WHEELER BOOKKEEPING SVC INC

Nearly nothing about the service this company performed was satisfactory. My husband and I met with one of the owners for preparation of our tax returns. Instead of using a computer to fill in figures which I presented to her, which other tax preparers had done in the past several years, she jotted down notes using a pad and pencil. She asked that certain documentation be left with her so that she could review it again prior to the preparation of the returns, which I did. During the appointment, this woman came up with an estimate as to what my husband and I could expect to receive as refunds. We were told that our returns, which were not complicated, would take between a week and a-half to two weeks to produce. After more than two weeks had passed, I phoned and spoke to an employee to see when they might be ready. I received a return phone call from the preparer asking for clarification of some of our deductions. I explained that she had possession of the supporting documentation; I didn't. It was clear to me that she hadn't even started working on our forms until I phoned. There appeared to be total confusion on her part. Also, I was told that the estimates she gave us for our refunds during our appointment were incorrect and way too high. This woman had, during her note-taking, doubled the figure we gave her for withheld IRS taxes. I expressed my frustration and annoyance to her during this conversation and she became hostile, very defensive, and angry. She didn't express much of an apology and made all sorts of excuses for her carelessness, i.e. too busy, hectic time of year, etc. Her attitude was something on the order of "So what? Mistakes happen." During this conversation, she stated in an demeaning manner, "I suppose YOU'VE never made a mistake in your life." Her attitude was shocking and completely out of line for someone we hired to prepare our tax returns and were paying a significant amount of money to. It took well over two weeks to hear back from this company that our returns were ready and to come in to sign them, which my husand and I did. Although we did receive tax refunds, the amount was over two thousand dollars less than this woman predicted we would receive. Granted, we were never entitled to such a large refund (which this preparer made abundantly clear to me), but it was disappointing to be told one thing by this woman who made careless errors and then to receive only a small fraction of what we had anticipated. Then, to make matters even worse, after having left the copies of our returns that we were given on a table for a while before filing them away, I took a closer look at them and discovered that my name was misspelled on each and every form. I phoned the office and spoke to someone at the front desk, who assured me that this would cause no problems. She explained that as long as my Social Security number was accurate, which it was, the incorrect spelling of my name would not matter. I expressed my annoyance with all the careless errors that had been made and she apolgized. I believe she was a receptionist and was the only person we dealt with who was apologetic and understanding. A short time later, the preparer/owner we had been dealing with phoned to make sure that I understood that nothing bad would result from the mistake with my name. I again explained that far too many careless mistakes had taken place and I was very unimpressed by their service. She had very little to say and we ended the conversation. This, without a doubt, was the worse tax preparation service my husband and I have ever encountered and I would never recommend Wheeler Bookkeeping Service to anyone, nor would we ever consider using them again.