<story><title>TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-just-tricked-you-into-paying-to-file-your-taxes</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alehul</author><text>In my experience this year, TurboTax prompted me that I could save money by upgrading to a paid plan via taking advantage of some extra deduction. I thought, &amp;quot;if it&amp;#x27;s going to save me more than I pay for it, why not?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I clicked through and found that this deduction wouldn&amp;#x27;t actually save me any money. I then couldn&amp;#x27;t find a way to get back to the free plan (they only charge you after you file, so this should be possible).&lt;p&gt;After struggling for a while, I called Turbotax support, which had me download screen-sharing software and kept telling me to press some button to cancel the paid plan, and it wouldn&amp;#x27;t work, telling me that it wasn&amp;#x27;t possible to switch back. He couldn&amp;#x27;t figure it out, couldn&amp;#x27;t switch it off on his end, and eventually told me I would have to create a new Turbotax account and start over.&lt;p&gt;Oh, and for the icing on the cake, he never stopped the screen-sharing session, and saw me input my SSN when I recreated my account. (Yes, I&amp;#x27;m aware that I&amp;#x27;m a fool for not closing it out myself, but I was really stressed, and it would&amp;#x27;ve been professional to end the screen-sharing after we ended the call.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>iscrewyou</author><text>They lost me as a customer this year because of this exact reason.&lt;p&gt;I started doing my taxes in turbo tax this year. After a few screens I got the upgrade option for extra deductions and saving money. I clicked ok and got upgraded. I followed through the entire taxes and my return didn’t change. NO WAY to downgrade. Clearly, they got theirs.&lt;p&gt;I opened up Taxact and filled up their forms and my returns were the same without upgrading (to their equivalent option). I filed with TaxAct and removed my info from TurboTax. I will definitely use them to compare my taxes if I ever have to but I will not file using TurboTax. POS.</text></comment>
<story><title>TurboTax Uses Dark Patterns to Trick You into Paying to File Your Taxes</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-just-tricked-you-into-paying-to-file-your-taxes</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alehul</author><text>In my experience this year, TurboTax prompted me that I could save money by upgrading to a paid plan via taking advantage of some extra deduction. I thought, &amp;quot;if it&amp;#x27;s going to save me more than I pay for it, why not?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I clicked through and found that this deduction wouldn&amp;#x27;t actually save me any money. I then couldn&amp;#x27;t find a way to get back to the free plan (they only charge you after you file, so this should be possible).&lt;p&gt;After struggling for a while, I called Turbotax support, which had me download screen-sharing software and kept telling me to press some button to cancel the paid plan, and it wouldn&amp;#x27;t work, telling me that it wasn&amp;#x27;t possible to switch back. He couldn&amp;#x27;t figure it out, couldn&amp;#x27;t switch it off on his end, and eventually told me I would have to create a new Turbotax account and start over.&lt;p&gt;Oh, and for the icing on the cake, he never stopped the screen-sharing session, and saw me input my SSN when I recreated my account. (Yes, I&amp;#x27;m aware that I&amp;#x27;m a fool for not closing it out myself, but I was really stressed, and it would&amp;#x27;ve been professional to end the screen-sharing after we ended the call.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>liminal</author><text>To downgrade you need to delete all the info you entered and start over. That&amp;#x27;s definitely a dark pattern</text></comment>