I registered a TurboTax product I bought for work, and it automatically logged in to my personal Intuit account. How do I fix this so I'm not out the purchase price?

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
January 1, 2024
3 replies
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I purchased TurboTax Business. It provided a compete different installer and installed to a completely different location than TurboTax for individuals. I incorrectly assumed it wouldn't, without even asking, log me in to my personal Intuit account based on it seemingly being an unrelated program.

TurboTax Business Windows

Best answer by Col74

If you already have one or more Intuit products installed, TurboTax will somehow identify the Intuit account(s) used and somehow log in to an Intuit account when you launch the installer. TurboTax will not ask you to log in or create an account as the documentation suggests.

Customer support will not assist you with associating your product with the right account.

Anonymous_

Employee

See How do I install and activate my TurboTax Desktop product? (intuit.com)

You need to log in to an Intuit account in order to install the product.

Col74Author

This response has nothing to do with what I posted.

As an aside, the linked article also contains incorrect information.

Here’s how to get started with TurboTax Desktop:
.Download and install TurboTax Desktop
Go here if you have Windows.
Go here if you have a Mac.
To activate your installed software, you will be prompted to sign in to or create your Intuit Account if you don’t already have one.
Activate your TurboTax software by entering your license code.
Start using TurboTax.

I was never asked to create an Intuit account or log in to an existing one. It just, somehow, grabbed my login details off my personal TurboTax install and decided it would assign a $100+ product to that account without asking.

Anonymous_

Employee

@Col74 wrote:
......It just, somehow, grabbed my login details off my personal TurboTax install and decided it would assign a $100+ product to that account without asking.

Yeah, that's the way it works, sorry. You need to log in (or otherwise be logged in) to an Intuit account in order to install the software. If you were logged in to a "personal account" (and TurboTax does not distinguish between business accounts and personal accounts), then the install would automatically use that account.

Col74AuthorAnswer

Customer support will not assist you with associating your product with the right account.

Anonymous_

Employee

Did you have a browser (any browser) open which might have been logged into your Intuit account? That would do it.

Col74Author

@Anonymous_ wrote:
Did you have a browser (any browser) open which might have been logged into your Intuit account? That would do it.

It really doesn't matter. If I install a piece of software, it has no business hunting around on my machine for what accounts it should be logging into. It should be asking me. The only exceptions to this are pieces of software that have a relatively high level of integration with my operating system that are logging into my, for example, Microsoft or Apple account with my consent.

I consider the matter closed. The answer is "TurboTax's documentation is wrong and the only people who might be able to fix Intuit's screw up are their customer service staff and documentation maintainers."

Col74Author

As an update to this thread, I contacted support today. Josh answered the phone and his first response was essentially that next year when I activate the product I need to pay better attention when logging in.

I explained four times that I didn't log in, didn't buy it from Intuit while logged in to their website, and didn't enter the license code on Intuit's website. He responded four times that what I was describing couldn't have happened and that I was wrong.

Quite bold to respond to a customer saying "When I registered the product something happened that didn't make sense to me," with "Next time you give us money don't screw it up." Dude was a **bleep** until he put me on hold and had me talk to someone else who suggested logging out of all Intuit products on my computer before installing the software, since if you are logged in to any of them you will not be asked to log in and it will indeed use the account associated with another product on your computer.

AWCinPNW

I just had a similar experience. Intuit automatically assigned my personal software key to my wife's business account. I'm sure I can still use it, but will be trying to find an alternative to TurboTax next year. The customer service and value provided feels like it diminishes every year. Tired of a lack of real support or customer focus from a financial software company that continues to show they are more interested in making money than helping people with their finances. Maybe someday Intuit will realize this is a real issue and try to solve it. Until then I'm going to be investigating other service and software alternatives.