My involvement with the Tax Club began after I signed up with Meridian Consulting Online. I can honestly say I have never dealt with a more unethical company in my life. No one at the Tax Club knows the meaning of the words Total Disclosure. I feel that this company takes advantage of first-time business owners and rips them off big time! The environment at the Tax Club is one of high-pressure sales and deception. They specialize in selling you products that are way overpriced and that you don’t need. These guys already have your financial information, credit card numbers etc. that you used in a previous transaction. In fact the first thing they ask you is HOW IS YOUR CREDIT? Is it good or bad? Even if you tell them you don’t think you have enough room on a card for the transaction, the usual response is, “let’s just see if it will go through”, and zing they run your card. It is obvious that, since they already have your credit card numbers, they are all setup in there computer and the transaction is ready to run before they even call you! Very high pressure sales, and no one there is really interested in helping you, they just want to get to the Credit Card!!
I signed with Meridian Consulting Online, and later that evening I received a call from Joe with the Tax Club. These guys come on very slick telling you that the Tax Club is a rock solid company, has been around for X number of years and is on the 50th floor of the Empire State Building. They stress very strongly that the TAX CLUB is the ONLY organization ON THIS PLANET that can help you set up a successful business. Joe M proceeded to tell me about all the great benefits of doing business with the Tax Club and all the services that would be provide for me by SUCCESS ONLINE and MY ESSENTIAL PLANS. These included: (1) A 35–40 page Business plan, EIDN #, Executive Summary, Web Site, Drop shippers, and Financial Highlights; (2) A Sales Forecast, Year 1 Financial Highlights, Break Even Analysis, Year 1 Income Statement; (3) Year 1 Statement of Cash Flow, Predicted 5 Year Financial, Profit and Loss Statements, Balance Statements; (4) Marketing Plan, Google Add Words, Google Analytics’, Social Networking, Conversion Optimization, and Conversion Funnel. Of course this would all include Corporate setup, Lifetime Business Plan Revisions, Unlimited Consulting, and Product Power Target Market Analysis Report. During this whole presentation I was wondering HOW MUCH IS IT GOING TO COST! The figure he gave me was $5490.00. Not at any time did Joe say it was going to cost me any additional funds to have a complete business set up for me, sounded good, and as it turned out TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. Then I was set-up for my weekly “coaching calls”. I was also told I could call at any time and ask the coaching staff questions, this turned out to be a lie as well. Every time I called I was told I couldn’t speak with a member of the staff because it was not my scheduled appointment day. Also the Tax Club only operates on their schedule and has no regard for anyone else. Of course the Tax Club is based in New York, Eastern Time. If you ask them to call you at a certain time, there is after all a 3 hour difference between New York and California, to make it easier for you to take the call; they persist in calling when it is convenient for then without any concern for you.
Then it’s time for my first coaching call. This time it is Allen M on the call, I did not know it at the time, but Allen was not a coach…he is a salesman! In fact I never got to speak with a program coach; all I ever spoke to was the sales staff. Allen then proceeded to start telling me I would definitely need full service bookkeeping services provided by ALL ACCESS BOOKS and SMALL BUISNESS CREDIT. The services advertised were: Credit card statements, Bank statements, Cash receipts—if applicable, Balance & Loss, Access to ALL ACCESS BOOKS website, Book keeping once a month, Quarterly filing of sales tax, Corporate branding (by iKONGO), and yearly Corporate Tax Return Filing. Total cost—$8585.00, with $90.00 reoccurring charge every 90 days. This is all included for the life of the company of course.
This cycle of calls just goes on and on every week it’s just another salesman selling you a new product, never any real coaching. Then the next call is for website TRUST SHIELD, and a MERCHANT ACCOUNT. Then comes the website cost, initially $4000.00, and then when I said I couldn’t afford that, it was miraculously discounted to $1997.00. Next was website design and business cards by iKONGO, cost–$895.00, and Small Business Credit. Finally the last call was for the website marketing plan, and I didn’t even have a website setup yet! The cost—$4000.00!! That’s when I pulled the plug. Grand Total they got from me is 17,861.00!!
This all started on February 23th 2012 and I terminated services on March 28 2012, that’s only 34 days. Now when the Tax Club is getting money from you everything is peaches and cream, however, when the money stops flowing all of a sudden they don’t want to talk to you anymore, and heaven forbid you do the unthinkable and CANCLE! Then I get the call from Christi in the cancelation department. She proceeded to leave me a message in a condescending tone that my requests have been received. When I returned her call I asked when I would be getting my refund, and I was past the 15 day deadline to receive a refund minus 15%. I listened in amazement as Christi told me, in the same condescending tone; I would not get a refund on most of the products because they had “performed services for me”! My response was, “what services, my account has only been active for 34 days”! Yes I did receive the Product Power report, a canned document that contained very general information which is readily available on the internet, and my EIDN # which I can get from the IRS for free. I did also receive the corporate formation documents, just copies of the documents available on the state site, again available to the public for free. I was sent a business card design from IKONGO, but it was very basic. I was also told WEBSITE PROGRAMING had been performed. I asked how that could have happened without any input from me the customer…ME! I had not filled out the questionnaire for iKONGO for this purpose, because I HAD NOT DECIDEDED WHAT PRODUCTS I WOULD BE SELLING YET!! A web designer needs to know that before Fonts, Colors and such can be chosen for website design. I was to get a partial refund only; I did meet the 15 day deadline on only a few products: those amounts were $ 590.15, $1697.45, and $1100.75. I was sent the refund request statements specifying these amounts, I signed and returned them all, but did not get the refund they promised me. I only received a check for $950.75 and my credit card was reimbursed $1000.00 and that is all!! As I stated above they did send me the Product Power and the Corporate Documents, and business card design to review, but the Tax Club ABSOLUTLY DID NOT PERFORM $15,910.25 dollars’ worth of services to me in 34 days!!!!!!!!! They didn’t even do a tax return for me! I had not incorporated yet, and there were no expenses to enter in bookkeeping either. Over the course of 34 days all the TAX CLUB did was take money from me and all I received in the process was grief, high pressure sales tactics, and a condescending attitude. My strong advice to anyone who might read this is to STAY AWAY FROM THE TAX CLUB. There are many reputable organizations out there to help you start a business; you do not need the Tax Club!!!!
Best Regards, Have a good day
