I m fired up to beat them.
— Brad Smith, Intuit CEO, talking about cybercriminals in the wake of a big test for him and his Mountain View company. TurboTax, the company s tax-filing software, had to halt the filing of state tax returns last Friday morning after states reported a rise in fraudulent returns. TurboTax resumed state filings later that afternoon.
Intuit said it believes the fake returns resulted from identity theft from other sources and not a breach of its systems, our Pat May reported last week.
Smith this week sent a letter to the IRS commissioner regarding the matter, saying we must act together, according to the Wall Street Journal. He also called for more information-sharing between companies and states, because more fraud is occurring at the state level.
No matter where the blame lies, the TurboTax name is tainted in some eyes.
Bloomberg quotes Katrina Ramirez, an economics college student in Chicago who late last month received an e-mail from TurboTax that her e-file was successful. But she s never used TurboTax.
With her identity having been stolen, she spent two hours on the phone with Intuit. She was eventually told to call the IRS, the Federal Trade Commission and three credit reporting agencies before the account was canceled.
It really sucks, she said. I m very unhappy with TurboTax and I don t think I ll ever use them.
TurboTax generated $1.5 billion, or 34 percent, of Intuit s fiscal 2014 revenue, Bloomberg says. Intuit shares fell more than 4 percent after it suspended filings last week, but have inched back up this week. Today they re trading up 0.7 percent at about $90.
Photo by Paul Sakuma/Associated Press
