H&R Block Rip Off On the Emerald Advance, they will sucker you in and you will owe big time! Mesa Arizona

HR Block employees have nothing to gain in processing the Advanced Line of Credit. They receive no additional compensation for processing the loan, whether it is approved or denied. They have no goals regarding these loans or any loans. They do have some incentive in that an applicant is a possible future client for a tax return, but he or she certainly would not relish having a client whose refund did not cover the Advanced Loan that he or she had processed.

It is surely possible that an employee overestimated a refund and that could be due to a number of reasons, including receiving wrong information or processing it incorrectly. It is also surely possible that the recipient of the loan miscalculated the refund and that the HRB estimate is closer. The loan recipient should return to HR Block and have the taxes prepared and see how it works out. She is under no obligation to complete the process if she is unhappy with the outcome, although she will be responsible for paying back the loan regardless.

I know of no HR Block employees who really encourage the advanced loan. It is available for those who need some extra money before they can get their refund. The costs are not hidden. Different employees may explain the costs better than others but the information is displayed on the screen and on the forms that are signed by the applicant.

My suggestion to most is to not even utilize the "Christmas loan" or the RAL products... not just because of the interest rate but because of the possibility of the loan not getting paid... whether it's your fault or the IRS's fault or the Company that provided the service's fault.

A. You should have saved your pennies throughout the year instead of getting an Emerald Advance. That or just gone to the local bank for a short term line of credit.

B. You more than likely gave correct information at the time you provided your last paystub... Here are some likely reasons your actual refund was short:

1. You had multiple jobs throughout the year and only brought in the paystub from the last one... or something similar to that.

2. Your situation changed. IE: child became ineligible for child tax credit and/or eic and/or a number of other possibilities...

3. Indeed, the preparer entered something incorrectly.... BUT you assume they did it on purpose... FYI, franchise offices make ZERO off of your loan... there is no incentive unless that person owns stock in the company or is in a corporate store and is management. In the end, You are responsible for all of the paperwork that you signed and you should have read it before signing... You were also shown a presentation that explained exactly what type of loan you were recieving.

C. Now, as far as the auto payment option... you would have had to leave 40 dollars in the account for them to apply to your loan.. You more than likely spent the whole thing or close to it, thus nothing was left for them to take which resulted in you being in default of the loan.

D. You were more than likely denied the RAL because your entire refund did not meet what you owed on your previous loan....H&R Bank was actually doing you a favor by not charging you the RAC fee as well as the RAL interest....basically because you weren't going to see any of it anyway. In the end you break almost even.

If you still don't understand, you never will. Please do yourself a favor and save 90 dollars a month and by Xmas you will have saved enough that you won't need to borrow against your refund.

Sincerely,

a tax pro who isn't necessarily on H&R Block's side.