American Tax Relief ripoff Beverly Hills California

My husband and I owed $14,400 to the IRS. We called American Tax Relief on 3/05 and spoke to Ted Glenn who promised to work with us and get this reduced to half. I borrowed $2000.00 from my retirement to pay them half and then was told by Ted that we could pay the other half of $1950.00 in payments. When we called them to pay the other half we found out Ted was gone and Eli Martin said he would handle our case.

He said that our account had been closed and that we would need to pay an additional $1650.00 + $1950 for them to continue working on our case. We sent them the money and they faxed me over another 2848 to complete. this was 10/05 and we have not received or heard anything from them. I spoke to Eli in the beginning of Febuary 2006 and he said that Kay was handling our account and would be getting papers out to us by the beginning of March. We received a letter from the IRS saying that we had 10 days to respond and I was told by Eli to fax it to them and to disregard because it was automatically generated by the IRS.

March 6, 2006 my husband called to speak to Eli and he gave us another # to reach Kay. He said he was no longer handling our account, so we called Kay and left a message. We never received a response. I received another letter on Saturday saying that in 30 days they would be putting a levy against our bank accounts if I didn't make payment arrangements. I called American Tax Relief this morning and got the run around by the office assistant saying that he could leave a message for Eli or Kay but neither is available to take my call. I left a message and did not receive any calls back.

I called the IRS this evening and found out that no one from American Tax Relief has done anything about my taxes. The person I spoke to said that they have been sending the letters to them but because they have not responded on my behalf, I am now in collections with the IRS and now owe $18,000. We were fooled like many of others who have filed complaints because of legitimate websites such as MSNBC advertising these thieves. We have made arrangements with the IRS but we are seeking the advise of an attorney about this issue.

Kimberly
Everett, Washington
U.S.A.