Oliver Turay
1/5
So let me start by saying if you are planning to use an accountant or the services at this location, DO NOT! No one will give more care and dedication to your hard earned tax return than yourself. Please learn from my experience below:
I retained the services of one of the accountants' whose name is on the sign for my tax return. Right away by his presentation, I knew I should have gotten up and left the interview and done my taxes myself. My chartered professional accountant was condescending right from the start, making me feel like I was lucky for the privilege for a moment of his time and not that I was paying for a service. He was unprepared, had to leave the meeting to get some materials to record necessary info and then stated, "his head was not in tax season," ergo: I do not have to be a professional and do a good job because it's your fault you are filing late. He then asked me questions that he then answered himself, such as, "you have no foreign income, you have no foreign property... etc." I just got back from living abroad which is why I went to an accountant, so they were reasonable questions to wait for my answer and not answer them himself. He needed some additional info which I later emailed him, to which he replied, "will be a next week project," ergo: your business is not important to me nor the service you are paying for, when I have time I will do it when I get around to it. Thankfully, with no specified timeframe nor date, he did get around to it and my tax return was filed. Thereafter, I received regular letters from CRA letting me know my information was incomplete to receive GST, CIAP and the child benefit which I assumed was due to some aspect of my being abroad. When I had time to look into it, it turned out the fault was due to my tax return not being completed correctly and as discussed. Imagine the money owed that my family probably will not be able to receive now. So I contacted one of the name's mentioned on the sign and I received an immediate reply that stated their recollection and to direct all questions to them. I quickly replied that their recollection was off as I have the return right in front of me and multiple letters from CRA stating the info is missing. I received no reply. The next day I sent a follow up email. No reply. Again, the next day I called and the chartered professional accountant was out of office, of course without the professional out of office reply on their email but I was assured they were reading emails. No reply over the weekend. No reply on the following Monday. No reply even with multiple phone calls for more than a week. So I am at a loss as to what went wrong and I think it is below anyone's standard, let alone a professional standard to ignore a person and especially a client. My guess is rather than acknowledge and fix his mistakes he prefers to pretend that he never makes mistakes. Let this be a lesson to learn from, that number 1 chartered professional accountants' at this location do in fact make mistakes on tax return and lesson number 2 take no action and no communication to correct or advise their mistakes. I would have been satisfied with a yes, I will look into it or no, you will have to do this on your own. Either answer would have been enough.
If you are still considering this particular location, consider this: I asked for a refund because that is the courteous thing to do when you're dissatisfied with someone you do business with and their answer was no which just asks for more action from me. This is a public record on THEIR business for THEIR measly fee, which let's be honest isn't worth this trouble and THAT is the person you are considering for THEIR business sense.
