For the first time, I was using #Cleartax to file IT returns on behalf of my father who is a retired employee. I was using their services owing to the requirement of filing tax using form ITR2 which I haven’t done before. On their website, it says file your returns in less than 7 minutes which is utter nonsense. However, when I started interacting with their chat support during the last week of Dec they said it will be done within a day. They also suggested going for the paid service slab of(3999+ 18% GST) which comes to around ~ Rs 4800. They also said I need to pay the fees upfront to even start a conversation with their advisors.
I was a little apprehensive to pay upfront that money without first speaking to an advisor so that they know the requirement. However, I did pay up. To my surprise after paying nobody was assigned to handle my case at that point. After 4-5 hrs, a manager was assigned and she said to me in the evening she would be speaking to me on this only the next day. I was surprised since they had promised to file the returns in a day. Anyways I waited till the next day to speak.
Then when I did speak to her, she said a CA would be assigned to me who would be handling my case. That took another day. I was utterly disgusted at this point since I had to waste another day and wait to complete this process. The next day when the CA spoke to take the necessary details and other clarification from my side, I realized she was handling too many cases and she told me that she would be filing the returns for my dad in some time. I again kept on waiting and it was 30th Dec. I had now waited for 2 full days without getting the service that was promised after paying up close to 5K. This was sheer disgusting.
After trying to repeatedly reach her on the status(the CA) of the filing, she didn’t answer my calls most of the time saying busy and will call back. Finally, she did file this on 31st Dec - which was the deadline at that time to finish filing. Now I waited for 2 and a 1/2 days to get this done when it was promised to me it will be done within a day. I felt cheated. Now it didn’t end here, post-filing I asked the CA to share the calculations with me so that I am aware of what was done. To that, she said she can do it but need some time as she has some personal work. I have till now not got that calculation after repeatedly asking her to provide the same. I have also written to the manager and ClearTax escalation team but it still didn’t help.
This has really been such a bad experience and the worst service from them. I have no words left to describe this utter negative experience I faced with #Cleartax.