PatentlyStupid

Ok here is the skinny on the H & R Block Visa card and the problems we had.

Through their online tax program ( TaxCut ) H & R Block is offering free efile service this year, IF you are willing to take your federal tax refund as a prepaid Visa card. The deal sounds pretty good if you read up on it here;

http://www.hrblock.com/cards/faqs/faqs_prepaid_visa_cards.html

The problem is, some of the faq's listed are totally incorrect. Here is what we have found out.

http://www.hrblock.com/cards/faqs/popups/prepaid_card_qa_2.html

The above page states you will get your card in "about five days after the IRS accepts your e-filed return". Wrong! They shipped the card more than 5 days after our return was accepted. I efiled on the

http://www.hrblock.com/cards/faqs/popups/prepaid_card_qa_6.html

That page states "If Married Filing Jointly, you'll receive one card for an account in the names of both spouses."
Wrong! You will receive one card in the name of the primary person on your return. So if for example you (the breadwinner) wanted to give your spouse the card to use, you're out of luck because their name wont even be on the card.

What was even more infuriating than these discrepancies was the fact that at the 5 day mark we called H & R block to find out where our card was. After 5 phone calls to different numbers, 1 chat session with their online help totaling all that into over 3 hours of wasted time between my wife and I and not one of them could give us a solid or truthful answer outside of "well it seems these are taking longer to send out than we thought, they have now updated the time window to 5-7 days". So we waited.

At 7 days out we contacted them again. This time after an hour on the phone my wife was told that they were still having shipping issues and that it could take 7-10 days! She told my wife the card had shipped, from Chicago, the day after our taxes were accepted by the IRS which would have been 01/26/06. Mind you if we had done our taxes at H & R Block they would have given us the card in the office and deposited the refund after they got it from the IRS. They also told my wife that they could not issue her a card at the local office to expedite the process. They also according to my wife had a very mater of fact, cavalier, tough luck Charlie attitude about the whole thing.

After hearing all of this I called them. This was the first time someone actually gave us what we thought sounded like honest answers. Jeff, the gentleman I spoke with apologized and after digging through the account for several minutes told me that the card had been shipped on the 31st (5 days after IRS acceptance of our taxes) and that we should be getting it any time now.

The card finally arrived on 02/03/06, 10 days after the IRS accepted our efile of the taxes.

So bottom line, you can get the card, and indeed file for free but be aware that the sweet terms they are offering on their web site may vary from the reality you get.

This entry was posted on Sat, 2006-02-04 02:23 and is filed under .

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