Maidenbaum Property Tax Reduction Group

In response to the complaint which we received today, I reached out to [redacted].  I provided her with a copy of her signed agreement with our company for the tax reduction services we performed for the 2014/15 tax year.  Additionally, because [redacted] only received a...

partial, rather than a full-year tax savings due to the sale of her home, we gave her a discounted fee as a courtesy.  We believe this matter is now resolved to our customer's satisfaction.

Review: I don't recall ever doing business with this company. When I called for them to explain to me my charges they placed me on hold several times and after several attempts placed me in collection. I am not sure why they are requesting money when I never received a tax benefit for this property that has been sold in December of 2014. I would like for them to stop billing me. They claim I should have informed the new owner of this tax benefit. This property has not received any tax benefits from their work, I qualify for the reduced STAR program due to low income.Desired Settlement: Please remove all charges.

Business

Response:

In response to the complaint which we received today, I reached out to [redacted]. I provided her with a copy of her signed agreement with our company for the tax reduction services we performed for the 2014/15 tax year. Additionally, because [redacted] only received a partial, rather than a full-year tax savings due to the sale of her home, we gave her a discounted fee as a courtesy. We believe this matter is now resolved to our customer's satisfaction.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me and the matter has been resolved.

Sincerely,

Review: On January *, 2015, after having a telephone conversation with [redacted] I sent her the agreed upon amount for services rendered, which was for obtaining a tax reduction on the property located at [redacted]. The agreed upon fee amount was $997.86 paid on check number [redacted] on 2/**/2015. For the Nassau County 2014/15 Tax year. The payment for services rendered was reduced from $1247.32 to $997.86 , due to the admitted misleading information in the Maidenbaum Porperty Tax Reduction Group, LLC' bulk mail advertisement . It described to the home owner that the cost of their services would come from the savings- proceeds, or reimbursement of overpaid taxes from the county, due back to the homeowner. Maidenbaum would automatically take their fee directly from the county at the time they issued refunds back to home owner who successfully reassessed their homes value. The signed application would be prof of the transaction for the county to release the funds to Maidenbaum. This is how I understood the advertisement, and in the past with a previous home I owned, another tax reduction service that I retained worked exactly like that, and I never paid out any money expect the filing fee, which may have been $30.00 or $35.00 dollars I do not remember. That is how I was led to believe Maidenbaum Property Tax Reduction would also do business, and why they reduced their fee, which was still too much considering it never stated what their percentage was. The telephone conversation concluded in agreement that the 2014/15 tax period was paid in full, and that the 2015/2016 tax period would be withdrawn. In error I wrote, in the conformation of our conversation letter to [redacted] along with the payment, I wrote 2016/17, instead of 2015/16, which is now what she is asking me for. I was told by [redacted], I signed an agreement for a tax reduction for 2016/2017 before any of the above mentioned happened. I do not have any signed copy of this agreement, or even remember signing anything else. Why would I have signed this agreement if the 2015/16 tax year was not even processed yet. Remember I asked, and [redacted] agreed to withdraw me from that tax period, I certainly would not have agreed to 2016/17 I sure the county was not even accepting grievances for that period yet. I thought I was finished with this person, she was paid, and agreed to withdraw me from any other agreements. My check was labeled paid in full and it was cashed. She also has be hounding me for another $30.00, she said it was for an older processing fee, I paid it on 12/*/2015, and she is still bothering me. I do not believe I own this company any money, I did not sign nor do I remember signing any further paper work retaining Maidenbaum's services for 2016/17. Please help with this very stressful problem, I could hardly find the money to paid her last time, I definitely cant' afford her again. I would not have agreed to this whole process if I clearly understood that I would have to paid thousands out of pocket to have my property taxes reduced, I do not have that kind of money.Desired Settlement: A paid in full adjustment, as I understood and [redacted] agreed to, she cashed my check with paid in full on it.

Business

Response:

Here at Maidenbaum Property Tax Reduction Group, we are very proud of our A+ rating with the Revdex.com and our commitment to our customers. We work very hard at reducing our clients' property tax liability and we strive to provide the best possible customer experience. We have an in-house attorney who not only educates our clients on the entire tax appeal process, but gives his own cell phone number to our clients for a personal touch. We are unaware of any other taxpayer representative that provides such accessibility, information and service.[redacted] has used one of our competitors in the past and unfortunately, it appears that [redacted] is confusing us with her prior taxpayer representative. We distinguish ourselves from our competitors by having simply-worded retainer agreements which clearly state our fee percentage -- in this case the agreements signed by [redacted] stated that our fee was half of the savings. We have previously sent [redacted] copies of her signed agreements with our company but we are glad to send her additional copies to the e-mail address she provided to the Revdex.com.Taxpayers should be advised that since the 2011/12 tax year, nearly every successful Nassau County property tax appeal resulted in a homeowner receiving reduced tax bills, not refunds. We did not represent to [redacted] that she would receive a refund if we were successful, our mailings are not misleading, and we do not have a "[redacted]" working at our company. Again, we believe [redacted] has simply confused us with the representative she used in the past.[redacted] says that she wanted to cancel our services, but as she noted her cancellation letter only referred to the 2016/17 tax year. We honored her request to cancel that tax year. Additionally, when [redacted] advised us of her financial situation, we were understanding and we gave her a substantial discount off our bill for the 2014/15 tax year. Had we not obtained the 2014/15 tax reduction for [redacted], she would have paid more than twice our fee in excessive property taxes.[redacted] did not cancel the 2015/16 case, which is a good thing for her as we obtained another reduction for that year. In fact, because of the reduction we obtained for the 2015/16 tax year, [redacted] will save $1,515.84 in school taxes for the year. There will also be additional savings on her 2016 general taxes issued in January 2016. It's hard to imagine [redacted] would rather pay more than $1,500 in excessive taxes rather than half the savings as our fee. If [redacted] does not want to pay us for the value of the benefit she received, however, we will be glad to let [redacted] pay the amount of our bill for the 2015/16 reduction to one of the local, not-for-profit charitable organizations we support in our community instead of to our company. We can think of no better way of resolving this matter then to help others and we hope that [redacted] will agree.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID# [redacted], and have determined that my complaint has NOT been resolved because:

You offer no resolution that I am able to work with, I did not receive any copies of signed forms, as you have stated in your flattering letter about your company, I did not sign anything for 2016/2017 that is ridiculous since the county was not even processing anything at that time, that far in advance of the 2014 date when this all began. I already stated that was a "type-O" in my letter in response to our telephone conversation it was meant to read 2014/2015. The telephone conversation that took place in 2015 stated " On January *, 2015, after having a telephone conversation with [redacted] I sent her the agreed upon amount for services rendered, which was for obtaining a tax reduction on the property located at [redacted]. The agreed upon fee amount was $997.86 paid on check number [redacted] on 2/**/2015. For the Nassau County 2014/15 Tax year. The payment for services rendered, was reduced from $1247.32 to $997.86". An agreement was made over the phone followed by a letter from myself, that no further tax reduction processing was to be made on my behalf, and I would send a check for the amount agreeded upon which I paid for services rendered. The End. I never signed anything else. Perhaps, she the person I spoke with ([redacted] or whom ever), misunderstood? This person in question also told me that refunds were no-longer issued from Nassau County for tax reductions, so companies like Maidenbaum now collect their fee directly from the home owner. If the terms of the agreement had changed then the first agreement would have been null and void since this payment collection was change and was never conveyed to me, the consumer. I owe this firm no money, I even sent another $30.00 check for some processing fee, check #[redacted], on 12/*/2015, just to get rid of this company. Please stop billing me. I you wish to send a charity check do so with your own money in the Maidenbaum company name, please leave me alone.

Sincerely,

Business

Response:

Dear [redacted]:I attach copies of your signed authorizations for the 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17 tax years.Regards,Mark H. M[redacted]

I did business with Maidenbaum Property. I would not trust this company in the future.

They contract you though worm a 2nd years service which you do not directly request though if you 'read the small print' it is assumed you want two years.

They will not listen when you state you don't want the second year as a relative is a lawyer and immediately files a lawsuit for the full payment. since this does not cost them anything, they are happy not to negotiate or discuss as they understand their underhanded business practice and are willing to continue unabated.

Avoid them, there are plenty that can execute what they do, it is a simple matter of knowing the steps, not very difficulty just a burden to do yourself. I'd do it again but NEVER with MAIDENBAUM PROPERTY TAX REDUCTION GROUP!