Is anyone on these threads a lawyer? I feel like this is considered a highly deceptive practice that would violate consumer protection laws. We've been groomed into using the free ACH service for years and now my clients are familiar with my billing process. So to change to another platform would be a disruption to my business.
About a year ago Intuit stopped offering the free service to new QB users, but allowed old QB users to remain free. So their excuse as to why they changed is a blatant lie. Both platform options have existed for years. $0 fee users have had the option to switch to 1% next day for over a year. And sounds like WE DIDN'T WANT TO! I would consider this deceptive because it's a pattern...
5 years ago QBO was what, $20/month at retail? Its gone up 350%? There's been some improvements but most of the changes have been quirky and annoying. Proadvisors can no longer transfer existing clients over to our wholesale pricing. When clients don't want to pay the price, guess what? Now they can't even take their books with them to go elsewhere. Magically without any warning we can no longer back up QBO accounts to import into another program. Or if a client goes out of business just to back it up for record keeping requirements. QBO NOW OWNS THEIR BOOKS! Either keep paying the monthly fee or your books are gone! What if they get audited by taxing authorities 3 years later?
I used to use Intuit Payroll for Accountants (formerly PayCycle) which was great for the handful of payroll clients I had. And much better (and cheaper) than QBO Payroll which I hate with a passion. They promised to leave the platform alone, which they did for the most part, but then jacked up the price to where Intuit was getting the bulk of my payroll fees.
They also forced one of my clients on a 5 day lead time which is ILLEGAL in Massachusetts! I threatened to file a complaint with the MA AG because Intuit was forcing me to break the law and pay employees past the max 6 days after end of the pay period (6 days not business days). I was told to send 6 months of client bank statements to get them off 5 day lead which I did. I waited on hold for hours with various departments multiple times. And I was given a fake number to go higher up the chain when they wouldn't change the lead time! Yes a fake number!!! I am now using Accountant's World payroll and so glad I made the switch.
Now QB is partnering with Melio for bill payments offering yet another "free" service. Who wants to predict what the next move will be? Wait until more and more QB users are groomed into using it, spend the time and effort setting up all of their vendors, and then BOOM... 1% fee on vendor payments? Not to mention their recent lawsuit with the IRS for hiding their free Turbotax software from consumers. Intuit has a distinct pattern of deceptive and greedy business practices. Great opportunity for a lawyer who wants to start class action lawsuit...
