TAXBACK.com

reggie01642

Just recieved a phone call and e-mail from this company demanding that I pay them £120 processing fee for work they did for me in 2007. I claimed back a small amount of tax after coming home from a working holiday in Australia. At the time they took a cut from the money and sent me a cheque. Now they are demanding more money four years after the event !

Its feels like they are trying it on to me and I am ignoring their e-mails and calls. Has anybody heard of this before, Is it a scam ?

Cheers for any help !:beer:

Gas_Powered_Toothbrush

Remember how all the HMRC staff on this board tell you (not you personally) to avoid agencies such as this and to claim any repayment yourself?

This is why.

ceeforcat

avoid avoid

TM1976

reggie01642 wrote: »

Just recieved a phone call and e-mail from this company demanding that I pay them £120 processing fee for work they did for me in 2007. I claimed back a small amount of tax after coming home from a working holiday in Australia. At the time they took a cut from the money and sent me a cheque. Now they are demanding more money four years after the event !

Its feels like they are trying it on to me and I am ignoring their e-mails and calls. Has anybody heard of this before, Is it a scam ?

Cheers for any help !:beer:

Not enough information here to answer the question. Why do they want to charge you extra, what's it for? Is it an error?

Read your Ts&Cs. If it's contractual you may be liable to pay, if it isn't you aren't.

If they can charge the worst thing you can do is ignore it as you could end up with a CCJ.

chrismac1

I would not worry about CCJs, there is a long long way to go before you get anywhere near a Court with this one. It's either an error on their part or a scam.

reggie01642

Thanks for the replies .. the helpful ones anyway


I'm a little bit further forward with this now .. but prob not enough info at the moment to be totally clear ..

They are claiming that I asked them to collect the money on my behalf and that becasue the money came direct from the tax office then they were unable to take their cut which is why I owe them $119.

I have found my records and actually thing were not quite as remembered. The money was recieved back direct from Aussie government which is becasue I now remember that I decided to go to them direct and not use Taxback.com.

I filled in the forms myself and got the full amount of money. What I suspect has happened and Im not 100% sure but hoping to find out is that all I did was fill in a form to obtain a quote with taxback.com but didnt go ahead and use their service. I'm pretty sure I did sign something but this was when I had decided to go direct and it was for the recruitment agency I worked through when in Oz and not Taxback.

On there website you can log into your account and from what I can make out once I decided not to use them I then e-mailed them to say I no longer require their services as well as chatting to somebody online. They have accepted that they were instructed that I no longer needed them but claim to have gone ahead to try and obtain the money anyway.

It says on my file that when they did this they were told "we are not the client's authorised agent". However they are still claiming that I owe them money ..

Another thing that doesnt add up is that I found my original quote and the fee was over $150 aussie dollars (which Is why I prob didn't use them). But now 4 YEARS later they are saying it $119. I dont have a clue where they have got that figure from!?

I can't believe it is a scam becasue they seem to be a pretty genuine company but I do feel like they are trying it on somewhat and playing a bit of a numbers game by sending out these requests to people who have registered with them in the past!

"I have sent them the following.. I do not believe that you played any part in returning my money and therefore do not believe that i owe you a fee. It is black and white on your own website dated 21/12/09 "we are not the clients authorised agent" and I made this clear to you at the time. If there was an issue it should have been raised then.

Having taken advice on this matter until you can provide me with clear evidence of work you have done on my behalf which I have authorised you to do and that a specific fee/contract was agreed for this I am unwilling to pay this. If you can provide this evidence such as an invoice dated back to the time, a contract with my signature on it which details the fee and the service then I will pay right away."

Will wait and see what they say.. what are the chances of them taking this further if they dont agree to drop it and what Sh&it can I get into .. I'm a Dr now so CCJ's or credit issues is not what I need at this stage of life.. really dont feel like I should pay this.. any help or happy to field any ?s still trying to suss things out :cool:

reggie01642

They have now threatened me to refer my case to a debt collecting agency..

Where do I stand on this ? Should I be worried ... Im not bothered about paying them its the lack of clarity from them that is stopping me ..

Is there any regulatory bodies/advice body that can help at all or that I can complain to ..

I have cut and pasted a summary of what I sent to them which pretty much summarises what has happened .. Any help welcome please..

I remember coming home from Australia and enquiring about the taxback.com service but do not actually remember signing up because I felt the fees were too expensive. I decided to reclaim the money myself directly to Australian Inland revenue. I informed Taxback.com of this decision via the chat tool and e-mail .


I later received a cheque from the Australian government. I did not hear again from Taxback.com. In fact I heard nothing off taxback.com from 2007 until last christmas when I was sent a christmas card via e-mail.


Then in February 2011 I received a surprising e-mail demanding 119 aussie dollars fee for a service you had given to me.



There was no invoice of detailed information as to why I owe this money. I was unsurprisingly reluctant to pay this fee as I had not been contacted in nearly four years. Surely if I owed money then it would take priority over a chrsitmas card or you would have requested this at some point in the last four years? As this was so long ago my memory is unclear as to what happened four years ago so I have traced the cheque that I recieved and my paper work for this and It is correct that I carried out the work myself and recieved the cheque from the Australian governement. Also I still have the quote given to me by Taxback.com and it does not match the figure now being requested so I do not know where you have got this figure from. Clearly It is only fair to be given more evidence other than somebody whom I have never dealt with previously sending me an e-mail with demands for money and an account number to wire my money to.


In order to clarify this matter I have reasonably requested the following

1) An invoice of service detailing what work I consented to Taxback.com carrying out on my behalf. Specifically how much tax was collected by taxback.com on my behalf and how the fee for this was determined. I would like this broken down for clarity on an invoice.


2) A copy of any contract I signed to have this work carried out in order to firstly check I had asked for the work to be done and to check that the conditions on the contract correlates with the invoice that you send me. I remeber signing one form but this was one sent to me by the Australian government. I do not recall signing any other forms but I am happy to be put right on this matter with a copy of a form with my signature on it.


3) Finally evidence that Taxback.com actually carried out work on my behalf and recovered tax for me. As far as I am concerned I recovered the money myself and thay you were not the authorised agent for this. I have checked my account on your website and it clearly states on 21/12/2009- "We are not clients authorised agent". So why are you claiming this money. I have recieved an e-mail form one of your staff Tsviatko stating that I did not require a service from Taxback.com in 03/2008 so why are you contacting the inland revenue again 18 months after this?



I need you to demonstrate to me through documentation exactly what work you carried out and when you did this and exactly how much of my tax you got back. Surely if you do not retrieve my money then I am not entitled to pay anything ?



I have requested this from one of your staff but this has been ignored and instead I have been sent this threatening e-mail today.


I am not unwilling to make the payment if presented with documents that satisfy this request. I object to the threat of having my name passed to the debt collection agency. After waiting nearly four years to request this fee it is unreasonable to make a threat like this when I am trying to work out exactly what I am supposed to be paying for. If I simply e-mailed you with a demand for money and a bank account would you not ask for further information?


I have never refused to pay and would absolutely pay the fee immediately and resolve the issue if the above documents can be scanned and sent to my email address in order to satisfy my concerns. . Once received I will happily make the payment.

netaddict

These people have become the bane of my life, they initially calculated the amout I was to receive back from australia. I was due a refund if I was a resident, however that was not the case as they had not taken account that I was only in the country for 3 months and thus a non-resident (I supplied all this information to them i.e. length of stay etc.), thus no-refund as I had paid tax sufficient just for a non-resident. They then wanted to charge me 119 for an original mistake on their part. I have been continuously harassed instead. Do not go with this company taxback.com, absolute scam and not nice people.

reggie01642

So did you pay up or not ? Were there any consequences.. As a more general point where do I stand with the whole referral to debt collection agency thing.. surprise, surprise no reply

TM1976

If they want to take legal action the next step would probably be for their solicitor to issue a letter, when you would have a chance to settle.

The question I would have about this is - if you didn't use them, how did they know you got a refund? In order to get information about your tax affairs they would surely have to have your authority to contact or receive some contact from the tax office. You say you filled out a form, this probably was some sort of authority to act and probably an agreement that you accepted their terms and conditions.

That said they should be able to provide some sort of evidence that you entered into a contract, even if it isn't a signed form.

Might better to phone them to get an answer?

reggie01642

Yes this may be the case and I am happy to pay if it is so.. however it has been four years and it just doesnt seem right to me..

Whenever I send an e-mail they just reply asking for the money but completely ignoring my questions which makes me even more suspicious .. I may call.. but reluctant to because it is overseas ..