The FTC says it has finalized a $7 million settlement with H&R Block.
The Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) introduced the settlement Wednesday (Jan. 8) as half of a bigger settlement with the tax preparation firm, which has agreed to make a variety of modifications to its practices earlier than the 2025 tax submitting season.
The fee final yr charged H&R Block with unfairly requiring prospects hoping to downgrade to a less expensive H&R Block product to contact customer support. The regulator additionally stated the corporate unfairly deleted customers’ beforehand entered information and made misleading claims relating to “free” tax submitting.
“The settlement requires H&R Block to make it simpler for shoppers to downgrade merchandise and by eliminating its apply of utterly deleting shoppers’ beforehand entered information upon downgrade,” the FTC stated. “By February 15, 2025, the corporate is required to permit shoppers to downgrade merchandise utilizing a chatbot or different automated means, as an alternative of requiring them to name customer support or chat with a stay customer support agent.”
Except for paying the $7 million settlement, the settlement additionally requires H&R Block to cease utterly deleting shoppers’ beforehand entered data by the 2026 tax season. As well as, H&R Block should reveal in its “free” promoting both the share of taxpayers who’re eligible to make use of “free” merchandise or that almost all of taxpayers don’t qualify.
“H&R Block prides itself in offering shoppers with high quality on-line tax preparation merchandise, which has by no means been a problem on this matter,” the corporate stated in a press release supplied to PYMNTS when the settlement was first introduced in November.
“We’ll proceed to work by way of this course of with the Fee. We’re pleased with the worth, unmatched tax experience, and honest and clear pricing we offer to our shoppers, who’ve trusted H&R Block for almost 70 years.”
Additionally this week, the FTC settled a criticism with gig economic system platform Angi Providers, requiring it to pay $2.95 million and make “substantial” modifications to its enterprise practices.
“Helpful Applied sciences relied on inflated and false earnings claims to lure staff onto its platform,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Client Safety, stated in a information launch. “It then deducted inadequately disclosed fines and charges from their wages.”
Reached by PYMNTS, a Helpful spokesperson stated the FTC allegations had been unfair, however that the corporate selected to settle to “put the matter to relaxation” and deal with its enterprise.
“Although we had been ready to litigate, we selected to enter into an settlement with these events to place this matter to relaxation and get again to placing our 100% deal with supporting our prospects: the small companies who assist People take care of and keep their properties,” the assertion stated.
