Forced use of Credit Karma

[TaxesGettingHarder]

@xmasbaby0 It's not as simple as "do not accept the loan".

The process(after spending hours doing your taxes and being exhausted) TRICKS YOU into taking it as a loan.

1. The website UI begins the refund and asks you to sign into credit karma for no reason(which I thought was weird, but I did).

2. Then it asks you to confirm your mailing address.

3. SURPRISE! You have signed up for a credit card with credit karma.

And to this day they still won't let me close the credit card.

As someone who used TurboTax since 2012, I will NEVER do business with you guys again, and I have warned everyone I know about your shady business practices. I also hope a class action lawsuit puts you out of business.

You don't mess with people's credit history. You just don't do it.

[Stephen Solari]

It's true that you are not "forced."  However the site navigation makes it tricky to avoid being led into using Credit Karma.  The whole point of paying to use a tax-filing app is to make things easier.  One can always fill out the forms for no cost.  Turbotax is supposed to make things easier, not more difficult.

[Khale99]

These people are f*** scammers. Made me open a credit karma spend account to file taxes. Taxes get accepted and these stupid piece of craps CLOSED MY **bleep** ACCOUNT 

[BehavinLikasaint]

I don't consider it "optional" if the only choice available is to click on getting a spend account at Credit Karma. It wouldn't allow me to choose what I wanted....a direct deposit. The only way to get my refund was to choose to sign up for Crefit Karma. It says to make the couch but the button to choose direct deposit just loops....again and again. So maybe it's a "glitch" but it feels more like a forced decision to have to sign up with Credit Karma or sit there on an endless loop. 

[DoninGA]

@BehavinLikasaint There are other options in the File section on Step 2 for how you want to receive a tax refund.

[TiffanyL]

@BehavinLikasaint 

Have you already e-filed your return? Might this have been for the Refund Advance Loan? If that was or is the case, the only way to receive the Refund Advance Loan is through a Credit karma Money Spend (checking) account. 

However, if you do not want to deal with the terms of the loan, then you do not have to accept the loan. You would just file your tax return when e-filing opens and receive your refund into your preferred bank account when the IRS issues it.

[BehavinLikasaint]

Nope. I didn't want that but was forced to sign up for it because putting in my info for a direct deposit to my bank just went into an endless loop. So after already taking 2 hrs filing I didn't want to have to figure out how to go around the endless loop game of not being able to put in my bank info so forcibly chose Credit Karma to end the endless loop. Low and behold after signing up with Crefit Karma....I can link my bank account there. Feels fishy...feels forced....not something I wanted to do and the trust factor for TurboTax went way down when I googled for answers and saw the takeover news. Hmm. 

[BehavinLikasaint]

Ticking direct deposit send you on an endless loop. Either sit there endlessly or tick sign up for credit karma spend crud. So forced is what is felt from this end.

[Hercomlawsu]

This reply is for the supposed TurboTax specialist you are forced to use credit karma if you want your rapid advance and then if they turn you down credit karma still has you on the hook for the money because they're going to put it in there and you can't amend it you guys are going to have a huge lawsuit trust me I have nothing but federal court judges and just attorneys in my family and I'm going to sue the s*** out of you

[KatrinaLO]

@Hercomlawsu 

If you don't qualify for the Refund Advance, after selecting that method of payment, the refund will automatically go to your Credit Karma account.

[papa006]

After many years of using TurboTax, I switched for 2021 because I was so annoyed at the persistent cross sell push for Credit Karma while I was trying to do my taxes...must have been a dozen times it kept popping up. I was now thinking of switching back to TurboTax for 2022 taxes in hopes that the invasive and annoying Credit Karma push was in the past.

Now I see that intuit doubled down on their mistake by being even more aggressive with their Credit Karma fixation.

No thank you, and goodby once more.

Dan J

[Loomistax20]

At the completion of the tax information, it appears that "joining" something called Credit Karma is necessary.  One dares not go forward or backward as there has been no confirmation of receipt of the information one has so carefully entered.  This arrangement is misleading, to say the least.  Deceptive might be a better term..  Then, following the instructions on the Credit Karma website "to cancel your membership," one is simply routed around to the beginning of "how to cancel your membership."  A session with the Chat person was useless as Raul could not find my information.  

Such a good service -- such a disappointing ending.

HOW DO I CANCEL A MEMBERSHIP I DID NOT WANT?

[HeatherPLO]

Please try to reach back out to Credit Karma directly for this matter.  You can reach out via their Contact Us page.  From there, you can submit a ticket or request live assistance.  

@Loomistax20 

[edited 2/23/23 2:22 PM CST]

[papa006]

You misunderstood. I, and many friends and family, stopped using TurboTax because of the fixation on Credit Karma. 2 years ago while I was trying to do my taxes on the extremely user-friendly and excellent TurboTax software I had used for years, I was frequently interrupted and distracted by the barrage of Credit Karma ads. So last year I did not use TurboTax.  This year I was thinking about going back to TurboTax since I find it better sans the Credit karma force-feeding.  When I went online to see what was happening it was obvious that Intuit went in the wrong direction and instead of constant ads tried to trick people into signing up with Credit Karma for tracking their returns and refunds.  Doing so had always been simple with TurboTax. Why would any of your users need an outside vendor for that?

[quinn1376]

The response here from Intuit is wholly unacceptable, they claim that there is no requirement to enroll with Credit Karma in order to track the status of your tax return but that is clearly not the case. I had thought I had completed my tax return but when the page loaded, the following notification appeared in the upper-right hand corner:

"Joanna, only 15 mins left to go! You're so close to finishing your taxes! Pick back up where you left off."

This notification clearly states that my tax return is not complete, it claims that I am "so close to finishing." I can't click on this notification and it's not clear what needs to be done in order to complete filing my tax return. While searching the internet to figure out what to do next I've found this post, which claims I do not have to enroll with Credit Karma. It seems like my only move is to anxiously wait for my taxes to move out of the "pending" state and hope for the best as I have absolutely no interest in linking my taxes with Credit Karma.

Inflicting this kind of stress on people who have already paid for your product is unconscionable.