tax1guydc

Well, I guess while the laid off ATX employees are standing in the cold, the rest of us are in the cold too. This is going to be a long, cold winter for all of us.

Why is ATX support so bad this year? Because ATX support no longer exists. Read the other posts. The ATX support staff was laid off in late December by CCH. All the calls are going to TaxWise customer support people who may not be fully trained or experienced in dealing with ATX products. Like some people, I was on hold for more than 30 minutes before I got through. However, that was only after getting cut off a couple times when I tried to call before. I'm sure the TaxWise staff are doing the best they can. But like us, they probably got caught off guard and now have to deal with angry customers.

It seems very clear to me from reading the posts today that CCH did a half-ass job of helping ATX customers. I can understand their decision in laying off employees. Frankly, I don't think it makes sense to have two call centers. But it seems to me they could have waited until after tax season to lay off the ATX employees in Maine rather than do it a week before tax season started. If they really wanted to help their customers (and their employees) they should have given the employees the option to move to GA months ago (and maybe give them a financial incentive for doing so). Clearly, someone at the top was looking at the profits and decided jump the gun and lay off the ME employees without having a good back-up plan in place. I think CCH press release was only issued because customers like us are complaining about the poor customer service we're getting. I'm not really blaming the TaxWise employees because they probably got caught off guard like the rest of us. Sad. Very sad.

I've been to Caribou before - long time ago. (I have friends who live in Maine). The job market there is bad even in good times. I've been using ATX for years (back when they use to offer Saber). It's a shame to see experienced people like that go. I hope they can find work. Meanwhile, these lay offs are really hurting their customer support efforts. I was on hold for almost 40 minutes waiting to talk to a tech person. He was nice but I could tell he really didn't know that much about MAX. Why did they have to lay off people before tax season? Poor planning. I just hope they can get their act together soon.