I went to h&r block with my father, and the lady who did our taxes recomended that emerald mastercard, said they money would be there quicker, said money would be on there by the 3/25/11, i called the number on the back of the card and the accnt balace was zero. talked with a operator and she said that it wont be there till sometime in april.. i asked if there was some way to get it sooner only to get a phone number, , i am so fucking fed up with these piece of shit people who call themselves professionals they can even get ther shit straight, i had already mad plans for the money i thought was goning to be here, but now to go and borrow money so i wont fall behind, i wish i could complain on their website, fucking idiots...

I went last week to do my taxes and they told me that the cash back did not start until the 16th of febuary which was fine but now the 16th has come and gone and they are saying that the cheque printer is broken and they have no Idea when it will be fixed and that they hope they have not caused a inconvience to me, but they are not giving any of us waiting on the service they promised a break in the fees I find that very unfair to the public for a business to state that they will deliver a product on a certian date and not deliver without some kind of compensation to the consumers. They have been very snotty on the phone with a bunch of us as I have friends that have done their taxes there also and if they havent fixed the problem in one working day dont you think that they should maybe get a new machine because cheques is their business and it is improper to promise a product if they cant deliver it.

We used their emerald advance line of credit and when our refund came in we paid it off before 2/15/10 and was charged another finance charge. I tried to dispute this but they said it took 4days to post to our acct but cleared the bank before the due date. They would not help us and refused to take the charge off, so i will not use them again they are rip offs.

I went to H&R Block for the early loan at Christmas and was approved for a $900.00 loan. Before I took the loan I asked my preparer how and if I could reserve some of the loan for my payments. She replied yes. I asked her how much could be reserved and she told me as much as I wanted of the $900.00 could be reserved and could only be taken out of reserve by me calling and having it transferred to available credit. Ok, so I reserved $100.00 for the use of making my payments. Well when I called to make the transfer, the money was not there.

I've been reading the articles complaining about HR Block's Refund Anticipation Loans (RALs) and the allegation that they target low income tax payers, those that receive EITC. I worked one season at Block many years ago and "sold" many RAL's to customers. I can personally attest to the following:

1) We were never told to target anyone or any group.

2) We were told to offer the RAL to everyone receiving a refund.

3) We always explained that it was a loan that would be paid off by the refund - one of the papers was the loan app, another was the authorization for the IRS to pay the loan off (I think it was a direct deposit to the loan account).

4) We, at least I, always explained the the fees associated with the RAL, how much their refund should be, and how much they would be getting back.

5) It was the customer's option whether to pay for the preparation fees from the refund via the RAL. They could have paid for the preparation by any means.

6) Some of the low income people I served probably would not understand adjusting withholding; probably not trust changing the amount to have more during the year; and probably not change it if they thought it would reduce their IRS refund. I really don't think many of them understood what was going on.

We sold the RALs with all information up front, we are not the low income people's keepers, it is their responsibility to make decisions, we informed them of the facts, nobody twisted their arms. How far will society go to protect people from themselves?
I also have this to say...

The group of people these articles say were victimized may very well have been desperate for money, so much so that the difference between the 2 day RAL and the 4 to 6 weeks for the check was going to make real difference to them. The 2 week direct deposit was NOT an option for many of these customers as they often did not have a bank account, as odd as that sounds. Also, these are people who are used to cashing checks at check cashing businesses which charge outrageous fees, so HRB's RAL rate was probably not unusual.

As for the high rates, they probably could be lowered, but there is a probably small risk with RALs, such as the IRS have court-ordered withholding for child support or other reason. Again, such actions are probably taken against low-income people more often than not.

There is cause and effect here, but I believe that the low-income people are not being victimized by HRB, at least not any more than any other business. If the government wants to help raise people out of poverty, then create jobs for them, lower their tax liability, etc.