When we first discussed the fine folks at “Ideal Tax Solution,” it was right after my wife had received a notice in the mail that was obviously designed to create some alarm on her part and make her believe the IRS or some other government entity had levied a tax lien against her.
My suspicion after my wife had received the last notice from these weasels was that it was some kind of scam. Since she received another similar notice from these people today, I decided to dig into this a bit more and I’m doubtful that this is a scam but is perhaps a notch or two above that on the ethical measuring stick.
This time, the notice my wife received was on plain white paper and even included a name. “Scott Price” was allegedly the person behind this notice. Scott, god bless his heart, even included a personal hand-written message that read “Good news. I can help you. Call me ASAP!” What a guy!
Naturally, the “hand-written” message was not really hand-written at all and is most likely included on all these “Tax Revision Offers” that these people are sending out in mass quantities.
Well, I decided to see if I could get Scott on the phone and see if he could give me the details of this tax problem that my wife allegedly has. Being that they have sent her two notices regarding this problem, it must be pretty serious, right? Maybe not.
I dialed up the number, 877-464-6577, and the phone was answered by a pleasant-sounding woman just as it was last time. I asked for Scott Price and she asked me if I was a client of his. I informed her that I wasn’t not yet a client but I was holding in my hand a letter from him regarding a tax matter.
I’m paraphrasing here, but her response led me to believe that she receives a lot of these calls. She asked me if I was aware of any tax problems that I might have and I told her “no.” Maybe I should have said “yes.”
At that point she told me that these notices are sent out to lots of people as “a service” in case they have tax problems, and since I was not aware of any tax problems of my own, I did not need their services.
I decided to tell her what I thought of her and her company, said goodbye and hung up the phone.
So, I guess the mystery is solved. They do indeed seem to be some kind of company that allegedly assists people with tax problems but I find their client acquisition methodology a bit lacking. One might even say slimy.
Nothing changes my opinion that sending out bogus tax-related notices to people that are designed to look as “official” as possible is a pretty scummy tactic. As I pointed out before, there is the likelihood that some people receiving these notices (particularly the elderly) could be quite alarmed as a result.
What’s unfortunate is that this company is likely successful with this low-life tactic since they are still doing it and must be sending out massive numbers of these deceptive notices. To sum up, my personal opinion that they are scumbags remains unchanged.
Below is their latest letter. Decidedly less “alarming” than their previous notice, but I wish they’d just take the high road and send something out that simply offers people help without all the hype and misleading and suggestive language that leads people to believe that they have tax problems.
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