Why I Hate Intuit and Quickbooks
I hate Intuit, the makers of Quickbooks and Quicken software. The reason is simple: Instead of relying on value to sell their products, they use trickery, deceit, and strongarm tactics.
Any accounting professional who uses Quickbooks in their work knows what I’m going to say without even saying it. Each year, Quickbooks comes out with a new product. This year’s edition is cleverly named “Quickbooks 2009.”
But it’s not really one product each year. It’s three. Yes, there are three different versions of the yearly software, Simple ($99), Pro ($119), and Premier ($399).
And in order for two users (such as a client and an accountant) to be able to share their bookkeeping file, they must be using the exact same version. If your client has Simple, and you open their file using Pro, the client won’t be able to access that file with Simple anymore. Unless of course one is using Premier… then the file will still work if the other user has Pro or Simple.
But you get the picture. You must use the same “year” of software, and also the same version unless you get the really expensive version. And of course, the fees I quoted above are only for a “one user” license. If multiple people in your office need to access the file, you’ll have to buy more licenses.
My hate for Intuit and Quickbooks goes deeper, though. This “version” scam is bad enough. But it’s gotten worse. Each year the software becomes more and more filled with advertising. You can hardly enter a set of transactions without at least one advertisement disrupting things.
“Need to email invoices? Buy this!”
“Need more check printing supplies? We have the answer!”
“Ever thoughttt of doing XYZ? Pay us to help!”
I’m sure the nice Intuit people would tell you they’re just trying to help with useful suggestions. We all know they’re trying to make a buck and disrupting work in the software which has been paid for. (Hint: Annoying constant advertising is most often reserved for “free” software.)
But it gets better. I recently purchased Quickbooks 2009, and in order to get the lowest price for it, I was required to accept a “free month” of their technical support service. Take that “free” service out of the cart, and the price of the sofware jumped.
About a week after my purchase, I got a welcome kit in the mail. Thanks so much for trying our technical support, blather blather.
I immediately went about canceling the service, as the teeny tiny lettering indicated that my credit card would automatically be billed monthly for the service unless I canceled. Finding out how to cancel wasn’t easy. It involved sending a note to customer service asking to cancel, using a particular form on the website.
I did this twice. Yes, I sent two notes to cancel, so that I could be sure that my unwanted subscription was truly canceled.
And guess what? My credit card was just charged for the service. Oopsie! We never received your request to cancel!
I always find it interesting that the purchases of software and services never seem to get lost. But the cancellations… those always magically get lost in cyberspace.
So now I will spend time this morning calling customer service in India. Going through several automated and aggravating menus. Verifying all sorts of numbers. Being transferred several times. Quickbooks will not make this easy for me. I should have paid the higher price for the software and refused to deal with this.
Lesson learned. Intuit sucks. Quickbooks sucks. How about relying on the quality and desirability of the product to sell it, instead of trickery and deceit? I realize there aren’t many options for accounting software anymore. Believe me, if I didn’t have to use Quickbooks, I wouldn’t. I hate you, Intuit and Quickbooks.
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Comments (80)
I used QB Pro for many years, and found it to be very useful. I didn’t use it for about 4 years and am trying to go back to it (unfortunately, I already bought it). All I want to do is to use it and save it to my own flash drive, and everytime I go to open it, I have to go through phone calls, running QB tool, etc., etc.. I agree with an earlier poster. Once I get it open it is a long series of “buy this” “add this.” In my opinion, it has become a piece of junk!
Intuit has a new scam!!
Although I have not used Quicken in almost a year I noticed today, two charges on my bank account
10/04/2010 Other PERSONAL FINANCE SOFTWARE MONTHLY SERVICE FEE $5.95
This was on there twice, total $11.90 set as a monthly charge. $5.95 twice because I had an old and new version of Quicken.
I called the bank to see if they were now charging for my online backing or if this was a third party charge. Found if you ever used Quicken, even in the past and have not canceled Intuit as of August, is now charging your bank account for a service that I no longer use.
In this case the charges would be $142.80 a year, what a low rent scam.
I called the bank and they candled Intuit and credited my account.
Check yours!
I FEEL CHEATED BY INTUIT, THEY WILL DOUBLE BILL YOUR ACCOUNT, YOU WILL GET IT BACK , BUT FOR A WEEK OR SO THEY HAVE STOLEN YOU MONEY. VERY UNHAPPY WITH INTUIT, WILL BE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE ELSE, MAYBE PEACHTREE.
Although I have not encountered some of the above mentioned pet peeves, I do agree that Intuit is a scam. I bought my basic program in 2007 and here recently the email link to send invoices to bill customers with has been discontinued. I am being forced to buy a new updated version to get this feature returned. If you bought a 2007 model car and in 2008 they updated some features and your 2007 model no longer had parts available. Bad scenario but you get the drift. The old phrase for this is Indian giver. They are strong arming me, stealing. Their entire program is so manipulative in so many ways that they must have hired Bill Gate himself to compose the program. Well, I could say a bit more but the question is what to do about it. Any solid ideas?
how about the payroll update. originally was $35 a year to update the tables that hardly ever change, then had to update the payroll program $150, then the payroll would no longer work with that version of quickbooks , new quickbooks $199, then payroll yearly update went to $199, now its up to $299. the only thing updated is the tax tables that the irs give free. total rip off. Im now looking to change software
Oh yeah, how about the payroll update. $299 is cheap, only available if you are a “small business” with 3 or fewer employees. If you have more than 3 employees, its $374 a year, but “you get an unlimited number of employees”!! Well, with only 5 employees, the $75 difference sucks!! It’s outrageous and certainly not “small business friendly”. Intuit needs to rethink their “small business” ideas and get in touch with reality. And on top of all that it’s virtually impossible to get an email to anyone at Intuit who may have the slightest inkling to review the policy!! They really need to get knocked down to size!
I am in the same boat as Dan (above). I’ve been using QuickBooks since 1993, and I too am absolutely furious about the jump from $35 per year to over $200 for the tax updates. I am forced to upgrade the program every 2 years when I would have been perfectly happy with my old QuickBooks 1997 version. With only one or two employees at any one time, the ’97 version had all the features I required. But Intuit claims that, not only are they going to charge us $250 a year for tax updates, you can’t use the new tax file unless you spend an additional $200 every two years and upgrade to the newer version of the program!….whether you need it or not!
I am also furious that Intuit has taken away a feature that I had for many years (and already paid for!)…the ability to print out employee W-2 forms on plain paper for my only employee. They now want me to pay an additional $200 per year for a feature I already had. They somehow went into my computer and REMOVED a feature from my software that I already paid for years ago! That is criminal!!! Where is the Federal Trade Commission when you need them? Perhaps they should be reading some of these comments!! Maybe I’ll be contacting them since my blood is really starting to boil now!!!
Lars,
Count me in on that Class Action Law Suit!
The Co.’s selling door to door for Intuit are a scam as well. They lie from the very beginning, straight to individuals, and small business’. Co.’s such as Moxy or Keen Marketing and MMI Marketing in Pittsburgh, PA. Also, in the D.C. area, a Co. named East Coast Innovations is pulling the same scam on it’s customers. Both are pulling an employment scam in both these states, just to top off the deceit. The Manager is Ashley Allen.
…All their customers would be in your class Action!
Count me in on that Class Action Law Suit as well. I am mad that there is no other option, or is there? We have 4 employees and are paying way to much. And if I switch my quickbooks over to mac, then I lose the ability to pay my own employees and I would have to pay Intuit even more.
Quickbooks could be a good program, for the most part it works well but I also hate the lack of support. Their idea of “you’ll have to upgrade we no longer support” your three year old version is criminal. If I buy a program that doesn’t work it is their job to provide the fix. I want to know where to go for another accounting program.
This deceit doesn’t stop with quickbooks but is also with their web hosting and merchant service programs. The software they use for a storefront is just prostores licensed from ebay. WordPress doesn’t work there without an iframe. When I transferred my hosting to a new provider, precisionweb.net, the merchant services wont work. The shopping cart clearly has them listed as a supported provider, yet you get an error message. When called they say they can’t help me, try to sell me their hosting program again, and send me to a developer site to write my own solution. These dishonest people should be put out of business.
I don’t know if this works for your businesses as mine is quite small but I use a free program called Gnucash.
I am in with the class action as well. The last thing they care about is small business. I think its a great program until its time for an update, a backup, support, and they also manipulate the supposed ” quick books experts” because i’ve talked to two of them and they say. “You should really buy the support program” And as far as the backup, they are stupid, to not sell the backup that you didn’t purchase to you when you need it for a huge profit. They just won’t give it to you, but i’m sure they have it. They can take over your computer from millions of miles away but they dont’ have any backup for what happened. I say bullshit. They paint a great picture, try to sell 3-4 things a day and refuse to help or care when you have a problem. Typical big business. Its too bad small business really helped when it coudl. I’m a huge backer on a class action. A good step would be a contact at the I r s to see how many complaints they get about it. I don’t know. My opinion.
Please count me in on the class action as well. From the sunsetting of features to the payroll scams to the blackmailing that is “tech support” to the stupendously poor and buggy UI and feature set that you can’t even report bugs on without paying through the nose, Intuit is gouging us.
I work in software development and I have never dealt with a worse product nor company in my life.
I Have been using quickbooks for at least 10 years. I too am unhappy with costly upgrades. It seems to me that the early versions did not need any upgrades. I use the payroll version and believe I used to manualy adjust for taxes. Of course I did not keep those versions but think an old version may be the answer. Class action sounds like a great idea!
Is Peachtree any better?
This happened to me with QB 2001 and I swore I would never buy it again, however, in the 08 brochure, they said that the emails were independent and we could always email invoices. I just received a notice that ….yup, as of May, we will no longer email your invoices. NEVER AGAIN WILL THEY GET ANY MONEY FROM ME!
Count me in that class action lawsuit…I hate QB…I used to be able to ignore their updates, as I knew their updates would disable my “old version”…I had to start using their Assisted Payroll…part of that submission automatically includes updating. Lovely. (I was able to hang onto a version for almost 3yrs…which didn’t make much sense, because I finally had to buy for that yr anyway, because the next yr hadn’t been released.) The whole point here, being…I held onto my money longer.
Me again, forget to mention, to “small” company owners out there:
The newest QB scam is they are bloating your files in QB. My little company file is now 105,000+MG. I was told that I need to by QB Enterprize because my small company of 4 employees is too big for QB to handle…and that my QB program would cease to work soon. Criminal!
Intuit is Satan and their products are his evil minions, dedicated to spreading misery and suffering to the world.
Today, after using up the 30 day trial of ISW in QB Premier 2010, I clicked the “Buy Now on the Internet” button – where I proceeded to purchase a license for $49.95. But, guess what – surprise surprise – the license did not work. So, I dialed up customer support – and honestly, don’t know what language the person I was speaking with was speaking. After about 20 minutes of being on hold and being shuffled between a few well meaning asian folk, I was told that in order to help me install the license that I just purchased from them – I would need to buy a customer support contract. Hell no. So, I call the Pro-advisor line. They shuffled me off to sales, where I was told that the license (that I purchased from my 2010 software, mind you) was for QB 2011. In order to get the license for 2010 – I was going to need to pony up another $70. So, I had to spend 2 hours of my life installing QB 2011 and upgrading a few files – just to spite the blood sucking devil ass vampire bastards.
Intuit sucks.
I have been using QB since 1995 and absolutely hate the changes. The latest way QB’s has found to rip users off; the 3 year MD process. I have the 08 version and I get a message my payroll wont work after May. So ok we’ll get the 2011 payroll version. It gets better, for the 2011 payroll version you must upgrade to QB 2011. OK, so I will upgrade, but wait I have a 3 license version and now I must rebuy a new 2011, 3 license version at like $640. NOW I AM MAD!!!! You already have to buy a new payroll subscription every year and the price keeps going up. RIP OFF!!!
I already purchased the right to a 3 version license, it is obsolete every 3 years with QB business model, this should be stated prior to anyone purchasing QB. HERE IS A REASON FOR A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT! They sell you a product that automatically goes obsolete in 3 years without letting you know. If the product is worthless after 3 years and requires a purchase like buying it new, they should have to tell you, make sure you are aware, sign a 3 year contract prior to purchase.
I hate this deceptive marketing, this is such an unscrupulous business practice. If I treated my customers like this, I would not have many customers.
If anyone has found a good accounting software program, let me know as I would love to dump these thieves!
Jb1111@hotmail.com
Jerry Brown
I have used Quickbooks Pro since 1996. As the years go by I get angrier and angrier at their practices.They force me to buy their so called annual payroll updates, the last one was $332!!! Then they forced me to upgrade the program every 3 years!!! Now they are saying the $332 payroll update is “standard” and I need an upgrade that will go with the QB 2011!!! As near as I can tell QB 2011 is identical to QB 2008!!!Their phone staff all have heavy accents which works in Intuit’s favor because you cannot understand their justifications and you finally just give up and hang up in frustration. Companies like Intuit are what is wrong with America today, we are getting nickel and dimed to death. Someone PLEASE write a competitive program PLEASE. Class action suit, I am so IN!!!
I am a professional bookkeeper that uses QuickBooks Premier Accountants version. I have to purchase it every year, but I keep the old versions so my clients don’t have to. It is true that every few years you will have to upgrade your QuickBooks software if you are using QuickBooks Payroll, but I think you will find that is true for all bookkeeping software. I offer a payroll sevice that charges at least $60 a month. That is $720 at year, so upgrading QuickBooks payroll every couple of years doesn’t seem like such a bad deal. Also, there is a way to turn the popup ads in QuickBooks off in the preferences.
I will be happy to be in class action. Today my bank informed me that I can’t upload my transaction into QB 2008 PRO because they don’t support it any more. So I must buy a new version. But new version is worse than 2008. In general QB is a bad software taling too much PC resourses for almost nothing. Also when we buy software Intuit doesn’t tell us that it is for limited period of time. We don’t buy right to use (like with NORTON) we buy software that MUST work as long as we need. Also they started to order banks to stop service on old versions – it is absolutely illegal.
Got the same thing from my bank…doesn’t support QB 2008 WHAT BS! Intuit has us all by the balls…what is this, cold war USSR? 2008 works great! I run a small business, accounting doesn’t change year to year! Inventory is inventory, receivables are receivables! I join you all in general annoyance at Intuit!
I just made a new website for the purposes of bringing quickbooks and peachtree issues to light, and to voice our general dissatisfaction with these products. I’d love your comments on there, as well as suggestions and any advice. It’s http://www.intuitsucks.com.
Am fuming mad that QB for Mac doesn’t do whatever the “good” QB for Windows does. Try finding out what features are lacking, or which reports you can’t get from an accountant or (even a “QB certified”) bookkeeper, and either they don’t know, or won’t tell you.
I’ve come to the conclusion that QB’s “business model is to treat users like mushrooms (keep them in the dark while feeding them sh*t).
QB’s ‘business model’ has to be to keep things so complicated that you still need to hire bookkeepers. And bookkeepers, because their careers depend on accounting being so complicated that you need them, love QB in return. So bookkeepers recommend QB, and once we’ve gone that route, it’s like we’ve entered the roach motel. Try getting data out so you can migrate to other software.
I can’t wait to move to NolaPro and will take however long it takes transcribe records into it to escape the da*n QB for Mac.
Quickbooks and Intuit are very shady! I have had the fancy enterprise version for only 1 year and it cost thousands of dollars. They told me when I bought it that I would get a free 2012 upgrade and it would last my company forty years. But I just started receiving calls to upgrade and renew for a small $850. She explained that if I did not upgrade every year, in three years quickbooks would stop working properly and I would have to buy new softwear for thousands of dollars. I was under the impression that I purchased software not a subscription for a period of time!!!I hate them. Thier support sucks too!
very hard to cancel, feels like a rat race around a maze. don’t buy it!!!!