I bought a copy of Turbotax desktop version from a 3rd party online vendor. I downloaded it and activated it with the supplied activation code. I entered my income tax details and tried to file my taxes. I could not get to the screen where you enter your credit card to pay for filing the state tax return. I contacted Intuit and the 1st level support person (who was very patient) tried several things which did not solve the problem. She contacted their 2nd level support. That person immediately asked me for my activation code. He said this activation code was on a list of bogus activation codes. Apparently, the software vendor was reusing these codes. The code works to activate the program but not for anything else. I then contacted the software vendor's support and got a different activation code and replaced the one I was using. I was then able to file my state tax return after entering my credit card to pay Intuit the $25 fee. Note: had I not gotten a new activation code, I would still have been able to file my federal return since it is free. If I hadn't gotten help from the software vendor, I was preparing to print out my state tax return and mail it in. Beware of purchasing Turbotax from a 3rd party vendor, especially one that seems to be selling it very cheap. Also, I hope that Intuit informs their 1st level support people with the solution to this problem.
