU!
I wish I new that when I paid for a new version of Quickbooks it was only going to last a lousy 3 years, until Quickbooks stopped supporting it with payroll service downloads. FRAUD!! Who do we write to? Nationally?
Thank you Tracy for this Quickbooks rant. You saved me the time and energy of writing one myself. Maybe the Intuit employees would like to chime in again now that this post is 4 years old already, and the same scam still exists.
I just opened my 2010 version only to discover that Online Banking feature will no longer work in a few weeks unless I upgrade. I’ve already been forced to upgrade 2 or 3 times now over the years, and this is all I can stand.
Tracy – You couldn’t be more correct. I’ve been running business and helping small businesses get off the ground and some CPA usually suggests that my clients use QB. I can’t understand why. QB, with all their different versions, sells itself as an accounting/business system and it’s barely an accounting system. Not a worse product or company on the planet.
Try Express Accounts, from http://www.nchsoftware.com. Less than $100, does almost everything that QB does, and you can access it on your computer via a browser on another computer. Nice program.
I am convinced Quickbooks has designed their software to only work for a while and then force us to upgrade. I have 2007Pro. I only use it as a check register. Nothing more. In 2010, it said I needed an Admin password when I never assigned a password. I finally got them to reset my PW at no charge. At that time I put in a PW and wrote it in my notes. Used it no problem for guess what- 3 yrs. Yesterday it did the same thing. Spent 45 min on phone with “technical support” while they tried to upgrade me the whole time. I think this is a scam and someone needs to file a CLASS ACTION lawsuit against these guys.
4 year old thread and still getting hate posts about Intuit / QB. Tells you a lot!
I just bought a new computer so re-installed QB2012 Pro. Of course I then had to call them to activate it. Guy in the call centre notices that we’ve installed it on 2 other computers, which is true. 3 people in my company access QB with a single data file stored on a local file server, but only one at a time. We’ve been using it like this for many years with no problem and understood that this was fine under the single-user license terms.
We pay $33/mth (incl tax). Guy on the phone tells me that when we upgrade to 2013 (which will be mandatory to get the payroll updates), if they detect that the software is installed on more than one computer they will deactivate ALL instances.
He was nice enough to offer me a discounted 3-license deal for only $80/mth (plus tax). $960/yr to use their software.
Screw them. I’m going to install one version on a virtual machine and give remote access to all that need it.
These guys are hoodlums, but I can’t find a viable alternative…
I’ve been using QuickBooks Pro 2010 since, well, 2010. At some point in early 2013, I foolishly decided to run their AUTO-UPDATE despite not needing any app updates or data updates such as tax info. Every since the update completed, I now receive a NAG prompt that says I can no longer import QBO files which I downloaded from Bank of America. Mind you, I’ve been importing these QBO bank transactions without any issues over the last 2+ years. The NAG prompt says I need to UPGRADE to PRO 2013, if I want to continue importing. This is complete BS, as the import still works despite the untruthful scare tactic.
There’s something about the timeframe that I’ve witnessed before with QB Pro; approx. every 2 years the system starts throwing a fit and prompting to upgrade … for importing bank transactional data, for sending emails using PDF, etc. In regard to emailing invoices via PDF, it’s actually a SIMPLE configuration change, to continue using that service once the NAG prompts begin: http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/Articles/SLN41687
Here’s an Intuit page which outlines the very SCAM being discussed in this post: http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/INF12842
My recommendation: Switch to Microsoft Small Business Accounting – unequivocally better than QuickBooks 2013.
Intuit’s QuickBooks should be instead named QuickCrooks. **Consumer Affairs** has nearly 250 complaints, as of Jun 2013: See here http://www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/intuit_quickbooks.html
Good day! Do you know if they make any plugins to safeguard against hackers?
I’m kinda paranoid about losing everything I’ve worked hard on.
Any tips?
I am just steamed right now. For the last few weeks when I do payroll a box keeps coming up telling me that my payroll tax tables would be out of date as of July 1/13. I just figured that I would be getting an automated update but nooooooooooooo. So when I didn’t get the update to do this week’s payroll I called Intuit to find out what was going on & was told that I have to update my Contractor 2012 version to 2013 & start paying 70.00 per month instead of 28.25 per month to continue my payroll service. What a ripoff!!! I was never told when I purchased the program one year ago, yes one, that I would have to upgrade in a year & the payroll service would almost triple or I would have never bought the program in the first place. Is Simply Accounting still available & does anyone have any insight about this program if it is??
I have been on QuickBooks since the DOS days. I am feed up with their over priced payroll. QB is easy but they’re pricing themselves out of business and making everybody angry!!!!!!
Has anyone found a comparable product without outrageous payroll fees for 4-5 employees?
Tracey,
Great post…and yes, I agree with all of the quoted suckage above. We just made the jump to Xero and absolutely love it. I am so happy that there is finally a viable competitor to QB.
I’ve used Quickbooks from it’s very beginning! I’m 70 years old and self-employed I’ve seen the constant upgrades, and some of them were fine – better. I’ve loved it and what it has offered. But I’m at a stage in my life when I can’t cope with things that are constantly changing for no reason. My QB records go back to the 1990’s somewhere, but I’am now 70 years old and my mind doesn’t adjust well to the constant changes. I feel like I’m being ‘hijacked’/raped, whether I like it or not. I had nothing but praise for QB’s before, now I have nothing but loathing. I’m now looking for something that’s constant as far as functionality, I like some of the changes, but I don’t like being held hostage. Shame on you quickbooks! I’m severly saddened that there may come a time when I can’t run my business expeditiously because of their money grubbing. They hijack your computer to force you to buy the upgrade and you can no longer process your work – like a heroin dealer would treat you! If they’re so money hungry, why can’t they sell you the software and take themselves out of the ballgame until YOU decide you want another edition. Feeling Raped!
We have used quickbooks for many, many years. Each and EVERY year they overcharge us. Several years they have overdrawn our bank acconts because the “accidently” charged our account twice. We were forced to buy two licenses plug a payroll subscription. One year I was on the phone with them for 6 hours straight trying to get this issue resolved. This year, I told them I only wanted to purchase the payroll subscription. I reapeatedly asked the rep if this was going to be the only charge….yes she replied….until I got my statement which included a $214.00 VERSION PROTECTION! I called and spoke with mulitiple poeple and finally “Jane” was going to issue me a refund and give me a 20% discount. 30 days later…. I have officially been on the phone for over an hour inquiring why Jane didn’t give me my money back. One representive transfered me to someone else during my conversation with her….basically hanging up on me. Now I am speaking to someone and they gave me a confirmation number of my refund…I aked how much is my refund? Can’t tell me…he doesn’t know!! It is simple! How can they not know…then he tells me they will charge me for the usage for the last two months. So they aren’t going to refund the full amount then they are going to charge me AGAIN for the payroll subcribtion! How is this not fraudlant?
I have loathed quickbooks since I first started using it for some of my clients in the 90’s. I was amazed, then, at the quickbooks arrogance in demanding you pay a fee to use their payroll service. It’s the law don’tcha know. The law, actually, is that you must deduct appropriate taxes from the cheque using current tables – not that you pay quickbooks for the tables.
Now, after years away from small business, I find that, in spite of having NO trackability, quickbooks is one of the most popular programs out there???? And they charge THOUSANDS of dollars every year for their piece of crap program? And, of course, their one redeeming quality – their search and reporting function – is not nearly as good as it used to be.
Why in the hell are small business owners using this piece of crap program?
I really hate Intuit. I use their TurboTax product and Quicken. I’ve never seen so many intrusive and abusive advertising in a paid product. As if doing tax is not painful enough! Their Quicken product expired every 3 years (it disabled the transaction download from your own bank). I would happily pay for another alternative even if it means I have to pay more. I held on to Microsoft Money for many years but they finally folded. Now I understand why it’s so dangerous for a company to gain monopoly. This is a case where a government should intervene. Write to your senator to complaint about their monopoly!
These clowns keep placing Intuit transactions from Turbo Tax and Quicken on my checking acct. I have never done business with these companies. This is pure fraud. I have 5 trans pending which will be taken from my acct tomorrow for over $500.00! Notified my bank but said they couldn’t stop the transactions, but would dispute the charges AFTER they had my money. Somethings wrong when you notify bank of fraud before it happens and they let it continue. I’m so mad I can’t see straight.
Yup, Tracy even in 2oo9 when you began this thread you were bang on correct. I’ve also been a user since the 1990s and back then I thought QB was the greatest thing since sliced bread. But in the last 10 years, I’d say they are worse than stale bread. Talk about the nickel and diming! Yow!
I only up-grade every other year….Just did the up-grade from 2011 to 2013 only because at the end of this month the QB Email feature I depend upon heavily will be going bye-bye.
But now I find….a feature that was originally free….then became a $5/year charge….now will cost me over $180/year if all I want is just that feature. I have to sign up for crap I don’t want, don’t need, and will never use just for that one feature which at one time was free. I didn’t mind the $5/year charge but this is just too much already.
Ergh!!!!
Damn quickbooks. The shit I have to go through to upgrade my 2006 data file to 2014. Then I get the damn thing right but the whole VAT is fucked up! WTF.
Include an upgrade disk that will upgrade the file for the new version. How many people are using old versions of Quickbooks still. I see they remove the column that shows the VAT for each item.
I think I need to ditch Quickbooks for Pastel.
I have hated Quicken for over a decade now. I started with Quicken sometime in the 90’s when it was a slightly more capable version of Microsoft Money. However, I was forced to upgrade to Quicken 2012 last year and this year, 2014, has been the worst experience ever. I don’t believe the software is optimized for Windows 8.1, or something, because backups go somewhere never to be seen again, and wipe out recently entered data as well.
I WILL NOT use Quicken again. I don’t care if I have to make my own spreadsheet.
Maybe I’m on the wrong thread, but my beef has to do with the audit trail being switchable – on and off on the QB 2003 version. I understand the subsequent versions don’t allow this as an audit trail is for proof of activity, not some happy numbers.
My bookkeeper also has issues with payroll and the inability to send invoices from QB – all in an effort to get us to ugrade – that’s a different story – here’s mine.
I had a genius of an embezzler from 2003-2006. She raped mmy business – no kiss first. She took over 300K – everything I had made during the last of the good years. I’m a specialty contractor and we are sucking wind mightily.
She was able to do this by turning off the audut trail while she made out checks to herself, her bank, her relatives, her bills, etc. then turn it back on.
WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD USE IS AN AUDIT TRAIL IF YOU CAN TURN IT ON AND OFF AT WILL?
She also used this handy function to not pay our state taxes – the books (one of many sets) show payment – forensic investigation shows the checks were made to the above mentioned recipients, but the books show payment to the Department of Reveue.
I have no idea how many other folks have experienced this but it’s abhorrent that a company like Intuit can put out a product that is a dream for embezzlers and the newbies/incompetent alike.
Anyone know of any class-action suits out there – I’ve heard these BASTARDS deserve to be crucified – in as slow and painful method as possible. Their behavior is unconscionable.
Following this thread for an hour has given me 3 alternatives to explore. There may be more. I should have posted this four years ago, but I’m working my patoot off trying too stay afloat – with a 300K hole in my checking accout.
FWIW, the grand jury found her guilty of 88 counts of forgery (only a part of her misdeeds) . The judge fond her guilt of one count of thinking about talking to a friend about forgery. We got a $150,000 award, payable at $250 per week. Quick math says 1000 months/12=83 years. She’s now 71 – been paying for 5 years – 78 years to go.
Somehow, I think I’ll get the short end of the stick yet again.
THANKS INTUIT – I’M LOOKING FOR REPLACEMENT SOFTWARE NOW. YOU THEIVING PR*CKS USED TO BE A GOOD VALUE. NOW YOU’RE KILLING THE GOOSE – YOUR CLIENT BASE.
And a good time was had by all
Sorry – our monthly payment awarded by the judge was only $150 per month, not $250 as I mistakenly stated above – all the other math works out.
At the embezzler’s 5 year probationary review, it was increased to $175 per month. WOW. I could do an amortization table and figure out how many years after she’s dead and A loaf of bread is $7 before I get my restitution. Probably never
Jail time? She may have walked by a jail on her way to a Dairy Queen, but she’s never been in one for this case.
Did I mention the folks at Intuit are theiving PRECKS?!?!?!?!
Check out the following link for other options of accounting softwares available out there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_accounting_software
Ummm – the last time I had my dick sucked it was a pleasureable experience. Unless somehow the language changed since I last slept the point i was making, using your analogy was akin to Chinese Water Torture. My tallywhacker was removed over a multi-year period by tweezers and Bic lighters
Tracy if your the one looking at accounting fraud companies are screwed. If these are your reasons for hating quickbooks im amazed you were even able to use it. Maybe your just slow, but quickbooks is one of the easier to use options out there and very flexible. the problem is with users not the software. we switched from dynamics to quickbooks because of all the lockdown you deal with in dynamics.
Frank – Are you illiterate? You are calling me “slow” and saying I don’t know how to use Quickbooks. That is NOT what the article is about. The article is about the sneaky tactics Intuit uses to steal money from customers.
I enrolled in payroll today via QB and I was given a 30% off for $15 a month. I didn’t want to pay another subscription but I felt it wasn’t too bad. I then received my receipt in my email stating that I was charged $25 and the reoccurring fee would be $25. I called to fix the problem and I was transferred a total of six times, I guess in hopes that I would just hang up and just pay. Finally I requested to be transferred to someone in cancellation and I cancelled my payroll subscription. You are right Tracy, its sneaky and not ethical.
Just as bad, is regular Quicken home user. Every 2 years they make you (what they call it) is “Upgrade”. But actually its not an upgrade, it is just the full version. You do not need an earlier version to install it, anyone can install it. Intuit gives you a discount to “upgrade now” but I can go to the store and purchase it for cheaper. Every 2 years, they put a halt on online banking downloads to prevent you from using your version to the fullest. If you don’t “upgrade” you have to manually enter every transaction. Way to put it to your customers (of 22 years) Intuit.
It is 9:30 PM now , I am still at work waiting for QB to finish it backup since ….7PM . it stuck at 99%, it required backup every time it upgrade or want to do something else, it takes days and nights to fix it , since using QB enterprise solution I haven’t been able to go home before 7PM and I start my work day at 8AM , support is a joke with whole bunch of tech worry about your phone number, you email address, your credential more than the issue itself . I have to be here all night because if it doesn’t backup it can’t open , it can’t open, people will wake me up tomorrow at 6 AM , what a mess !
I signed up for Intuit Pro Advisor service on 4/16/13. The current terms and conditions (as of 9/8/2014) are:
*** From Intuit Website***
Sixty-day Money-back Guarantee
Each new Member to whom Intuit sends an email order confirmation for Program membership purchases receives a sixty-day money-back satisfaction guarantee. If any such new Member is not satisfied with the Program, Member’s sole remedy is to cancel the purchased Program membership within sixty (60) days of the date of such email order confirmation from Intuit. You must also uninstall and delete all copies of the Software from your computer(s), if applicable. Intuit will issue to such Member a refund for the full Program membership fee for the current one-year membership period only.
I tried cancelling my subscription on 10/1/14 and have been told I will be charged for the remainder of a year until 4/16/2015. Customer service (1-888-250-7279) stated that I am obligated to pay for the rest of the year from this part of their terms and agreement:
***13. Term
(a) Term. New Program memberships shall commence on the date Intuit sends to you an email confirmation of your order for Program membership and will continue for one (1) year thereafter, unless earlier terminated as set forth in this Agreement (e.g., commencement on 11/15/11 expires on 11/14/12) (“Term”).
(b) Automatic Membership Renewal. Intuit will notify you by email thirty (30) days prior to the renewal date of your Term (“Effective Renewal Date”) that you will be charged the then-current renewal membership fee to the credit card on file. If your credit card is charged and you later elect not to renew your membership, you may cancel your membership and request a refund of the renewal membership fee by notifying Intuit no later than 60 days after the Effective Renewal Date. Please note you can opt out of the service at any time by again calling (888) 250-7279.***
I received an email on 4/16/13 welcoming me to Intuit. Intuit is claiming I started a “NEW Year” in April of 2014 and was automatically renewed, even though I am on month to month billing. I believe this is deceptive since the terms and conditions do not state month to month is still a yearly obligation. I completed my year on 4/16/14 and they are telling me I had 60 days from that date to cancel or I owe the rest of another year. These are the terms and conditions when I signed up stated this for a monthly subscription in 4/13:
Obligation to Intuit upon cancellation
End Result
Monthly Subscription: Cancellation after 60 days but before 365 days: Subscriber will be charged any unpaid balance of the full first
year commitment for each product license
Month 13+: no obligation. You will be able to continue to use your QuickBooks product, but will no longer automatically receive QuickBooks upgrades.
According to my initial term I could cancel after month 13+ with no obligation. Now according to customer service the current terms removes monthly subscriptions and tries applying them to annual subscriptions. My rates have not changed during the 18 months I have been using them and no such indication via email or phone stated I was under an annual plan despite it being a month to month plan. I completed my one year on 4/16/14 and should be able to cancel without fees at anytime after that date.
Complete deceptive practices. I have initialized a Better Business Bureau Complaint as well as posting to Consumer Affairs and contacting the Federal Trade Commission.
I tried QuickBooks for the first time. I am a small business owner just getting started. I decided $10 per month wasn’t that bad. They said I added an employee (myself) and now they are charging me $39.95 per month BUT that doesn’t show on my account!!!! It’s an a scam!!! I had no idea that it was such a horrible company and product. I don’t do accounting–thank goodness–but I want to get as far away from these scam artists as possible!! What a disappointment!
I can’t believe they use the same tactics as porn sites to get money from paying customers. I am also shocked that there isn’t a class action against them for this. It is clearly deceitful practices!!! I’m so mad!!! At least I am not alone in this scam! It just seems like there is no one that can be trusted on the internet!! I think I will just use Excel for now–or find an accountant. Forget this junk!
I have no problem with the Quickbooks Enterprise program, but these guys are of questionable ethics. I received an automatic renewal price of $1,050 that they are going to charge to my credit card. To my knowledge, I did not authorize this.
Here’s the P.S. on the auto renewal note from Intuit: “Since the overwhelming majority of our customers renew their Full Service Plans, we’ve set it up to happen automatically. Please call us at 1.800.300.8179 if you have questions regarding the plan.”
As you can see, I did not sign up for the auto renewal. If you buy from Intuit, beware. You can get an auto renewal when it’s not part of your purchase.
But it’s worse then that. You have to call to undo this. This has to be illegal.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard of canceling their credit cards because they couldn’t get Intuit to stop charging them, no matter how many times they called.
Lets get this class-action suit together there are thousands of us. I didnt agree to subscribe to any paid service and cancelled the “free trial” when I realized I was an exclusively mac small business called within a day or two to cancel and was charged $100 then $40 for 2 g*dd*mn years i called to remind them the following 2 billing months that they were raping me and charging me for it they promised it was resolved… I thought it was my discover card payment as it was “Bankcard mtot disc $39.95 or $40.00 which was my monthly credit card payment on a different account.
The QB company sucks. They only talk about money, Service is soooo bad. I had a single user QB 2014 and would like to re-stall at new computer. We call them and ask them how to do it. They said it needs their technician to do it and charge $329. We asked the reason for charge so much. They keep telling me data clean on old computer and so called security. I requested to do it by myself and they keep telling me it had to be done by their technician and charge of $329. Requested to transfer to his supervisor, name Frank Chaichen. Not know if it is true name or not. Frank told us same thing with charge of $329. I asked him his ID, He played with me 987654321… I have never encountered so bad customer service. The call was at around 1:50pm Est on Jan 7th, 2014. The phone we called is 18008841570 ext 1003.
I really wish I had an alternative that my accountant supported. I have hated this company and QBPro since early 2000’s. Switching to Tax Cut for doing my personal taxes was an easy decision. For a company with just one employee, me, the cost of the payroll service is hardly justifiable, let alone forced upgrades every two years, the slowest piece of crap software, annoying offers for services, and just today I forgot to uncheck the box to post my W2 online and now my private information is on their systems and I cannot find any way to retracting it. I hate this company even more today.
I hate the business model intuit / quickbooks / quicken uses for the same reason – I can’t even use quickbooks software to printout a w-2 for a single employee company without subscribing to the payroll service yet they charge these fees and force you to renew.
After dealing with Intuit this afternoon (Quicken 2013) I have been wondering if there was a scam notice so Googled that…and found this website. I have used Quicken for many years and always upgrade when new version comes out (forced to if I want to continue downloads from Finance institutions). I also have found that each new version seems to get harder to use and has more bugs.
Today I called Support because of a couple of features that didn’t work well and i was tired of spending so much time manually editing transactions. The Indian guy almost immediately told me he couldn’y find my Quicken in their database so wanted to connect to my computer in order to “look at some things”. I let him do it, and sat watching the screen flash from here to there…so fast I couldn’t follow what he was doing. After 5 minutes he said I had some serious viruses in there and furthermore there was an overseas user who was able to connect without me knowing it. He showed me a box which had hundreds of warnings and errors and unauthorized users. I was shocked.
He asked me what websites I went to often, and then showed me a bunch of links to “porno websites” which he said were often a source for viruses etc. I do not go to porno sites, and he was quick to add that it may not have been me but someone else. I said there was only the 2 of us here, and he said the unauthorized users could have been the ones doing it. That got me suspicious because it sounded pretty unlikely, if not impossible.
Finally he said I needed to have the computer cleaned immediately and he was going to pass me to a technician who knew how to do all that. Then he told me about two levels of support they offered..GOLD and SILVER….GOLD cost $499 and SILVER was only $299, but I needed to choose one of them if I wanted this mess cleaned off my computer.
Now I was sure this was a scam so I got his employee number and phone number and asked him to take his stuff off my computer, which he did. Now I wonder what he did while connected to me. Did he take my financial data? Could have easily. What else did he access? Do I have any way of finding this out?
Now I not only will never use Quicken again, but I’m scared that have compromised me. How do I know they aren’t selling my information? Who can I have investigate these people?
The Scam goes on — My quicken stopped working a few days after I downloaded 2015. It would no longer accept my vault security password and claimed that my INTUIT password was needed and was failing. “Intuit technical support” claimed that my data file had become contaminated by a virus let in by McAfee. Bottom line is that they held me hostage for a $213 one time fix or $379 3 year warranty. Sure felt like a big scam by Intuit – especially the way worked the conversation and blame. As far as I know Intuit included the virus in their download and then charged me to fix it. Anybody else have these issues”
That wasn’t intuit. Same happened to me but it was a number I googled and they are fakes.
Yes, every quickbooks company file I have ever had simply quits working after about 3+ year, so you are forced to buy a new program of it just to keep the data in the past accessible.
So the trick I use, is to start all my new company’s out on the oldest version of QuickBooks that I have, that way I can upgrade the file to the next version that follows!!!
There are several pop up windows selling another QuickBooks Product. She was correct with that pointer. And it is quite bothersome to have to keep closing those windows!!!!
Do you know if the prices drop on QuickBooks once tax season is over? Because if so, I’m waiting until then. Any help would be appreciated. -Aaron
I don’t think they drop the price.
Malaysia QuickBooks is using Canada version and it is selling at very high price.
Pro: USD 529
Premier: USD 969
Super expensive. Should i quit ? Just want to switch from US to Canada version due to US version is not compliance with local institute. What a money sucker…
Should I switch to another alternative ?!
Does anyone use these crooks to do the Intuit Point of Sale for inventory control? We use Quickbooks for the accounting side, and Quickbooks point of sale 10.0 (POS) for our inventory controls. We have 2 retail/service stores. We are now told that our stores will not exchange info unless we upgrade to the latest version…. Not a huge deal except we must pay like 700.00 per license for the POS side and we use 9 licenses between the 2 stores. That’s over 6k and we have to upgrade the accounting side of Quickbooks as well! Still waiting on a quote for that screwing. Does anyone have a suggestion for a different inventory and accounting software that doesn’t rape you every 3 years? That is just outrageous to that kind of $$ every 3 years.
Remember when QuickBooks was a cute (oh and real quick) DOS program with free tax table updates? Now they are cute adorable racketeers who will come under judgement for dealing treacherously. We just have to wait a while.
Quickbooks should be ashamed of themselves. They know these programs are chock full of glitches and when you finally get through on their support line after hearing “your call is important to us..yadayadayada….a million agonizing times, then it’s a flip-o-the-coin whether you get some 19-year-old newbie that has to either flip through a manual or repeatedly flag down the elusive manager only to be thrilled to spew through some screwey jargon unrelated to my predicament. Back in the MS DOS days, we produced reports on greenbar that included names, folio numbers, addresses, room numbers, special requests like cribs, deposit amounts with the date and correlating check number posted right on the confirmation!! Amazing concept eh? Why I had a report that suited the Reservations Department, Front Desk, Accounting and Sales & Marketing. In fact, we could isolate a single day’s deposits and actually match totals!!! I am amazed at the totality of qb’s lack of knowledge in what a business needs for concise but complete reports. And the way payments are just another line item isn’t handy at all. I have to paste the Ship To information in the Statement Memo box at the bottom of an invoice to get it to print the address where we perform our work (which is plumbing these days). Their so-called customize feature is incomplete but worse is the most important features of a business’ key tracking points aren’t even available. In fact, the very word “memo” has different meanings in this system. It might mean whatever is pasted in the memo box at the bottom, or the payment memo entered. To get a complete relevant report, I have to run 3 qb reports and compile them on a HAND-WRITTEN chart I designed. THIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT QUICKBOOKS SHOULD BE DOING FOR ME AND MY BUSINESS!!! And they don’t mind charging that $30 per company each month even though it can only be shared by 3 users, one necessarily being the accountant, so really only 2 office staff members. I’ve sat on hold for customer dis-service for over an hour many times only to have a much-too-perky-to-be-sincere agent inform me they are thrilled beyond measure to help me. “Of course we can customize a report for you with all your needs” is a common repertoire I hear. Then after we begin the decent into click this and check that, then 123 rescue, then on hold for a “second” a dozen times and my favorite flavor of sucker-punch….let’s clear your cookies…. Then “that” question comes…”Which browser do you use?” The mere mention of Firefox triggers a robotic spiel that’s verbatim each time. “Well that’s your problem, you need to use Chrome. Do you want to download Chrome> I can wait…. Ummmmmm NO! Does qb get a little bill gates butt-kiss kickback for that? Excuse me while I continue to resist the spy-enabling software of a Eugenicist madman, just for fun. The anxiety, anger, itching, cigarette smoking, impatience and crappy attitude that qb folks cause me is tremendous. And whatever time I spend on the phone with qb I have to make up later on. So I try hard to figure it out myself before dialing them up. This program is not easy to learn at all! Especially when frustrating “glitches” happen, like payments automatically posting to the oldest invoices first, when I specifically have that feature unselected in settings and choose the invoice I want to be credited. And while here, let me point out that it is almost impossible to find a payment posting if it’s in the wrong place. And the layout of the dashboard is horrible on the eyes. The screens don’t zoom to fit. I have to pull my laptop closer, lean in, squint and focus to see it good enough. Qb thinks it can pop in some new colored bars and rename a few categories then call it a new refreshed look. Obviously, these monkeys are crazy! But one day, when a qb agent asked if there was anything “else” they could help me with, I mention a report with all my lofty desires within it once again and after running me through the obstacle course (to no avail) and conferring with a person playing the manager that day, I get a different response. “Tammy, I have some great news….(*mental note: lift feet and hold breath)….we actually do have a way to produce a report with all your needs listed on it. All you need to do is upgrade to the….and this is when I drifted off into that foggy land of Puff-The-Magic-Dragon and enormous kitty clouds to avoid hearing a pitch to squeeze more undeserved Federal Reserve Notes out of us, lest I begin frothing at the mouth and fantasizing about reaching through the phone to strangle whomever is at the other end. I believe I shattered my consciousness into fragments from the last ritual abuse and let my stronger alter handle this contemptuous mafioso trash attempting to engulf me with black magick. Interrupting her, I said, “so, what you’re saying is, you have my company’s information at hand; accessible, ready to be put into a complete report, like I want, and the only way for me to get access to what I should have had all along, is to allow you to hold my information hostage while you extort more money from me? Hmmmm, smells a bit like blackmail to me. Figures. I realize I might learn a thing or two if only I signed up for one of qb’s two day workshops but what the hell makes you think it’s worth the $499.95? Why, qb is as sneaky and underhanded and service-to-self oriented as the vatican and cia are with their drugs and human trafficking and child satanic abuse ring. So, the question is not one of “can you do it?” It’s more like you won’t “be thrilled to help me” obtain this existing information unless you pinch a bigger slice for your gang first. Your blood-thirsty yearn to cheat us poor working folks out of more cash puts you in a filthy underworld class. I harken back to days of Gomer Pyle, US.M.C. when Gomer would snap a chin-up face back and forth while admonishing Sergeant Carter with, “Shame, Shame Shame!” I feel contempt for you, qb, like others have relayed here, but I don’t hate you. For that would require me to feel something for you in the first place….which I don’t. Your software actually makes my job as manager a lot harder and more cumbersome overall. Qb, you are not only incomplete, you are sneaky, greedy, deceitful and belong on a lower realm, with your own kind. So until you are slammed into your cell there, have your fun….for the day that brings about our sweet justice will be exponentially more satisfying than your poor power to realize. Oh, and one last petty thing before I go…you and your ridiculous surveys can all go jump in a pile. After wasting time waiting and not being helped you still have the nerve to ask me to do your job too? Uh uhhhn….You can tear yourself away from your shenanigans and listen in on your newbies to find out how they’re doing yourself! I have enough to do, much more than I should have if you were a genuinely helpful company. Instead of being a continuously improving buffet of delicious flavors, making life easier, allowing me to spend less time at this job and more time with my wonderful son, you are more like a wet-dog-smelling, detritus-rich dirt sandwich.
I tried QuickBooks about a year ago. I thought I subscribed to the base program. Then, I was hit with a separate payroll charge. I complained about this deceptive practice, cancelled immediately and fought months to get my refund back. Since I have looked at Mint.com but reluctant to use it. Instead, I developed my own tables in Excel 2013 and handle my personal financial transactions myself. Lesson learned, there are know easy solutions especially from the Web. I take extreme care when subscribing to online contact and what I am willing to give up (privacy & security) in exchange for that ISP. Sorry, the majority of you had poor experiences. Be cautious. Be well!
Thank you for the post. Here’s my recent Intuit ordeal over trying unsuccessfully to get a simple verification code: http://fungoody.com/money-for-fun-goody/intuit-is-the-blockbuster-of-2015-how-does-intuit-stay-in-business/
My company started using QB online back in early 2014. The program was difficult to use and support was dismal. We decided to give their payment processing a try since it was all integrated (and I didn’t know any better). What a huge mistake! After about 2 months of processing payments with NO problems, No complaints, No chargebacks, their security team started harassing us like the Gestapo. Demanding all sorts of HIPPA protected information about our clients, what they were ordering, who was shipping it, demanding to see physical invoices (we were a billing service for a Dr’s office). After trying to work with them we eventually told them to go pound sand. So the cancelled the account and stole close to $2k, stating that it was put in “reserve to cover any customer disputes”. 14 months later and I still haven’t received a penny! They were rude, nasty, hung up on us, laughing all the way. Absolutely the WORST! Since then I have gotten rid of every single Intuit product and will never give a cent to that company or any of it’s subsidiary’s for the rest of time! Oh, and yes they continued to charge us the monthly fees well after the accounts were cancelled.
I will say it short and simple. We are just little drones who work on the Intuit Plantation. They know exactly what they are doing and represent the worst in Capitalism!
Ira Einhorn CPA
Quickbooks is garbage. The software, once upon a time, was excellent… But over the years it has become a steaming pile of bloat. I am running top of the line hardware which is optimized and patched and up-to-date on drivers, etc…. My company file is tiny, with only a handful of transactions… But Quickbooks runs like SH*T! SLOOOOW to load… Its torture. Additionally, I couldn’t agree more with posters who expressed their unhappiness with being presented with ADS in a commercial product.
Well here’s one more for good old Quickbooks. I ordered quickbooks online essentials, but when we received it, turns out it wasn’t at all what we needed. I called the number and they told me to send the package back and I’d get a refund within 4-6 weeks. Didn’t like that but we went ahead and sent everything back. That was back in July of 2015. I never heard anything back so I called starting this last Thursday, September 10th. Long waiting up to 30 minutes or better with 4 different calls with no one supporting what had happened. Today, September 14th I’m on and off the phone being pushed from one rep to another all morning. I finally get someone on the phone and they were nice enough to make every effort to solve the issue. after 3 1/2 hours…yes….3 1/2 hours!!!! He gets back with me and says they won’t be sending me my money because the 60 day refund guarantee has expired! WHAT??? I returned the product before the 60 days… I mailed them back their product, but now they won’t give me back my money? This sure sounds to me like fraud for sure! I am totally disgusted, with the company, their attitude to me as a customer and above all for all the hours and hours of being jerked around. I have contacted the BBB and will look for anyone and anything that will expose this type of business for what they are… robbers! Do NOT ever deal with this company or it’s products.
I opened my small business in January 2015. I knew i needed accounting software and despite all of the new options with good feedback, i decided to go with what had been around longer. At the time, QB was bombarding my television with commercials claiming to understand/care about small businesses. I started with Quickbooks Pro (the online only version) and found that it lacked a number of features i would need. I spoke to Quickbooks customer support and they recommended Quickbooks Premiere Plus. I was ready to purchase the desktop version of Premiere and the support agent told me i should try Premier Plus online. She told me it was a subscription service and the only real difference was the technical support and the regular software updates. I said I didn’t want to pay a yearly fee, but she said “don’t worry, you can just cancel the subscription at the end of the year to discontinue technical support and regular updates but continue using the desktop software.” After a year of using the product and entering thousands of hours billed, expenses and invoices, I got a reminder from the company to renew for $499. I did not want to continue with the cost just for tech support. In the couple times i tried to use it, i was put on hold for hours (literally) and then sent overseas to someone who was obviously looking my questions up online and then feeding me a canned response from a manual. The regular updates were not enough to justify the cost for this small company. When i called to cancel my subscription, i was told that if i do so, i will lose all ability to use the software i had paid for. BUT, they would sell me the desktop version for $350. THE SAME SOFTWARE I HAD TRIED TO BUY AND WAS TOLD I WAS BUYING. I asked to speak to a supervisor and 4 days later I got a call informing me that their policy had changed during the year and they do not intend to honor their original promise. I am now writing to this feedback section in hopes that it reaches the ears of whoever created those commercials from a year ago or who actually still believes in customer service. I hope you find it worthwhile to honor your promises and provide me with what i had intended to purchase originally. If not, i will post this story on every message board, Twitter and Facebook. More importantly, entrepreneurs are a small community. We all bond over the hurdles faced. If you decide to not honor your word, that is your choice, but every time i sit with someone who is about to start their own company, i will tell them this story. I am extremely disappointed, but hopeful that this is not how QB does business and that you will right what has occurred.
Quickbooks sucks. It’s exploitative, insulting, badly designed. The customer support and web site is terrible. I agree with the original author of this post.
I’ve had lots of problems with it, especially in terms of mandatory upgrades and file compatibility issues.
More recently, it turns out there are serious issues regarding networking. Some (not all) payroll operations will not work over a VPN. I kid you not. To be fair, I eventually got some help from someone in the Philippines and she walked me through various steps, which enabled me (not her) to figure out what the problem was. But seriously, you shouldn’t have to be a network engineer and help them debug their program just to use it. Now I have to take down my VPN and use the bare network just to run my payroll updates.
I also had lots of problems with TurboTax. Frustration has led to me realizing I’m not saving any money by doing it myself.
I’m curious what others have found that is better!
Quickbooks has gotten worse and worse each year with their pay for this and pay for that. I would swear that everytime I let my paid annual support fee of $399 expire, if I don’t renew it within a month, they implant errors into my programs that make my program crash, so I will pay for another year of support. This happened this morning and I was unable to open anything on my computer. Nothing I hate more than feeling like I’ve been scammed but I’m at their mercy I guess. They also talked me into an expensive Enterprise edition that I really did not need and now I’m stuck with it because supposedly you can’t transfer your data back to Pro, which they failed to mention. Plus my accountant doesn’t have Enterprise and now it’s a nightmare at tax time. I’m so very disappointed as they were once a good company and I recommended them to alot of people, which I now regret. If you’re thinking about getting Quickbooks – look at other options first.
When I first started using Quickbooks in 2001, Intuit was wonderful to work with. When you called for support, you talked with an experienced user here in the US of A, not India or the Philippines, and the fees and prices were reasonable. I am thinking that in 2008 or 2009, I upgraded to Quickbooks Pro Plus which included automatic annual updates and enhanced payroll. I think it was 2012 when I called to find out why I was no longer receiving annual updates, and why I was being billed separately for the payroll service at a highly inflated price. I found out that the service I had was discontinued with no notice to me, and I ended up having to agree to a much higher priced bundle.
Now, I am out of business. As it turns out, Intuit calls the version of Quickbooks I was using a subscription service. So, when I cancelled the 2016 automatic billing, my Quickbooks would become unusable. They forced me to purchase a “stand alone” version that they say will only be active for 3 years, what do I do if the IRS or state agencies need information from me after that time? That is total BS! Now, today, I just found out I cannot process my payroll forms for 2015 because I cancelled the payroll subscription. I paid over $500 for it last year for a whole 4 per-diem employees that didn’t even come close to generating that amount of income above expenses for me. I definitely paid for the ability to process those forms, as well as any form from 2001 until now with my continual purchases of their software and services. After being on the phone for over an hour and having to ask for a supervisor, because I was told my only option was to purchase a 30 day subscription, I was allowed to have a whole 13 day “FREE” subscription to the payroll service in order to print my forms. This is ridiculous. I should be able to go back and print any form at any time for the years I subscribed at any time in the future. They are performing blackmail to pad their pockets.
Unfortunately, I will have to use TurboTax for my taxes this year. Next year I will be returning to Tax Cut, which I liked better when I used it, and, Lord willing, will never have to do business with Intuit again. They definitely have grown too big for their britches, and their policies are going to destroy them. Small businesses like mine, from which they built their business, cannot afford their shenanigans. I will be letting anybody that wants to listen know of their business practices.
I notified the BBB of their software subscription BS, and will be notifying them of this atrocious policy that Intuit has instituted.
[…] Why I Hate Intuit and Quickbooks | Fraud … – I hate Intuit, the makers of Quickbooks and Quicken software. The reason is simple: Instead of relying on value to sell their products, they use trickery … […]
Quick Books (Intuit) is an EXTORTION Company!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Intuit owns Quick Books, Quicken, and Turbo Tax.
If your QB program crashes for any reason and you haven’t paid for the corrupt insurance tech support
system you are out of LUCK!!
Intuit can fix my problem in less than 15 minutes if i pay them either $ 695 dollars or $ 395 for a one time
fix. EXTORTION! Come to find out – only Intuit can fix my problem. If you blow (delete) your old system like QB 2012′ out of your computer and try to install a new version QB 2016′ – Intuit will block you from installing it – not only
will they block you from installing QB but if you buy Quicken or Turbo Tax they will also block the installation
of those programs also!!!!
The only way you can install QB in your Name and on you same computer is to either buy Intuit’s support
package at a minimum of $ 395 for a one time fix or purchase a new program under a different name and install it on a different computer!
I thought Monopolies in 1913′ were declared illegal !!!!!!!!
QuickBooks merchant services is scamming merchants who use them for credit card processing for thousands of dollars. the system they use is so flawed that multiple charges for hundreds and thousands of dollars are run at the almost exact same time totaling large amounts of money all while your bank account number is switched to one other then your own. These charges are then processed approved and sent to the unknown bank account almost immediately. Then reversed and the owner of the processing account is stuck with the fraud bill + chargeback fees. All of this is clearly stated as wont happen in the user agreement stating that any possibly fraud charges will be flagged and placed into a holding account until investigation has been preformed. But speaking from experience it does there are also hundreds of people with this same complaint and intuit gives no fraud prevention help investigation or anything along those lines. They even need a subpoena before they give you any information regarding your own account or the fraud that happened on it as well.
lets get a class action suit and get them out of business.
Intuit is a company that brings out products like QuickBooks online, then lets the users fix their problems. For free! They count on most users not being able to realize that they are spending unpaid hours to fix bugs in QB Online. And Intuit is right. Most users are not able to see through Intuit’s plan to use unpaid labor to design and improve their programs. Intuit ask users to help them, the user feels good about him or herself. Wow, Intuit needs my help, they think, not realizing that Intuit has the money to hire the best programmers on earth. Intuit wisely decides to not spend that money because it realizes that it can tap into a huge market of people who fix bugs for free: their own customers. On top of it, the customers also spend money buying the Intuit underdeveloped products. It’s like buying a table from a carpenter, the legs fall off within a week, instead of returning the product and asking for your money back, you start fixing the table in your own free time, and then call the carpenter and tell them how they can fix their future tables. That’s a great customer!
I have used and supported quickbooks since the Dos version 5.0 in 1993. and I also hate Intuit. I hat them for forcing me to upgrade to a newer version just so I can get payroll updates. they are making plenty of money on the payroll update itself. It is despicable what they do to force me to upgrade and even more than that the new versions always suck. when I upgraded to quickbooks 2013 pro, the invoice format had up to 40% blank white unusable space. I cannot fathom what reason any one programmer would have recommended such a change. idiocy. problem after problem after problem with each newer version. and you cannot call them for help. when you post their support page you are posting to “peers”. I am an IT consultant with 40 customers. I will be doing everything in my power to get my customers away from this crap.
We have used Quickbooks for our business since 2000. Payroll updates were 60.00, they are now 400.00. I logged on yesterday to find myself locked out . I contacted customer service who turned me over to technical support ( foreign accent). I had paid 400.00 in March for payroll updates. We updated to 2016 in May because they had sent messages to us telling us our 2013 would no longer work after May 31, 2016. When we tried to update we were not able to do it ourselves so we contacted support and 3 hours later it was downloaded. During this time the tech person was in our computer. All was well, so we thought. Yesterday we were asked if they could again get into our computer to see what the problem could be. He showed us on the screen that our files were contaiminated from the May download. we told him that Quickbooks were the ones who downloaded it. Two hours later we were told we needed to pay 499.99 for payroll download and upgrade and 499.99 for Quickbooks upgrade and download, technical support, data backup, data protection, and sync manager. He ended up charging us 1747.98 for 3 years by check only. No credit card . At this time we were getting suspicious if they were really with Quickbooks. We gave them all our checking info and authorized the withdrawal. In an hour our Quickbooks was unlocked and I was able to do payroll. Only God knows if they are a employee of QB. We have always paid the payroll upgrade but never theQuickbooks charge. He told us this would be a yearly charge which is why we paid the 3 years for the lessor amount. We are retiring soon and can’t wait to be rid of this blackmail circus. The check was made out to FewLogics Inc. They take advantage of their loyal customers. What else can you do when your whole business is in their hands?
I HATE INTUIT QUICKBOOKS! They are criminals who steal and lie to their customers.I have had numerous issues-including overcharging cc fees, charged for services that were cancelled, them holding my money and showing it released in their system but not deposited in my bank for another day someithimes 2 and thten blaming my bank for the delay. But this one -this one takes the cake- I attempted to charge a credit card and there was no indiction the charge had gone through so I ran it again. Still nothing. I thought that maybe their system was down so I put a pin in it and went about my business. Two days later I went back into the system and there was no charge so I ran it for the 3rd time and it showed up as a processed transaction. The next day, my client called to say her had been charged 3 times. I checked my system and there were now 3 charges.2 the first day and and one 2 days later. I promptly refunded my client for these erroneous charges. When I checked my back account I found that I was charged a $93 fee all 3 times the card was charged and $93 both times I refunded the account. I contacted Customer Diservice and after approx 30 mins on hold I finally connected to a rep. I explained the situation -he placed me on hold for eternity then came back and told me that there were time stamps showing the charges on each day. I again, calmly explained that there was not a completed transaction in the system which is why I ran the card again. There was not a a complted transaction 2 days later -so I ran the card again. He then asked if he could log onto my computer to check the time stamps. I declined. Thre was no reason for this as now the transactions were showing in the history with time stamps for the day and time I attempted to run them-except now they were showing as complted tranactions.Again, I explained the situation-asked him to try and see the logic in what I was saying. WHY would I charge my client 3 timesn if the charge went through. I am very familair with the system. I have used it for 2 years (regrettably) and run thousands of dollars in credit cards. Everytime -moments after running the card the transaction shows up in the system. He said there was nothing he could do -that they didnt collect the fees. By this time I was livid having spent almost and hour and a half with this jerk. I asked to speak to some one that could help me because I needed to get my $400+ back. I was placed on hold again for eternity and then a disresectful punk got on the line and asked me what the issues was. I was indignant and said Seriously? The other guy didnt tell you what the issue is? He said he did but I thought I would give you a chance to tell my “story”. I tiod him that I need to be refunded the fees that were stolen from my acount. That the issues was a problem with their system and I should not have to pay for their mistake. He then said that there was not issue with their system and it must have been my computer. I explained to him that I had one of my employees log in from another location and check to see if the transaction was there-(it was not) so I am certain it was not my computer issue and I asked him to check his audit log and he would see that there were 2 different logins that day at the same time from differnt locations- in the merchant account. I again said I wanted my money refunded to my account or I will cancel both of my accounts with Intuit. His reply was “We wont be refunding anything. Period. Would you like me to help you close your accounts?” I have never experienced such disgusting service in my life. I am moving my companies over to XERO. Check them out. I cannot believe that Intuit is allowed to keep operating in this manner. I just checked the BBB and these assholes have a A+ rating. WTF? I am filing a complaint and encourage EVERYONE to do the same. Thanks for letting me vent. and, one more thing, I HATE QUICKBOOKS!
I’ll be working just fine with quickbooks and all of a sudden out of nowhere it says “you can only deposit to bank or other assets type accounts” when I click on Recieve payments window. I’ve clicked this bunches of time before without issue and now… Quickbooks ALWAYS has some goofy thing go wrong with it forcing hours of manipulation or calls to service that costs more money and eventually, you have to restart the program, hope your recent data isn’t lost and your latest backup isn’t screwed up too. In the last year I’ve had to rebuild all of my data—ALL of it because QB screwed up again and non of my data salvageable. Needless to say it costs tens of thousands of $ and more time than anyone should ever have to spend. I hate quickbooks-it is the ultimate time steeler of business today. Before it, simple excel sheets and paper worked great and was actually easier, despite the millions of dollars we did in business.
Careful! Intuit Quickbooks is trying to force you to buy a new version without any real reason!!. I have used Quickbooks 2013 for years with no problems. I was forced to upgrade to a newer version supposedly because of we work with the new OS El Capitan when this is false, we have been working over the El Capitan since the beginning of this year and just now the Quickbooks crashed, at the same time we opened a new company under our current 2013 version and this new company is running perfectly, however when we ask to Quickbooks to help us to back up and transfer the data we had in the old company they refused to do it. We have been calling them for the last two weeks and we have tried to speak with a supervisor but they said the supervisor is busy every time we call wasting hours every time we call. By the way, when we bought this version the box said “Minimum System Configuration” not “ONLY SYSTEM CONFIGURATION”. I have tried to contact them by email and let them know by email about the situation but they don’t offer this option. In our opinion they should warn this before you buy their products.
I HATE QUICKBOOKS! I purchased QB Pro 2016 in Sept. Bought the desktop disk so I wouldn’t have to connected to the web, (don’t fancy the idea of them pilfering around my books when they feel like it as others I know have stated they do). Now, after simply installing it, I’m being charged $19.95 a month for a merchant account that accepts credit cards that I don’t even have. Called customer service and they said an application had to be filled out. Well, I can guarantee, no application was filled out as I am the ONLY person that uses this in MY business. When told this, Merchant services says ” we can cancel your subscription but it’s not our fault” and I took that as thanks for the months of money we just stole from you! Anyone with a better program please share! I think there are many of us out here looking.
I can’t understand why anyone still uses Q”anything”! It’s like you’re all masochists.
Do yourselves a favor. If you want a good, solid accounting system that has been around for years and is strong and reliable and not a POS like any of the “Q” offerings, look no further than Accountedge Pro. Search for it. Yes, it costs money – less than “Q” I’m sure, but it’s your business for heaven’s sake! I covers just about everything a small business could want.
If you want a good basic, robust system for no cost other than a donation if you want, then look no further than GnuCash.
Give “Q”everything the boot – it can’t come soon enough and give others a chance.
I hate Quickbooks. For those of us that must use it or have an accountant who uses it, here is what I do:
Mac – desktop
Virtualbox running a Windows 7 or Windows 10 desktop with *ONLY* quickbooks installed.
Patch the OS regularly, install Chrome so that your browser stays up to date and only use the VM for quickbooks.
Run whatever Quickbooks you have for years without having to pay the stupid tax for running QB.
QB will try damage control by commenting in the forums and replies, but they know what type of shady business practices they engage in and have weighed the risk of disgruntled users on the web. Damage control with shady business practices are more profitable than not screwing your user base.
Keep in mind – 95% of QB user base are small business owners who run their business and don’t spend much time on the web so they’ll never realize that QB is giving them the shaft.
I like how you started out QB, but you have strong disdain for your customers.
I wish you much loss and very little profit on your statement.
The best way to stop someone from using your credit card is simple. Call your credit card company and tell them your card was stolen. They will happily cancel it and issue you a new one. Going forward, always specify your card is NOT to be used on a recurring basis. If that means it’s a deal breaker, you don’t want to deal with that company.
We agree, Intuit and QuickBooks are MOST DEFINITELY NOT business friendly. Their greed and deceit will be their downfall.
Integrity and putting customers first goes a long way toward customer loyalty, not putting customers first goes a long way in the opposite direction. After an infuriating experience, we started looking around to see what other solutions were available for us and our future clients. So far, we have come across plenty of other excellent options from companies that appear to be honest and fair and value their customers.
There are open source applications available such as GnuCash – which with some of the money that everyone is getting gouged out of by Intuit could be developed into as good or a better open source solution than QBs. For small businesses that just need to invoice and track payments, check out: http://www.simpleinvoices.org/. Here’s a link to 10 Open Source Alternatives by PC world. https://www.pcworld.com/article/2047347/10-open-source-alternatives-for-small-business-software.html. Also, we came across freshbooks.com for businesses that use the cloud.
We used quickbooks in 1999-2001 to run an IT consulting business and we liked it. We recently went back to IT consulting…as fate would have it, one of the first clients had a problem with a PC running quickbooks 2009. The Windows OS got corrupted and could not be recovered. The PC needed to be reloaded. By the time they found us and we worked through the situation, they were down for 5 months with no way to bill clients or reconcile accounts. About half of the down time was due to quickbooks data recovery and restore issues.
We sourced and ordered a new sealed 2009 copy of QB because that is what our client wanted to run. After pulling the hard drive and recovering data we contacted Intuit for assistance. They wanted to route us to a tech and charge $199 for a one time incident to recover QB files. We figured it out with a Google search in about 30 minutes.
One misleading mistake we made, was registering the new unopened version of QB2009 during the install to our client, after reloading the PC and copying QB files back to test QBB recovery. While formally restoring all files and reconstructing their data to put the PC back in production, we found a text file with their original QB s/n and used it to rebuild their PC with their original version of QB2009.
Being that we were just getting our business re-started, we decided it would make sense to use the new QB2009 version that we purchased. It turned out our client did not need it. The new QB2009 had been installed and registered to our client for one day. We installed it on one of our Windows PCs, built our chart of accounts and used it to invoice our client. During the installation, it said we had 30 days to register. We found a reference online that said we could transfer the license for $25, which seemed reasonable.
We entered our summary and transfer request to Intuit. One of the reps from India eventually called a couple of weeks later. We were told our transfer request was declined. Then he tried to charge us $300 for a three year subscription. We told him that was unacceptable, he kept telling us we needed to pay for a three year subscription. We did not have to pay for that when we registered the $140 unopened copy of QB2009 for our client! He hung up on us when we declined to pay the $300 Intuit toll, without offering any other options.
Now, the 30 days is long past, and we cannot open our QB files to do business. Trying to force customers to pay is unacceptable and people need to be aware of how Intuit treats people using Intuit software…Our business will grow and we likely would have upgraded to a newer QB version and possibly a higher service level…not now and likely not ever. There are other good options available. What a shame for a nominal licensing issue on an 8 year old piece of software and a once satisfied QB customer.
Intuit…you are not the only game in town, and if you want continue to treat businesses and customers like this, you will continue to lose market share and customer loyalty. Note to Intuit support staff – notice we did not just rant about poor customer service…we suggested solutions to help people. We’re not about helping ourselves to people’s finances, we deliver quality services and solid customer experiences. We prefer to build lasting relationships. In doing so, the income and cash flow takes care of itself from our loyal trusted clients.
Find an old copy of Peachtree (with the registration number, serial number and company i.d. otherwise it won’t work). Then never…never…never try and “update” it…not even once. It will be rock solid. Another alternative is Gnucash although it’s lacking some features. Finally, if you need something new then get Sage 50 or something in the Sage family. It will cost you be it’s rock solid.
I want to add my voice here for the record. I received multiple sales calls and told them I couldn’t afford their product at $50 per month plus a second company, another $50 / month. Then, one day I get a sales call that offers me the product for $34 instead of the $100 per month. I asked all the questions and required a re-statement of the terms, two company files including classes. No problem, says she. I spend a week importing and working the program and decide there are no classes. I call customer service and he tells me what can be done. I hang up thinking he is going to activate the class option. I ask for an email confirmation but it doesn’t show. I call again a week later and the dude knows nothing of what I am saying and quotes my price of $82 per month. I won’t pay that just to move online. (I already have the 2015 desktop version). I accuse Intuit of being crooks, that only they are in control and could stop these dishonest sales gimmicks if they wanted. I think they need a good healthy class action suit.
Extortion. Quick books is holding my info which has been “locked out “ and if I pay them $1500.00 I will be updated with the new version???? I just payed $500.00 last year for the same problem. I’m not doing this anymore they can kiss my ass I’ll find another way !
I would have to agree that Intuit is a GANGSTER Corporation. I’ve been using QB pro for Mac since the early 2000’s. My current copy (QBpro 2009 for Mac) was working fine(except for a few issues with Sale Tax payables in multiple states) up until Nov of last year. Then one day I tried to enter an invoice and a dialog box pops up and says “Your Company File is Locked, contact Intuit support”. I immediately called and was told that I needed to upgrade before they could help me. I forked out $200 and paid for the upgrade to the most current version of QB that would run on my Mac (QB2012). I downloaded the software from the link they provided me, attempted to convert the old file, but it was still locked…this time because I entered an invalid lic and product number. It appears that I purchased a license for 2016, not 2012. When I called back and asked for a lic and product code to unlock my 2012 download…I was told they couldn’t provide one because Intuit no longer supports the 2012 product!!! (Incredible) Now my only option was to “upgrade” to QB online…at $50 a month into perpetuity or to purchase a new computer with an OS capable of running their 2016 version of QB. Sorry Intuit…I don’t have a spare $3500 for a new computer to run your $200 software. So how convenient for Intuit. I am a small business owner who CAN’T AFFORD to spend $600 a year on accounting software…not when I used to spend $200 every 5+ years. Now I understand how tech companies are raking in BILLIONS in profit…by ripping people off (especially small businesses). But WAIT! It get’s worse. The sales rep states they will refund my $200 and then charge my account for the QB on line subscription. They charge my account and I try and submit my company file to be converted. Of course…they can’t convert it. Actually, they couldn’t even get my company file uploaded…it took 4 hrs on the phone (after being disconnected twice) for them to discover they couldn’t get the email link to work in order for me to upload the file for conversion. Two days later after several calls and hrs on the phone they manage to get the link emailed to me, and we transfer the file. WHOOPS! They can’t get the file to convert. Back to their data specialist team to try and “fix” the file. A week goes by and no word. Then I get a series of emails and missed calls that they can’t get into the file…they need the password (which I provided to them when I submitted the file a week prior). I call them back up and give them the password. Several more days pass and now I get an email and a phone message to contact them again. It appears they can’t unlock the file and do I have another copy of the company file they can try and open? It’s been over three weeks…they have yet to refund my $200, they have charged me for a subscription that I can’t use….and most importantly….I am STILL locked out of my business. Judy Estrin, a very good client of mine used to sit on the board of Intuit….maybe I need to call her and see if she can help…because it’s obvious to me that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. Intuit is a Gangster Corp out to steal your money. EOR!
Scam artists is an understatement. Intuit scammed me twice this month which I am not proud of and you have to be pretty sneaky to get one over on me! I purchased QB PRO 2018, on the box it gives the illusion that the purchase I made would cover all areas of my small business accounting needs, including payroll. They do not bother to announce you cannot use payroll without spending an additional $184.00. When you install the software, it requires you enter a credit card # or it will not install. Once you have opened the software, you cannot return it to the store so you are left with no other choice but to do as they say and enter cc info. Then, they proceed to charge your cc as they see fit and they do it without any type of warning whatsoever! Need to run a PR report…they hit you for another $2.00. Oh, and when I called I was informed this $184.00 would be an ANNUAL fee. Please understand, this is just so I can use the integrated payroll module that already existed in the software I purchased for $300.00. I am not even processing payroll electronically or getting outside assistance from them. I was doing the entire process myself and I still have to pay.
When I did taxes this month at Turbo Tax online, it said I could file Federal for free and pay only 29.99 for state. After spending hours upon hours inputting all of my tax information it then tells me I have to pay 144.00 plus tax to print out my taxes for mailing. So, of course, being a busy person I don’t have time to start all over again so I let them strong arm me out of another 153.00. Disgusting business practices – deceptive business practices. WOW, why are they allowed to get away with this?
I agree with you Quickbooks 2009 is the absolute worst. I too was using the previous version work was going smoothly but the upgrade made the worst thing.
I wish I didn’t agree with ALL the negativities of Quickbooks posted by users for the last ten years. But I do! I started using quickbooks when it was just a baby program in the 90’s, one version and it cost $99.00. Very reasonable for small business. Now too many dollars in upgrades later: I’m over Quickbooks! We will soon be in the market for a new computer. Of course we can’t transfer the program because Quick (sand) books will not miss an opportunity to make the extra dollars. If I bought the program and change computers: I should not be forced to buy all of the programs I use again along with the expense of a new computer. Small business is hard enough without this kind of headaches.
Recently there was a ‘upgrade’ and since we have had NOTHING BUT TROUBLE! Of course Quickbooks wants to be paid to help resolve it. Actually they wanted me to upgrade. Which, if I could move the program to my new computer I would have done it. But alas they can not miss an opportunity to rake in the dollars. It’s very sad that they have devolved to this level. It looks like our long and mostly happy relationship is about to end. Sigh.
Interesting points but I do not agree absolutely. I’ve been using QuickBooks online and desktop for many years now with all types of businesses big or small as well. I do think that QB is the best app out there for number of reasons. Lately I’ve been working with people from construction and renovation fields and I do agree with all points here: https://hammerzen.com/9-reasons-why-contractors-prefer-intuit-quick-books/
Extortion. Quick books is holding my info which has been “locked out “ and if I pay them $1500.00 I will be updated with the new version???? I just payed $500.00 last year for the same problem. I’m not doing this anymore they can kiss my ass I’ll find another way !
Thank you for a place to vent! Just finished taxes for 2018. You nailed it: they use extortion and trickery instead of quality product and customer service. I wish there was a viable competitor! They don’t even have the decency to give you mailing instructions if you choose to not pay for state e-file. I formerly used TaxAct, and they were the opposite – great service and fair pricing. No gimmicks. Unfortunately, they don’t have all the features I need.
I don’t understand how legally a company can remove critical features from a product which I paid for. I understand if they stop supporting older versions, but they sold the product (Quickbooks desktop) with certain features. How can they legally remove the features, I paid for the product with those features in it (importing banking transactions for example). I assume they had this in their fine print that they can disable features at any time for any reason to force us to upgrade? Sounds like some lawyers need to look at this.
This blog may be too old but i agree that Intuit/Quickbooks is doing something not good on their service and part of the program is a racketing wherein they sell you their perpetual product then after 3 years it would expire and you cannot use it anymore, conversion or migration is always a problem unless they earn from you. It’s all about profiteering for them. Bad company. Our management now is thinking of changing to another accounting program because of this. Guys, don’t be fooled by Intuit.
I hate Intuit too. I am an IT professional and one of my client’s hard drives crashed so the QB program files were lost but not the data. I had to restore their QuickBooks on a different computer but don’t have the license no or product no. This client has been using QBs since at least 2006 and Intuit just charged them within the last month for another year of Payroll yet Intuit claims they cannot find their account so they won’t give me the license number so I can’t set up the computer and the client’s business cannot function. Does anyone know of an open source alternative to QuickBooks? Intuit has wasted days of my time already. I demanded a refund for my client but suddenly the line dropped. These people are crooks..
I have been using QuickBooks for about 15 years. I think it is mediocre to bad as basic accounting software. It is often infuriating in the way it frustrates getting common tasks done because of its really stupid database design and/or user interface. I despise Intuit for its consistently patronizing, deceptive, and insulting BS in service of its clear strategy to establish and extend its lock-in on small business, along with nickel-and-dime upcharges for trivial extras. Their so-called support is non-existent, except when it comes to extracting ever-increasing annual license fees. The morass of “community” forums is nearly always useless. They have recently started a forced migration to their “cloud” service, the better to tighten the lock-in and to snarf-up your private and proprietary financial data for their monetization and in-app ad spamming. You need my Driver’s License for that? WTF???
QB is FINALLY being looked into by the government. I hope that Intuit goes under and gets what they deserve. QB IS JUST ONE OF THE WORST SOFTWARE PRODUCTS ALONG WITH ALL OF THE REST SOFTWARE THEY HAVE LOCKED TOGETHER.
QB DOES NOT FIX THEIR PROBLEMS , THEY DO WASTE YOUR TIME, THEY DO SUCK YOUR MONEY, IT USUALLY DOES WHAT I NEED BUT THE DOS VERSION 30 YEARS AGO DID IT JUST AS WELL AND MUCH FASTER. THEY LIE TO MAKE SALES, THEIR SUPPORT STINKS BUT IS TRAINED WELL TO SELL SELL SELL WORTHLESS FEATURES.
I happen to love quickbooks software and love to use it in my small business. However, i was scammed by their live bookkeeper program. I initially became certified because I thought it would help me attract clients (it did) and I wanted to increase my expertise. During the bootcamps Intuit organizes to help pass the exams, they really push the “live bookkeeper” program and have you jump through all kind of hoops to attain the dream. First it was “get ProAdvisor and advanced ProAdvisor if you don’t have at least 3 years managing a company and doing their books”. I earned those certifications and passed both exams on the first try. Then they say you have to earn a professional bookkeeping certification through Coursera and you’ll have all the skills to become a live bookkeeper, the best job in the world! Well, I breezed through the course, which I loved actually, earned the cert and then applied. The first surprise was when they emailed me that they will send my profile to a recruiter. So, they don’t hire you like they lead you to believe. They sell your info to a recruiter. The recruiter totally misled me about this virtual interview, saying it’s super mellow and they just want you to get comfortable with the process, but my chances were excellent. Well the interview was horrible! Especially the parts where you counsel a fake customer about some pretty complicated accounting issues, mostly about PayPal, that were never even covered in all the training I took. It would have been ok if they gave you time to work through the accounting equation, but you have 2 to 4 minutes to figure it out per question and then you just get timed out. It was devastating. Then I get the “we have everyone we need for the year, but good wishes for your career”. I was so crushed. I just laid on my bed and cried for 2 days. I spent 3 years, put in hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars to achieve the goal, and it was over after one virtual interview, not even real people. Meanwhile, I keep getting emails to apply and go through it all again, so apparently they don’t have everyone they need for the year. Scam, scam, scam! I did gain alot of knowledge and I’m more confident in my business, but I am still not over the terrible way I was treated and ripped off by Intuit and their live bookkeeper program.
Amazingly, this thread is as relevant today is it was in 2009.