Odalys Rodriguez and Julio Guerra of Homestead, Florida claim that LBS Tax Services offered to do their taxes for $75 but later charged their accounts hundreds of dollars, news sources report. Rodriguez and Guerra were both reportedly scammed in separate incidents with the company. It is not yet known how many victims there may be, or if a class-action lawsuit may be in the works.
Rodriguez and Guerra both filed complaints with the Miami-Dade County Police; they have also reported the tax service to the Interal Revenue Service and the Florida Attorney General. Police are currently conducting an investigation to determine whether charges will be filed. So far, there have been no arrests.
According to reports, LBS Tax Services is located on South Dixie Highway in Homestead and purportedly offers customers tax preparation services. Rodriguez and Guerra were both allegedly told that they could get their taxes done for $75.
In Rodriguez's case, she provided her credit card information, agreed to pay $75, and had her taxes done. However, sometime later Rodriguez discovered that the company had charged her account $750. "If [the business] would have told me that I would have been charged $750, I would have said no," Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez returned to the business and spoke with a company representative who claimed that the $75 charge was for the tax filer and that LBS Tax Services took the rest of the $750. "[The representative] didn't care," Rodriguez said. "I said, 'You never told me the company was going to charge me that much money.'"
Guerra had a similar experience with the company. After the company said it would charge him $75 to prepare he taxes, Guerra said the company charged him $964. "They covered all the figures," Rodriguez claimed. "[They] just had us sign line after line and covered up the figures so we couldn't see them."