Jackson Hewitt Franchise ripoff Refunds at the last minute Nationwide

My wife is a franchisee and this will be our 6th Tax Season with Jackson Hewitt. We attended our Business Management Training in November of 1999, received our Processing Main in December of '99 and were up and running 2 weeks later with 3 offices, 20 employees and did about 750 returns that first year. Second year we doubled and have experienced increased growth every year to the tune of 5000 returns in 2004! Jackson Hewitt is in large responsible for that growth. Are they perfect? Far from it. But every year they are tweaking the software, (which I challenge you to show me a better teachable/practical product out there), creating retail alliance with the likes of WalMart, KMart and Simon Malls, and improving Brand awareness with their Sponsorship with the Pro Bowlers Association and NASCAR.

They have called on Franchisees to improve their offices and overall image so that as owners we can be proud of any of our nearly 5000 locations. Their support has gotten better and better each year. Trust me on this, in 2000 we had a list of Tech Support people that you didn't want to talk to.

Since then they've relocated Tech to Sarasota and there isn't a Techie there I wouldn't trust. They rank 5th this year in the Entrepreneur Franchise thingie and have been in top 10 almost every year for a while. There startup costs are probably the lowest by far for what you are getting, get and can get.

Something we've learned though, as well in any business, you get out what you put in, and if you're thinking that you can put up the 25K franchise fee, hang out your shingle and wait for the people to come flocking through the door your in for a long year. You still need to meet The parent company half way, and do your Homework and do your local marketing, and Hey maybe have some fun along the way.

My wife loves it, I can take or leave it, there are some aspects I like and that keeps me interested. It takes a while to show a profit, we started to last year, but we have also grown to 8 locations for this Season, with 5 territories and 60 employees. I could go on and would be glad to help any newbie Franchisees get going.

Whew, Glad, or sad to hear others have had problems with this mess. I am in the same boat, sinking because of no support, slow hard to manipulate software, out of date tax information and in general,,,,, lousy guidance from Jackson Hewitt. I purchased @ 9 months ago, to be ready for tax season. Since that time I have attended their clASSes, followed everything, did all the practice returns they suggested. But I gotta say, this is never going to work. When I make inputs on returns,9 out of 10 times I get an error message. I call Corp, they pass me to technical, they pass me to customer service, the .....well they are answering machine. OK, now I am sure I am not going to be ready for tax season. Jeff Coe, Franchise development, says,,,,don't worry, when tax season gets underway, corp beef's up support for our franchisees. Hmmm more "non trained" help. Mike Lister, I want my money back, I won't even charge interest. Anyone that is thinking @ this, walk, run, take a buss in the other direction.