Upon seeing their commercial on Fox News in August 2010 I called Associated Tax Relief (ATR) for an initial consultation. Previously I worked with a better known competitor JK Harris. I was not certain Harris had given me accurate information so on a whim I called ATR for a second opinion. Their rep (aka salesman) Bob Larsen asked me to provide basic documentation, which after several phone calls and e-mail exchanges Larsen informed me Harris was wrong, that I did qualify for an Offer in Compromise with the IRS. Larsen did a great job selling himself and ATR as a company that is above the criticism and complaints common to this industry. Larsen presented me with their agreement, took my $4, 900 payment and immediately became unavailable. After convincing me he was someone important ("I have access to every e-mail account in the company), I realized he didn't even have an e-mail account; and in fact, once they collected my money he would have no further contact with any client.

Long story short . . . ATR has only ONE enrolled agent and a client NEVER gets to speak with him. You do however get to speak with people who don't know the answers to anything, always need to place you on hold to speak to the enrolled agent and then give you conflicting or outright incorrect information. Their technology infrastructure is poor at best. Incoming calls go into voice mail more often than not, and frequently their mailbox is full and cannot accept messages. Their phone system frequently prompts you to dial a person's extension, but none are published. When dialing by the person's name you are informed that no such person exists. Incoming client e-mails seemingly don't get read, and the excuse is that your transmission exceeded their incoming message size limit. Funny how you never receive a rejection message. On one occasion I e-mailed requested documentation and when I received no response I followed up a week later only to be told the office manage (Michelle Silver) was on personal family leave. The girl I spoke with supposedly went into Silver's inbox, forwarded the e-mails to the enrolled agent (Bich Ngyuen) but three weeks later when I still received zero response had to speak with Silver, who insisted I had to have misunderstood Alvarez because she checked and no such e-mails were ever received.

Now, the best part! Despite being notified I would be on vacation the last two weeks of the year, and specifically requesting any communication be by e-mail, on 12/21 ATR mailed me a letter stating I WAS NOT eligible for an OIC! What a friggin joke this company is! But shame on me. The fault is mine and mine alone. I did not know about Complaints Board at the time and failed to check the BBB. Very quickly I realized I was scammed. ATR is not a member of the BBB, but their rating is "F". Of 145 complaints filed ATR failed to even respond to 122 complaints. The BBB also addresses their concerns about false advertising. View the full report at: http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Report/Associated-Tax-Relief-Inc-100038643

Their website is now listed as "under construction". Go figure. Destruction would be a far better idea.

LET THE BUYER BEWARE!