Intuit's Criminal Customers
I have to admit, I feel a certain glee watching what has happened to Intuit thanks to their new 2002 version of TurboTax. What? You haven't heard? Well, the story goes like this: Intuit, in a boneheaded move to "fight piracy" has bundled each copy of their tax-preparation software with an encryption system similar to Windows XP that prevents users from installing unauthorized copies of the software. Like Windows XP, if you swap out hardware, or do anything to your Wintel box to make TurboTax (and XP for that matter) think you've switched machines, you have to call Intuit support to explain yourself, why you dared change the hardware in your machine without their permission, and beg for a new key.
But as noted in this news.com piece, you don't even have to switch out hardware. For some users, just running a disk utility is enough to cause TurboTax to hoist a red flag, shut down, and prevent you from preparing your tax returns.
So how does an non-OS level application "sense" changes? Easy - when you install TurboTax, the product secretly installs a spyware application that runs in the background - all the time - even while you're not using TurboTax, watching your every move.
Keep in mind we're talking about a software package most, if not all, buyers use for a handful of days to file their returns. After tax day, the application is, for all intents and purposes, useless. But even if you never launch TurboTax again after tax day, or even uninstall the application from your hard drive, that aforementioned rogue sliver of software is still running, and watching.
As you'd naturally expect, their customer response has been swift and damagingly negative. Drop by the Amazon.com product page, and you'll see the carnage. After 195 reviews, the once high-flying product (I've used it every year) is barely hanging on to a one star rating.
Software piracy is, no doubt about it, an issue. And software companies are entitled to protect their intellectual property however they see fit. But slippery, rogue practices like these only spread anger and mistrust, and ultimately drive customers away.
Comments
For well worth the $350 a year we pay her, our accountant pores over our complicated mess of tax materials, prepares our returns, sends everything back with a detailed analysis of what she did, how she did it, where each number came from, and how much we owe or are being refunded. Granted, we only "use" her twice a year, but I frequently call or email with questions regarding tax or financial matters. Well, well worth the money not to have to deal with insufferable bullshit such as the likes of Intuit's.
Posted by: Bob at January 14, 2003 10:50 PM
Indeed, we too use (and have always used) an accountant. I can't even imagine having to rely on a piece of software to make decisions for me, or generate forms I'd be unable to adequately verify were correct (or not)!
Perhaps because I code software for a living and *know* how easily things can get broken, I wouldn't trust my relashionship with the IRS Audit Board to a $29 dollar software package.
Posted by: Dan at January 15, 2003 8:13 AM
Well fortunately for the Mac users in the crowd we don't have to worry about the spyware or ads or online registration that Windows users do. We just have to suffer through a 25% markup.
Posted by: Steven at January 15, 2003 10:12 AM
Intuit's software is notorious for shipping with spyware and too many background applicatons. Install Quicken or Quickbooks on a Windows system and you're also installing half a dozen background processes that simply sap system resources.
More and more, Intuit is less about producing the software products in question and more about selling things: selling the new upgrade every year, selling the form-fed checks, selling the tax tables, etc. Their software is replete with pitches for other Intuit products.
I do computer consulting for a number of small businesses. All of the them use Quickbooks and hate it. They hate it because it's bloated, true, bu mostly because of the product's relentless push to upgrade the tax tables, buy new checks, etc. If there were a suitable alternative, most of them would take it.
It seems that Intuit is out to out-Microsoft Microsoft. They're doing a fine job of it...
Posted by: J.D. at January 15, 2003 10:36 AM
Well, I've used the online version for 3 or 4 years and it's ok. But frankly, simply out of protest for a moronic move, I probably won't this year.
I have a simple theory that seems to get proven over and over: companies hate their customers. They find them a nusiance, unpredictable, and complex, and they get in the way of raking in cash. There are a few exceptions, but they just prove the rule.
Posted by: Andrew at January 15, 2003 1:30 PM
