Sep 15, 2008 05:32 PM
4339 Views
Taxsmile is part of the latest wave of online tax filing websites. As a bonus, they are a part of the ICICI family. And as we all know, thats not a good thing. In fact, its fearfully bad.
Lets start with their website. Taxsmile website is quite well designed. The process of registration went smoothly for me. The process of tax filing is workflow-driven and is decently designed. They have good usability, but they could done with a better layout. So overall, the website is fine(3 out of 5).
But now comes the really bad part - their back office. Because IT filing in India is not fully online, Taxsmile has to deal with the IT department physically for a few things. And here it sucks big time. Their back office seems to be under staffed and of bad quality. And their customer service is extremely poor.
In short, I filed my returns with them in last week of July, opted for physical filing and I still haven't got my acknowledgment receipt! I've called, chatted and emailed their customer service more than 8-10 times and I've still got nothing except empty promises. Their back office is slow, customer service is bad and overall experience poor.
Details of my experience:
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I filed my tax details on the Taxsmile website in the second last of week of July and got the ITR-V within 3-4 days. So far so good. Then I paid Rs 150 extra to let Taxsmile physically file my ITR-V with the IT circle office and get my acknowledgment receipt. I was asked to take 2 printouts of the ITR-V, sign them and drop them in their dropbox along with a copy of my PAN card. This I did around 27th July. And from here started my painful Taxsmile journey.
I was told(on phone) that I would get the acknowledgment receipt for the ITR-V within 10 days by courier. I did not. So I called them up. I was told that the issue would be resolved within 48 hours. It did not. So I called them again. I was again told to wait for 2-3 days. And still, the issue did not get resolved. [I have good patience.]
Then I tried emailing them and chatting through their online support. No one responded to my email for 15 days. And when they did, they just said sorry and told me that some one would call me. No one called me. I chatted with their many online support persons more than 5 times and every time the same result: nothing! I got frustrated, called their landline and vent off my anger on whoever was on the other side. This probably had some effect - because some one called me within an hour or so. Guess what? They wanted to know where I'd dropped my documents! Sh*t! Either they didn't have my documents, or they didn't bother to pick them up or they lost them! This now became scary . I don't want my signed ITR-V and copy of PAN card being used to serve bhel at chowpattis. When I raised my fears, the person on the other end was totally shameless("aisa kabhi hota hai kya sir?!"). He promised me that he was a supervisor and would get the issue sorted within a week's time.
Its been 10 days since that call and more than a month since I filed my IT returns. And I still haven't received my acknowledgment receipt! I don't know what I will answer when IT or someone else asks for my ack receipt.
I would advise every one to just stay away from Taxsmile. Their back office and customer service are bad. Really really bad. They don't care about their customers, even when they know that what they are doing is very critical.
I am going to wait for a few weeks more and if I don't get my ack, I am going to file a consumer court case against them. If anybody wants to join me then, please leave a comment.
