Fail Safe Taxes

Title: TRX - The Alliance:TRX Class Action Lawsuit WebAddress: http://www.complaintnow.com/TRX---The-Alliance/complaint/complaints/thread/print/0/146689 Title: Santa Barbara Bank & Trust et al v. Tax Refund Xpress, LLC WebAddress: http://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/casdce/3:2010cv01484/328844/ Just keeping people posted.

Deb, since Mike had relayed that TRX was referring to previous employee's who started their own company. There was only 1 person it could of been, myself, like I mentioned in my reasoning, since I am the only one that started my own company. Since he (Doug Hughes) told Mike those specific words, there is no telling what other people might have heard about this same situation. Also, it was brought up to me, like I had mentioned in my reasoning, that our name had came up on a few calls we had gotten from people that had TRX previous year. This is also why I brought my business into the discussion, because my business, was being tossed the blame for TRX's lack of security, also to give ERO's the option of going to a place that has security completely in place. When customers call into our 888 number most of them ask for one of the owners. I would get on the phone and speak with them about the company and my history in this industry. Since I am referencing TRX in my background, people know that I came from TRX and started my own business. This is specifically what Doug had mentioned was the people, or party, responsible for their mishap. My business is a service bureau just like TRX and if TRX does bad business then that has a direct effect on the growth of my company. Like I described on the only ways trxalliance.com and thetaxbook.com, they both fall into the same reasoning. If a website comes back as having malicious software being downloaded to the end users computer then that’s exactly what is happening. You yourself might not have got infected by this, but if you are someone that saw this message then decided to click "proceed to the website" then you indefinitely were infected by the effected files on their server. There is no other way around that very fact, and the only possible ways they could have gotten "infected" is because the lack of security procedures behind running a website. There is no "well this could have happened", "well TRX said this", "well Fail Safe said this", or anything that can hide the main facts that a multi-million dollar company (Google) had their servers infected by malicious software when they went to the trxalliance.com website. In regards to me being a disgruntled EX-employee of TRX from 2 years ago, I had openly stated that. I do not like the way they do their business, and they don't tend to their customer needs only their pocket needs. I have heard rumors of over 200 people who did not receive their bank incentives that was promised by TRX and still signed the renewal contract only because they was told they would get their incentive check sent to them. September 1st and those people still haven't received their money. I also didn't think I would have to point this out, but it seems like I am going to have to. The very main reason why I copy 'n pasted the user information for "shooter" above (who actually changed his name to "jackshooterthompson") is because I wanted to point out his "Joined" date. This is also why I pointed out the "MattHamKenny" post that was made on this topic. That account along with the jackshooterthompson (previously Shooter) was both created right after the posts was put up about TRX and I hope that would scream "fishy" to the users of this forum. Also if you notice the "DrakeDML" account was also created after the date posted by the "jackshooterthompson" account and only to respond to his post. You can see this information when you click on their Username on the post itself. It also says when they joined right under their usernames. Doesn't this strike odd to any of you guys? Those 3 users would be created out of thin air, and only posting reference to these specific TRX posts that are about the company and the truths? It’s because its members of TRX, and Doug themselves trying to falsify information and customer testimonies to try and get you guys to look past what is right in front of you. I GUARANTEE you that those 3 accounts was credit using IP# addresses from the Murfreesboro, TN area. Which the only way to have this verified is the owner of this forum would have to check the logs and find out if the IP's match or are in the same range. This method of testimonial verification is used very heavily to know if someone's response should be taking highly or is a fabricated response by representatives of the company, or subject, that the originating post is about. I understand completely that you all see myself coming with personal attacks against the company and are not fully in agreement to the methods and ways I have gone about spreading the news. I am just asking you all to look beyond that and look into the actual main question at hand. Is TRX really as truthful and honest about their services and security as they claim? This is all that I am trying to get the users of this forum to consider. If you don't want to use my company that is perfectly fine with myself and I wish you all the best with the specific company that you decide to go with, but the truth has to be told.

"Hey Matt, please take this bashing your competition stuff to the other vendors page so those of us that use ATX can read in peace. You really need to take your kamikaze style somewhere else." I was unaware that us trying to help people stay with a low costing software, way better support, and to help them with any safety issues was bashing. I simply won't post anymore on these forums. I came here trying to help people out because I know a lot of TRX users use this forum. If you all don't care that your personal information has been leaked and your computer's have been compromised then I guess I'm just at a loss for words. "All us ATX users" so are you saying in the past lets say 4 months you don't feel like anyone has went to trxalliance.com? I just don't see where trying to solve a problem is bashing. I'm not going to push the issue, again if you guys don't care then thats your decision and yours alone. As for me posting images and stuff like that I was merely trying to prove my point. I was providing you all with factual information to backup my point. If you took me trying to back up reasoning for my idea as bashing then I apologize, but that wasn't the intention. I was trying to prove too Mike that he was lied to by Doug on the phone. Hope you all do well, Matt

Shooter ------------- Group: Members Active Posts: 1 (1 per day) Most Active In: TRX (1 posts) Joined: Yesterday, 10:49 PM Profile Views: 6 Last Active: Yesterday, 10:57 PM Currently: Offline How can they guarantee that no one's computer was hit with a virus? Google.com reported going to the website and being attacked by a virus that was instantly downloaded to their server. I don't think you should trust TRX over a multi-billion dollar company like Google.com and Mozilla Firefox. They strive to provide the best support for their software and make everyone completely aware of the threats on the web. "What happened when Google visited this site? Of the 13 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 4 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2010-08-21, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2010-08-21. Malicious software is hosted on 2 domain(s), including pocketbloke.ru/, riotassistance.ru/." Matt Ham Fail Safe Taxes

Hi, but we don't have a kenny that works for us I apologize. Matt Ham Fail Safe Taxes, LLC

"Mike, Yes it is some kids that used to work for me and are starting their own company doing what we do. I actually fired both of them for similar actions in the office. TRX will not bash anyone whether it is our competition or just an individual, we feel this is not in the best interest of the tax profession. I hope everyone understand the industry changes whether it be banking or testing know TRX maybe more important than ever to each independent preparer in making sure we all have a voice. Without the Alliance we are individual, with the Alliance we are as big as any of the large franchise companies. (TRX has 6000 +- members now and growing) Thanks for the heads up, Doug Hughes" Mike, I first want to personally thank you for letting me/us know that is what was said on the conversation you had with Doug. Currently there is only 1 person that has quit/left his company that even has a license to be a service bureau and that is myself. Since those were his words they apparently are trying to steer people around the truth of their company. They apparently still have no security at all since the time I personally quit TRX. I left TRX back in 2008 in all good faith with them and never had any issues or conflicts with Doug until this was just brought up that he said I, or my company, had something to do with their lack of security. Since they use the same Email server that is located locally on their network, which I told them they needed to fix ASAP before I quit, someone probably opened a bad email while working for TRX that contained a virus/malicious software. This then would had to of spread through the network infecting all the computers before it hit the server, or the computer that has access to the FTP for trxalliance.com, since there is no other possible way the website should of been effected unless the person, who opened the bad email, had access to the FTP information for the website which should only be 1 person in a properly secure and managed business. I will not hide any information or anything about my company, however, I did find it was necessary to hide my identity while posting on public places like this because I didn't want to be associated with TRX in any way. My information was always available to the people I talk to who are interested in purchasing with us. I did notice the post from a "MattHamKenny" in the TRX forum thread about my companies promotion that simply said "Hi". Since it does seem he has openly tried to point the blame towards myself and my company as stated in his response, I have to step in and respectfully defend myself and my company. First quick few things I'll let the readers of this post know ahead of time though is that I, in no way shape or form, had anything to do what Doug has claimed was caused by myself or anyone related to my company. I personally haven't worked, nor step foot in, had access to, other then picking up my last W2 around Feb 2009, have care to pay attention to them since I quit back in 2008. I also would like to state that I, like any other employee would, quit since he didn't listen to any of my strategies, plans, business structure ideas, call center improvements, technical support call center employee requirements and administrative database system even though that was what I was paid to do along with creating software to work with all the things needed for the company. I only received a $2 pay increase over the 3 1/2 years I worked with TRX even though I provided the tasks listed in the below paragraphs. I would like to introduce myself. My full name is Donald Matthew Ham and I am the owner of Fail Safe Taxes, LLC. You can find my companies legality information if you google > Indiana Business Search > Secretary of State website > Search for "Fail Safe Taxes". I would like to give a complete history of my background and knowledge in this industry. Also how I obtained the knowledge I received and also what I saw was huge issues that never got fixed, and hopefully at the end you will understand the truth behind the curtains. If your already wanting to know how I am able to provide such information, I was never forced to sign any type of NDA agreement for anything I'm about to tell you. regarding my position or what I worked for at TRX. I will be merely answering this response as if I was being interviewed in the "interview of my life" since I have put everything into getting my company started. Q: Matt, how do you respond and can you tell me about your history in the tax industry and everything you've done related to this industry? A: I started working for a company called TRX (Tax Refund Xpress) back in May of 2005. I was hired on as a software engineer. From day 1 I started getting familiar with how things was ran and got familiar with the sales base so I could start working on a website for them. The current website they had didn't show any updates or anything that really needed to be known by all customers and prospects. I started off and created the first website that TRX started to use. http://www.failsafetaxes.com/ATX/1stlayout.bmp After a while I started working on a program that most people started using called TRX Payroll Systems. It was a program that allowed customers to be able to do Federal Payroll for free and an extra added bonus. About 3 months down the road I had to give a demenstartion of the software at a Hotel for customers to see. Everyone seemed to like it alot and it was a great response. Unfortunately, they decided not to release the software because they didn't want to invest time in getting the tax calculations so I ended up just turning it into a W2/1099 printing software and suggested we at least give people this option. After tax season I created a few new layouts that we used. http://www.failsafetaxes.com/ATX/2stlayout.bmp http://www.failsafetaxes.com/ATX/3stlayout.bmp We had finally got a great place for people to be able to download their updates and everything easily. I did alot and alot of tech calls, if it ever was a serious case they either talked to me or sean kim. We pretty much was the only ones that took care of all the seriously hard questions and I just kept gaining knowledge from there. Over time I learned a lot about the industry and how to work with the software and help people through the rough times. I can honestly say I never took longer then an hour to fix something (minus the time for reinstallation and downloading of the previous year software) to fix anything those 3 1/2 years I worked there. Most of my calls ended in the first 15 minutes other then serious cases where there is an unknown error that deals with getting a completely fresh installation installed. I tried to tell Doug about my business plan ideas and told him he really needed a stronger technical support team or people are going to be hold for over an hour while the employee that was hired to do the job, is waiting for an administrator that barely knows the software to ask 1 of 3 tier 3 people what to do. This ended up leading into disgust since Doug wanted "people in seats" and not "call quality". I stopped working for TRX because they terrible tech season that led me into working 60 hour weeks at 400$ a week (salary) as the Software Engineer, and Tier 3 tech which again even after 3 years he would only keep 2 on staff myself and Brandon because they refused to put any money into their tech department. He wanted sales more then getting more people to support the sales and I personally just couldn't take it anymore. After 3 1/2 years I had only got a 2$ raise after creating several sites that brought in outside customers along with being the only person that knew anything about security or anything. I quit around December 2008 because could already tell it was going to be a bad season. Which brings me to the main reason why I quit. I quit mostly because I tried really really hard to improve all the different security flaws the company had. If you goto trxprotwsupport.com right now what would you do to login? "Click the OK Button".... Alright so for a section that your calling "Members Area" and where I do alot of my bank information submitting and stuff like that, its just opened up to the public. The reason why this is is because they never bother to implement the database system I created for TRX and pleaded them to use so the customers had secure logins and the server was fully protected along with having actual tickets being used and they bought a cheap software because they didn't want me to spend 1 month during Off-Season (Months of May - Sept) to get all the reporting features that was left to do completed. That is why I quit, is because I felt like I was never going to be able to make a career out of the job because there was no possible way of doing that. TRX was eventually going to have issues because of the way he performs business and doesn't support his clients the way he is suppose to, nor cares to improve on anything about the company especially support. The way I found out about trxalliance.com and the malicious software alert was actually from a customer that had went to their website through Yahoo Ad-words that screwed him the previous year by saying he had lacert and gave him no alternative because of the very poor 72 hour refund policy they have. That alone is bad business because the client doesn't even get the software until around fall anyways. Which reminded me that I had pictures from last year because I couldn't believe it myself and it was for software he didn't have licenses to. I did my response with the TRX promotion because of the malicious software alert. I did what any other competitor would do, if there is something seriously messed up with their system and they are able to get viruses and everything else on their website they have hundreds and hundreds of people going to, why wouldn't i try to take their business? I own a service bureau. If 2,000 people sign up with Doug and all those people get virus's or their system crashes or anything like that, that brings down a lot of possible sales for my company the following year. All these people that are buying software now are getting a very bad and cautious feeling of service bureau's because of TRX. I have had to prove that we have a contract with who we say we do for licensing software to nearly all our customers and I didn't mind doing it, just that I don't think my company deserves to feel like we can't get customers just because I labeled my company a service bureau and how people have been treated. Everything we offer is in form of a contract when we are about to send you your software 2 weeks in advance to your address. When we give you bank incentives, its right there in front of you a contract written out stating how much the company is expected to pay you per bank product. We do everything very professionally and provide all possible details in what we offer our customers. I am sorry if anyone feels that I (as a business owner) shouldn't of taken this opportunity to get customers from a company that puts the whole industry at risk. Our refund policy is valid until the day you receive the software in the mail. This malicious software message that is appearing clearly states it happened August 21st, 2010 was the last occurance. I haven't with the company in almost 2 years. I really don't like the finger blaming game, I have nothing at all to hide other then the strong dislike I have for Doug Hughes and the way he does business. Now just for some people who are curious to what happened with their tax incentives from TRX, it is exactly how I replied to the other thread on this forum. He spent the money trying to fully own RedGear software and his new 4.5 million dollar house. Better Business Bureau Statistics for TRX: http://www.bbb.org/nashville/business-reviews/computer-software-publishers-and-developers/tax-refund-xpress-in-murfreesboro-tn-37017600 My company's clients and ERO's are set up with their own personal representative, most of our current customers have myself, and they provide you with all the technical and tax support you need for the year. We have CPA's on staff (more then 2 unlike TRX) that also will be there assigned to your accounts to make sure you have everything you need. We can guarentee a 5 minute response because of how our company is setup. If the rep you are assigned to is busy and unable to take the call, we still have the general call queue ready to answer your call in under 5 minutes. You get your representatives direct extension that will try their office phone and also their company cell phone. You will never be on hold for over an hour, and you will always get a quick and fast responses from your personal representative that will fix the issue the first time. I have learned a lot of different methods in improving call center (between TRX and Verizon) environments and I strongly believe that customer support is what makes a service bureau a service bureau. We hope people can realize that its not the cost of the software that should be extremely important because in reality you end up paying that extra $200 in time waisted in hours on the phone, stress, call backs, and putting faith into a company to handle your secure information you give to them such as your bank information etc, that you feel cautious about. We have offered to give free membership to everyone, which includes, getting a login to our website and also getting your username, password, and reg code for FREE as long as you qualify. If you don't qualify for our special FREE program we do offer bank inceintives to all customers no matter how many bank products they do and offer a payment plan. Before you pay us ANYTHING, or if you get the software for free, we will provide you with your Username information for both Fail Safe Taxes and Taxwise. What other company has the quality, and fundings to provide a serious relationship between tax companys and ERO's? Renewal price is always based off what you sign up with us at. You get it for free this year because you qualified, as long as you qualify next year under same rules your software is FREE. For life in writing on a renewal year-to-year contract. We want everyone to be safe in this industry also to know Fail Safe Taxes as a great company and are willing to pay for your software to show we care. Thank you for reading my history and I hope to been seen as Fail Safe Taxes owner and not be associated in anyway, shape, or form to TRX and Doug. Matt Ham Fail Safe Taxes, LLC http://www.failsafetaxes.com 888.594.0065 Ext 701

Since it has recently came to our attention that TRX (Tax Refund Xpress) main website http://www.trxalliance.com has been Flagged by Google.com and Mozilla FireFox for having Malicious Software being downloaded to people’s computers that went to this website we want to offer the Tax Community a special offer. Please go to the following link for the Official information from Google.com about the Issue: http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://trxalliance.com/&client=googlechrome&hl=en-US Please be advised of this occurrence as a serious security issue. If you have been effected then someone possibly has gotten information from your computer as well. Since this is such a serious hit against the tax software industry, we want to provide people who have already purchased with TRX this year and did at least 150 bank products last year FREE Taxwise 2010 Membership through Fail Safe Taxes. We are offering FREE UNLMITED EFILE for all individual and business returns including all state and federal forms and specialties. Please go to our website http://www.failsafetaxes.com for more information for the Basic EFILE package(Doesn’t include Payroll Software such as Client Write-Up). This is a 799$ value for FREE. We understand your concerns with TRX and want to provide you with a Fail Safe way to provide tax preparation services with no issues at all. If you qualify and signup with us, as long as you meet the 150 bank product previous year requirement, you will get your Taxwise login information within 3 business days. If you decide to renew the following year, you will be able to lock yourself in at your signup price and be the same for life. If you received your software this year for 289$, then next year you still could be qualified for our FREE software offer, the most you would ever pay to renew would be $289. If you got the software for free from us, you will always get your software for free. If you are at all interested in this SPECIAL Industry saving offer please contact us at 888.594.0065 and ask for Matt. Thank you, Matt Ham Fail Safe Taxes, LLC http://www.failsafetaxes.com 888.594.0065 Ext 701

Honestly, we have gotten alot of the same complaints because we offer bank incentives with our packages and people have been afraid to take it into consideration. Friendly advice go with a company that provides you with a written contract like we give to our customers, that way its all in paper and completely legitimate. This is the same thing that Banks did as well when you went through banks for incientives before they got rid of the rebates. They signed you up and in the agreement that was signed, or digitally signed, it was agreement about when exactly you would receive the money. Apparently the rumor is that TRX spent rebate money on buying part ownership of TaxWorks(RedGear). Hope you can find a company that is able to satisfy your discomfort.

Dear Community, It is not in our interest to put down any company in the industry no matter what the circumstances are. We do, however, show strong interest in ERO's best interest in the tax software industry. Our company is based off providing the best answers and knowledge that surrounds the tax preparer communities and customers. It recently has came to our attention that a big named service bureau named TRX has been flagged for having Malicious Software being downloaded onto customers computers that accessed trxalliance.com Again, we are just wanting to spread the word because we don't want ERO's to get a "bad taste" abotu service bureau's since this could potentially hurt our company simply because we are a service buruea. The following report was posted by Google after doing scans on the website several times. This report below shows the information that was posted when you try to access the trxalliance.com website and select "Why was this site reported". This shows up in both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers when you try to access the website. Google Report - (Found on Google at) http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://trxalliance.com/&client=googlechrome&hl=en-US Safe Browsing Diagnostic page for trxalliance.com What is the current listing status for trxalliance.com? Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer. Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 2 time(s) over the past 90 days. What happened when Google visited this site? Of the 13 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 4 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2010-08-21, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2010-08-21. Malicious software is hosted on 2 domain(s), including pocketbloke.ru/, riotassistance.ru/. This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS26496 (PAH). Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware? Over the past 90 days, trxalliance.com did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites. Has this site hosted malware? No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days. How did this happen? In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message. Next steps: Return to the previous page. If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center. Updated 15 hours ago ©2008 Google - Google Home Please be sure to get the latest for your Anti-Virus software. We want all ERO's to feel safe when trying to find a good company for providing them safe and clean tax preparation software along with excellent support. Thank you, Fail Safe Taxes failsafetaxes.com

Dear Community, It is not in our interest to put down any company in the industry no matter what the circumstances are. We do, however, show strong interest in ERO's best interest in the tax software industry. Our company is based off providing the best answers and knowledge that surrounds the tax preparer communities and customers. It recently has came to our attention that a big named service bureau named TRX (Tax Refund Xpress) has been flagged for having Malicious Software being downloaded onto customers computers that accessed trxalliance.com Again, we are just wanting to spread the word because we don't want ERO's to get a "bad taste" abotu service bureau's since this could potentially hurt our company simply because we are a service buruea. The following report was posted by Google after doing scans on the website several times. This report below shows the information that was posted when you try to access the trxalliance.com website and select "Why was this site reported". This shows up in both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers when you try to access the website. Google Report - (Found at) http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://trxalliance.com/&client=googlechrome&hl=en-US Safe Browsing Diagnostic page for trxalliance.com What is the current listing status for trxalliance.com? Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer. Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 2 time(s) over the past 90 days. What happened when Google visited this site? Of the 13 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 4 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2010-08-21, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2010-08-21. Malicious software is hosted on 2 domain(s), including pocketbloke.ru/, riotassistance.ru/. This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS26496 (PAH). Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware? Over the past 90 days, trxalliance.com did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites. Has this site hosted malware? No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days. How did this happen? In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message. Next steps: Return to the previous page. If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center. Updated 15 hours ago ©2008 Google - Google Home Please be sure to get the latest for your Anti-Virus software. We want all ERO's to feel safe when trying to find a good company for providing them safe and clean tax preparation software along with excellent support. Thank you, Fail Safe Taxes failsafetaxes.com

Tired of waiting for long periods of time for customer service and being told to call back? Fail Safe Taxes offers superior tax and technical support along with providing top-of-the-line support tools to help operate and maintain a successful tax preparation office. We offer free online back-up software with purchase of our Basic ($599) and Professional Tax Packages ($1,599). Visit our website at http://www.failsafetaxes.com FailSafe offers FREE conversions for the following professional tax software providers: -Crosslink (PETZ) -Drake Software -IntelliTax Classic (Orrtax) -IntelliTax for Windows (Orrtax) -Lacerte -ProSeries Basic -ProSeries Professional Edition (Intuit) -ProSystem fx (CCH) -Saber (ATX) -TaxACT -Tax Refund Xpress (TRX) -TaxSimple -TaxSlayer -TaxWorks -TurboTax -UltraTax (Creative Solutions) Business Conversions -Drake -Lacerte -ProSeries Professional Edition (Intuit) -ProSystem fx (CCH) -Saber (ATX) -TaxWorks -UltraTax (Creative Solutions) #1 Most asked question - What do I get when I signup? -Toll FREE Technical, Tax, and Customer Support -All State and Business Forms Included -Free Unlimited E-Filing -Management Tools -Online Backup System -Return Storage -Online Updates -Amortization Schedule -Searchable Knowledge Base -Personal Representative Fail Safe Team www.failsafetaxes.com 1-888-594-0065