I retained the services of Federal and State Tax Negotiators (FSTN) in early April to assist with some issues my husband and I were having with the Idaho State Tax Commission and the IRS. I initially spoke with Mr. Jerry Adams, who assured me that they were very kind, caring and helpful and that their goal was "100% customer satisfaction." Mr. Adams seems helpful and very willing to help at that time. Since that time I have had some illnesses and some other personal issues that made if very difficult to provide all the information FSTN wanted as quickly as they wanted it.
Over a period of weeks I e-mailed "Danielle Fye", the person who was assigned to my account, and did not hear back from her on several occasions. On one of the e-mails I sent (sent to her on May 29) she finally responded 10 days later (June 9) and said "I would love to do something about this... But you have not sent back our financial questionnaires. We really to have those so we can see what options are available to you. Do you need me to email them to you?" I had already returned the questionnaires, so I responded: "I sent them back. You didn't get them? I am feeling frustrated because I gave you guys $4,000 and it took you 10 days to respond to my e-mail."
On June 11th Mr. Jerry Adams called and left me a voice mail message asking for a return phone call. I called Mr. Adams on June 12th. He started off conversation pleasantly enough... Said something about the horrendous days he'd had with the IRS. I laughed and said it must be difficult dealing with that particular government bureaucracy. Mr. Adamas asked if I was returning his phone call and I said "Yes". He then had to find my file, so I waited patiently. He then started talking about IRS State tax levy and we discussed that for a few minutes. At some point I told him that I was frustrated because when we'd received notification from husband's work that they were taking more money, I e-mailed Nicole to ask if she could do something, and it took her 10 days to respond back to me (and I was not happy about that). He immediately became belligerent and aggressive, raised his voice and started very forcefully telling me that they had sent me three letters since that e-mail. I said I hadn't received any letters. He said then there must be some problem with the mail. He said FSTN does not respond to e-mail with e-mail, only with letters. I asked why. He started screaming (yes, literally screaming!) and telling me not to talk over him or talk down to him (I wasn't). He was yelling so loudly I had to hold the phone away from my ear. I put him on speaker home and my friend, Nicole, who was riding in the car witnessed the rest of the conversation with Mr. Adams. Mr Adams told me I was out of compliance and I'd better do what he said when he said or he'd make sure I paid for it. He said that he was very aggressive in his job and that he wouldn't put up with me. I asked him why he was yelling at his customer. He told me I wasn't a customer, he didn't bring me food and make change. Huh??? He said I better call him back when he was in a better mood because he'd had an awful day with the IRS. He told me I'd better fax stuff over and then call to make sure it got there... Because they wouldn't check with me... It was my responsibility to follow up to make sure they had everything.
I asked for better communication and he got even angrier and more aggressive and abusive. I couldn't get a word in edgewise and he was still accusing me of talking over him.
During his tirade I kept calmly saying Jerry Jerry. Jerry, are you finished? May I talk now? That seemed to make him even angrier.
Something pushed this man's buttons and I don't think it had much to do with me. He was completely out of control, almost like he was having a psychotic episode. He needed to explode at someone, and, apparently I was an easy target.
Because of this experience, I don't trust Mr. Adams to effectively negotiate anything, nor comply with any fiduciary responsibilities he has towards me as his customer/client (though he doesn't see me as a customer). He was completely unable to control himself when dealing with a frustrated customer (if I'm not a customer then what am I?). He was abusive, ugly and out of control. He hung up on me.
During this conversation he also made some sort of veiled threat about him having my power of attorney. I'm not sure what he meant, but he sounded very ominous.
At this point FSTN has $4,000 of my money and they have done virtually nothing to assist me. They will not take my phone calls nor respond to my e-mails. They only way they will allow me to communicate with them is via fax.
They are beyond unprofessional. Their behavior toward me (witnessed by third parties) has been downright scary and threatening.
My experience has been that as soon as you give these people money, they quit talking to you and do everything possible to threatened, frighten and manipulate. I would never, ever recommend that anyone hire fstn to provide any services.
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