Before deciding which (if any) TT product I would try to use,
I checked out the 1 and 2 star ratings to see what people complain about.
Mostly it was about surprise costs after they had started for free
without reading the fine print. Now I see that it's no surprise
that they didn't read the fine print. I found it only after scouring
the pages for an hour and finally wondering "what's that asterisk?"
on the pricing page (https://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-taxes/online/).
It's next to the "$0", which is not an option that would apply
to me and 63% of people in general. It leads to "More important offer
details and disclosures". The best interpretation of that is
"details and disclosures that are more important than what is loudly
printed above here." It turns out it's a link to all of the pricing
and guarantee details that I had been looking for! Not just the truly
free filing option, but pages and pages of description of other products.
So TT is either incompetent (putting important information in a place
where most people won't find it easily because it's mislabeled)
or deceptive (getting people started entering information and then hoping
that they don't mind when they find out it will cost them $100 or more).
If TT is trying to get people to use the online software,
then it completely failed in my case. When I've bought the CD
I've gotten what I expected and didn't have to stumble across
a mislabeled "*" to learn about the actual cost and guarantees.
But I'll constantly wonder "How is TT deceiving me?"
