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QuickBooks Fees Class Action Lawsuit Overview:
- Who: Intuit, Inc, the maker of the popular accounting software Quickbooks, is being sued by a New York law firm.
- What: Intuit is accused of suddenly ramping up fees on ACH payments in QuickBooks without clearly communicating it to its customers, many of whom are small business owners.
- Where: The lawsuit seeks to represent business owners nationwide.
Small businesses struggling to survive during the pandemic have been delivered a further insult from accounting software provider QuickBooks, which allegedly ramped up fees on certain transactions seemingly overnight, a new class action lawsuit alleges.
The lead plaintiff, New York law firm Shankar Ninan & Co., LLP, filed the class action lawsuit against QuickBooks owner Intuit, Inc in a California federal court.
The firm says QuickBooks—a software offering bookkeeping and payment functions—used to allow small businesses to receive automated clearing house (ACH) payments within two-to-seven days without any fee.
If a business needed the money soon, it could opt to get the funds overnight, for a fee of one percent of the transfer amount.
However, on March 11, QuickBooks users received an email informing them that all future ACH payments would be processed in one business day “with no extra fees.”
QuickBooks users now know that this “confusing” email actually meant QuickBooks was removing the option to make an ACH transfer without a fee.
“QuickBooks provided no option for users to opt-out of the automatic one-day transfers and maintain the free two-to-seven-day option,” the class action says.
As a result, QuickBooks users, many of whom are small business owners, have been hit with thousands of dollars worth of fees since the change, the class action says. Shankar Ninan says the firm has been charged $4,327.45 by QuickBooks for ACH transaction fees under the new policy since Aug. 31.
Business Owners Complain About New QuickBooks Fee
The lawsuit provides screenshots of other small businesses complaining online.
“This is a huge expense for me as I have 600 customers,” one business owner wrote. “This seems ridiculous. What if I don’t care about the speed of deposit?,” another said.
Shankar Ninan says Intuit’s QuickBooks has millions of users in the United States, and in fiscal year 2020 reported revenues of $7.7 billion.
It says QuickBooks fee switch is particularly egregious given the timing: amid a global pandemic.
“The timing of QuickBooks’s misleading switch to one-day transfers with a 1% transaction fee was especially insulting to users given the financial implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated impact on individual contractors and small business owners, who comprise a majority of QuickBooks’s user base,” the class action states.
It says a QuickBooks representative acknowledged to Shankar Nina that the change to ACH transfers was “confusing,” but rather than refunding the money in full, only offered a $7 refund per transaction.
The plaintiff is looking to represent all residents of the United States who used QuickBooks to process ACH payments and were automatically switched from free two-to-seven-day transfers to one-day transfers with a one percent transaction fee.
It is suing for breach of contract, fraud, conversion, and under California consumer law. It seeks certification of the class action, a finding that the alleged conduct is unlawful, damages, penalties, fees, costs, interest and a jury trial.
Meanwhile, Intuit is working through another class action lawsuit and potential $40 million settlement with TurboTax consumers who are suing the company for allegedly directing them away from the TurboTax free edition even though they were eligible to use it.
Are you affected by the QuickBooks fee change? Let us know your experience in the comments!
The plaintiff is represented by James A. Morris, Esq. and Shane E. Greenberg, Esq. of Morris Law Firm.
The QuickBooks Fees Class Action Lawsuit is Shankar Nina & Co., LLP, et al. v. Intuit, Inc., et al., Case No. 5:21-cv-07339, in the U.S. District Court Northern District of California.
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42 thoughts onQuickbooks Slipped New Fees To Struggling Small Businesses Amid Pandemic, Class Action Alleges
I am in need of an attorney as well. Quick Books is committing fraud and going into customer accounts at night and changing things without the business owners consent. Sending multiples of the same ACHs with only one request being made. Charging extremely high fees and horrible customer service. I have been dealing with them for 7 days straight on a $1123 charge that I already paid them once for and now they are claiming i owe them $900+100 Fee for the same issue.. I DONT THINK SO. I HAE REPORTED THEM TO THE TRADE COMMISSION AND I AM LOOKING FOR REPRESENTATION ON THIS ISSUE AND A LIST OF OTHERS WITH THIS SAME COMPANY!
I need a lawyer to sue Intuit for making us pay high monthly fees for a software the is underdeveloped and does not operate correctly. I have hundreds of videos to prove it.
During the pandemic (or “damn panic” depending on your point of view), our business exploded. We supply empty plastic bottles to pharmacies and similar companies/manufacturers. The demand for bottles for sanitizer was crazy. As a result, we processed a ton of credit card payments. Some of those payments were from fraudulent customers with stolen card numbers. On numerous occasions, those clients would try to process their payment with different card numbers up to 5 or 6 times within 24 hours before finally getting a payment to get processed. Of course, once those charges were processed, within a matter of weeks, the card companies would dispute the charges and we were issued a charge back from Intuit. Of course Intuit would not take any responsibility for allowing the charges to be processed in the first place. In addition, they froze all of our payments and held those funds to cover the cost of the charge backs. Been fighting with them for almost 2 years now. Claimed we owed them about $45K more than we actually did. They eventually shut down our account and denied us access to the records. Fortunately I had screen shot pages of our account details and was bale to save us some of the money Intuit erroneously claimed we owed.
This goes beyond the increase of fees. Intuit/Quickbooks has forced migration of all of their Intuit Online Payroll firms, us being one of those. However, they have failed to provide records for contractors paid, we no longer have access to stop or amend any contractor payments scheduled in advance. We have lost 2 clients over this situation and likely may be hit with more of a loss. Our firm is a small firm but all of the clients we serve are nonprofits. So the lack of proper record retention places each of them at risk. One of the clients who left us is still reporting money taken out after their account has been canceled. They report to have no clue how to stop it. It is impossible to speak to anyone with any authority there to truly find out when this will be resolved. We can’t even leave to use another software without the proper records and fear of the same thing happening to the rest of our clients. We have spent hours and hours chatting with people who honestly have no clue how to even answer my questions. We were happy with Intuit Online Payroll and wanted to stay using that software. However, did not have a choice but to migrate over even when we signed up for that service. I have contractors from our clients who have either not been paid or been paid multiple times. There is no rhyme or reason to the madness. There was a class action case I believe years ago that Intuit lost due to data issues. Is this correct? We need something to change as our organization just can’t continue to take the hit from the loss of clients.
QuickBooks decided to take these fees out of my personal account. They were small amounts in my case as we are not a huge business. When I called them on it they put a hold on all my payments from clients. Missed payroll loss employees and clients.
This happened to us! I could not figure out what was going on at first and have paid a substantial amount in fees by Quickbooks since the date this was implemented! We run a trade show and process hundreds of invoices. The impact this has had on us as a small business has been crippling.
Didn’t realize that their was a 2.9% charge for an invoice payment. Quickbooks is charging me $3200 for 2 transactions. Was on the phone with customer service for 1 hour. No help.
Sign me up!
Hi,
I have called this line multiple times as well as used the virtual chat. The response I received was that this was a “business decision” and there are no additional details they are able to provide. They wouldn’t route me to any additional support member to help remediate the issue. I asked the following questions:
1. Is there anything I can do to fix this
2. Is there anybody I can speak with to discuss this further
3. Is there anything I can do at all regarding the situation
The response was a broad “no”, nothing can be done about this situation. I’m surprised these business practices are considered remotely acceptable, now anytime I even call for help they can’t find my Merchant account number as the account has been closed. I was specifically told by a representative the following:
Rep: “Alright, A bit of bad news. Intuit closed your account as a business decision. These decisions are final unfortunately. Where Intuit is considered a low risk processor, and sole proprietary company. They don’t have to provide notifications for closures or give the reason for closing the account as a business decision. I am sorry. As for the funds in the checking account you would need to call the number on the back of the card to see about those funds.”
Also the following:
Me: I’m not following, what does “they are low risk” mean?
Me: What exactly does the statement “it will only advise as a business decision” mean?
Rep: Intuit is a sole prop company and where they are low risk. Meaning they review and have stricter guide lines they go by. Means where they are a low risk processor. They don’t have to tell you the reason as why they closed it.
Lastly:
Rep: Intuit closed the payments account. Where they are low risk it will only advise as a business decision.
Hopefully somebody that is experiencing the same issue on this forum can know they are not alone in dealing with this completely unwarranted and upsetting situation. This sort of vague discussion only manages to further escalate my stress. Not to get too into the personal details but this is not going well for me and it is frustrating beyond belief, It’s like a feeling of claustrophobia and lack of control of the situation and the individuals responsible seem to have minimal interest in fixing the issue.
Please sign me up for this lawsuit. I am a small business owner who needs my money back and needs help getting justice for lost time, lost money and compensation for damages to my business reputation. Thank you.
I’m going through this stress right now. Veteran female owned company and it may destroy my business. Especially, just starting up.
Please add me and my business have a checking account with them. The account was Flagg for fraud and now they have no way to unlock my account and get my money back to my business.
Please add me They also took Texas state unemployment taxes from my employees and then never paid the state Now the state is making me pay it with penalties and interest even though I showed them quickbooks has the money