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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 have too many complaints against quickbooks to put here, but if someone will contact me, I would be very interested in taking part in the lawsuit. I even have some screenshots of some of their sneaky ways. I guess the biggest one for me is that they keep turning on credit card and paypal payments, even though I do not accept them. I have had a few customers make payments this way before I catch it, and end up having to pay the fees before I am able to turn the settings back off. I have even lost TWO customers because they said I “stopped accepting credit cards”! They also charged me for an upgrade for my mac computer that I told them was incompatible, but they “took control” of my computer for a whole day to show me that it would work…it didn’t. I lost a whole day of work, and several more hours fighting to get a refund, and several weeks to get my computer downgraded back to the compatible software. It was never the same, and I ended up having to buy a windows pc (mac users will understand my pain)!!! Recently they added DAILY late fees, instead of monthly. I mis-billed several customers, and had to even give refunds to some. They they QB decided to try to fix it by “backing out” the fees…soooo messed up!! I had to manually go into 98 customers and delete a minimum of 12 days (12 deletes x 98 customers) to undo what they did…and they would not even offer me a free month for my time!!!!!!!! I am switching to Wave at the end of the year.
I have a copy of Quickbooks I have been using for years to run a small business to keep records of profit and loss. I had to upgrade my computer and now I can not access my program. I was toldI had to purchase a $30 monthly subscription. It did not work. Then they told me I needed a $1000 dollar a year program to recover my records. I told them no.
I have been using desktop pro and the fees are bull but on top of it less than a year ago I purchased their pos system what a joke and now they are doing away with it I spent a large chunk of cash not to mention the hours of phone calls and troubleshooting of this piece of shit system that still does not work. no wonder they are ending it I was sold this saying it was good for years and it’s been 12 months is there any suite for this money and the time it has cost me not to mention the missed sells due to this system
They prevented my company from accessing quickbooks until I paid them $600. We dont use their payroll or help and now ate charged a $600 annual fee! Pirates!
I have been using Quickbooks Pro for almost 25 years. I upgrade my desktop version every 2-3 years. Now essential functions of the program I purchased are no longer working. Instead of importing my banking transactions, I’m having to enter each transaction manually which is extremely time consuming. Time is our most expensive commodity. How can a company take away something you’ve already paid for. There needs to be a class action lawsuit for this as well. Please contact me if there is.
I own Quickbook pro. I use it for our business. I don’t use it for anything other than entering everything by hand and printing out the P&L and taking it to my accountant. QuickBooks updated my software and now I can’t use my QuickBooks program because I won’t pay their charges. I don’t use banking, I don’t write checks on QuickBooks, I don’t send billing people don’t pay us through QuickBooks.
QuickBooks is holding my program, that I paid for, hostage.
I have the exact same situation. I bought a desktop version and I can’t log in now to even see who’s been paid or do my final taxes. I sold the business a month ago!
Update. After a month of trying to get my company file back I finally paid $550 and upgraded to the current newest program. Please note that this fee of $550 is paid yearly. I’m not the only person this has happened too. Where is the class action on this blackmail?
It’s now $799 and of October 2023.
I have Quickbooks on my laptop and do bookkeeping for myself and 3 others. I tried to finish the books for one of my clients and the program is telling me I have to sign up online and pay monthly now. I can not even access the data I have already input and have to start over in a new program. This is very frustrating as I was signing back in to input the last of the data and print the P&L statement to give the client to do their taxes and now have to figure out how else to do it and re-input all that data for a year.
After getting, in writing,a guarantee that the 2022 desktop version would work, but not be supported, after 2023, they billed me an additional $549 as an annual subscription. Bait and switch. They are horrible!
Beginning July 2022, QBO went from charging my business account $25/month to $30/month. I find it odd that there was no communication regarding the change in fees.
Quickbooks Payroll Service is stealing money from small businesses. For two months they stated in writing by weekly email notices in which they stated that if you do not buy the new software they will cancel your payroll subscription effective June 30 2023. They also stated in this email that all payroll taxes they have withheld will be refunded back to the business checking account by July 6th which is needed to file the quarterly payroll tax return. No refund still July 12th. They also took $109 dollars out of the business checking on July 5th for July payroll when the service was cancelled as of June 30th by them with email confirmation. They said last week July 6th that I would be refunded the $109, now today July 12th they take another $16.47 out of the business account and tell me now that the fees they charged after the cancellation date which was June 30th will not be refunded and is non refundable. Why are they being allowed to steal money from small businesses ? Are there no regulations against this ilegal behavior by such a large company ?
They did the same thing with payroll costs. I was being charged a $2.00 fee per employee per month. When I got my credit card statement, they charged me 1 1/2 time what it was before. I was told that their prices went up from $2 per employee a month to $5 in October and that they are going to be announcing it in January of 2023. Makes no sense to me.
Their customer support is next to nonexistent. When you finally find out how to get ahold of a real person, they have no knowledge of Quickbooks. They make you have an intuit online account and mine was hacked. Finally got that resolved and now I am trying to get off my previous employers account. Not going so well.