J. K. Harris & Company Took money, did nothing ripoff North Charleston South Carolina

Just because a company is large and has national advertising, that doesn't mean that you should trust them. Unfortunately, we did. After being ripped off in a scam by the National Audit Defense Network and left holding the bag with the IRS because NADN went bankrupt, we turned to JK Harris because we thought they could 1) help us determine if we really owed the IRS the money 2) negotiate a reduction in our penalties and interest due to being scammed, and 3) help us negotiate a payment plan. While their salesperson, as well as the rep that "worked" with us told us that the IRS wouldn't come after us while we were negotiating, they claim that that was never said.

We contracted with them in January 2006 and got them all the information they requested in 4 days. Then we didn't hear from them for months.

They dragged their feet getting paperwork to us. We had to hound them before they finally sent it. Then, they had us write our own letter requesting abatement, which they charged us $850 for! To this day, we have no proof that they ever sent the letter or the form 433 to the IRS. According to the IRS, they have received nothing from them on our behalf.

When we made edits to their form 433 paperwork and sent it back, we didn't hear from them again for six weeks. Then our bank accounts were levied. They already knew we were in danger of being levied, which is why we hounded them to get the paperwork to us in the first place.

After we were levied, JKH called the IRS to find out exactly how much we owed. We borrowed money from our 401K to pay them off because they would not accept a payment plan. JKH led us to believe that they simply hadn't heard back about the abatement, and that if the IRS agreed to one, they would simply pay us back. Now they're saying that the IRS wouldn't agree to an abatement. We never received ANY information from JKH about action they were taking on our behalf, and have no reason to believe they have done anything except make a couple phone calls and fill out a couple forms that we supplied all of the information for (in other words, we could have done it easily, and much quicker ourselves).

This is SUCH a short version of everything that happened. I e-mailed and called our representative COUNTLESS times, with no replies. They did not do what we asked them to do, and they did not communicate with us about anything, unless it was an emergency, such as our accounts being levied.

When a represnetative's outgoing voice mail says "please do not leave multiple messages," it gives you a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach, and it's a good indication of the kind of service you'll receive. When I looked them up with the BBB, I realized what a huge mistake we had made. There were over 800 complaints filed against them in the past 18 months.

When we got a lawyer to write them a letter accusing them of negligence, fraud, you-name-it, they finally wrote us a letter (it came from a dispute coordinator. What kind of company NEEDS a full-time dispute coordinator??) offering to give us SOME of our money back. They still have the gall to want to charge us for preparing a letter of abatement, when we were the ones who did it, and they can't even prove they sent it.

Throughout our dealings with them, they knew that i was a cancer patient, and that most of our money went to paying medical bills. They knew how stressed out I was over their lack of communication, because I was very persistent in my e-mails and phone messages. They're a cold-hearted company!

We responded to their response to our lawyer, and they just responded with more BS. After getting the last letter, I looked them up on the Internet again, and found this site as well as another consumer complaint site with dozens of stories just like ours. One person on this site has suggested taking them to small claims court. My question is, since we signed an arbitration clause, will a judge just throw out our complaint? Or will the judge, after seeing the pile of complaints from other people, realize they're dealing with sheisters who purposely try to rip people off, by making sure they cover their asses with legal jargon on the back of a contract?

While we could really use the money they're offering as a partial refund, if we accept it we'll have to sign a document saying that we won't sue them. I'm not sure I want to settle for that. I also want to expose them for the cold-hearted bastards they are. To say that they're unprofessional is giving them a compliment.

Jackie
Dallas, Texas
U.S.A.