Is this some sort of scam? How was the deal presented?
I got this postcard in the mail today. I was curious as to how these people worked and what their angle was. I tried going to their website but didn't get much in the way of information. I opened the "chat" box and they wanted all my contact information - data harvesting. I gave them a fake name and phone number and they said they would contact me tomorrow. Joe Blow, if you really live in Brunswick, Georgia, I am really, really sorry!
At first I scoffed at the whole thing. They write that the assessor uses computer algorithms in a mass appraisal process. They use computer algorithms in a mass-mailing process. And yes, it is true, your assessor doesn't personally visit every property in his district. Your assessment is based on historical data and the assessed values of your neighbor's homes. By the way, this is all public record. I was outraged when my assessment went up in Virginia many years ago. I called the assessor's office to see if I could file a protest and the lady answering the phone noted that my assessment was lower than my neighbor's houses. I asked her what those numbers were and she told me. "You mean you can tell me what my neighbor's house is assessed for?" and she replied, "Sure, I can tell you any house in the County - just give me an address! It's all public record!"
Since then, this stuff is all online and in fact, I looked up the assessments of friends and family across the country. You can even tell if they paid their taxes on time. My late sister's records were sad - she paid the late fee every time and it even went to collections more than once. Why did she marry that guy? Most people pay their taxes through their escrow account with their mortgage, but if you don't have a mortgage, you have to pay it all at once - and on-time. I mark this on my Google Calendar a month in advance so there are no surprises. And you can pay this bill online with the click of a mouse.
But what is the scam here - if any? At first, I thought that maybe they were socking it to people. The post card says there is "no charge" unless they lower your taxes. Aha! Maybe they charge you $10,000 after lowering your taxes by $5! Well, the website says that their fee is only a percentage of taxes saved. But is that for one year or ten? They say they do a "subscription" to challenge your taxes every year (this must be tiresome for the tax assessor) so maybe they claim a percentage of your "savings" every year thereafter. I am not sure how it works, quite frankly.
I related before how we are homesteaded, which sort of locks in our assessment at a low level. There was a controversy about this - the level we were locked in at was a year after we bought when the house was re-assessed. I went in and talked to the assessor in the middle of the recession and she noted that my current assessment was higher than market value and I could re-lock-in my homestead exemption at the lower number - a number within a few dollars of the assessed amount before we bought. I reluctantly agreed. Our taxes are $2800 a year. Kind of hard to go below that.
Better yet, when I turn 66, my school tax evaporates, so my taxes will go to $800 a year or so. How can you get big savings out of that? Maybe they can't - maybe their target audience is folks over at rich people's island - who have multi-million-dollar homes and five-figure tax bills.
Maybe that is the angle - they send this out to everyone and only take on cases where the house is clearly over-assessed, and by a significant amount. Then again, as a homeowner, you can file a protest and show them assessments from comparable homes that are lower and ask that yours be re-evaluated. Suppose you have no such comparables? Then your assessment is probably on-target or maybe even too low. Keep your mouth shut - they are allowed to increase the assessment as well!
I could not find anything that said "this is an outright scam" only that they want a "portion" of the tax proceeds (what portion? Not stated!). But then again, you can spot a raw deal from the way it is presented - and a mass-mailing of postcards with a lot of vague language in them, is a pretty good sign of a raw deal from 100 paces. Blaring ads, fine print, junk mail, infomercials - you'll never get good deals from such things - and you can't get something-for-nothing, so just get over that. There is always a catch - always. No one works for free, or for sub-minimum wages.
Then again, there is the internet. And online review sites sometimes can be enlightening. The Better Business Bureau is a toothless monster, as I noted before. So when they give a 1 star rating, that says something. Some claimed that they were sent bills by these folks, sometimes for "debts" owed by the previous owner! Another claimed you could not read the terms of the contract before signing it. Extracting yourself from their "representation" was also claimed to be difficult.
Yelp was little better, with 1.5 stars. Some complained they were being "invoiced" for "services" even after they sold the property. Seems odd. Others on both Yelp and BBB sites claimed that as soon as you provided a name and address, they listed themselves as representatives with your county - and will continue to do so for years - even if you never e-signed the contract. Again, seems odd. Another common denominator are claims (on both sites) of no real tax reduction and failure by the agents to file documents the homeowner presented. One claimed their neighbor got a better reduction simply by filing their own protest. Interesting... Another claims their fee is a whopping 50% of savings.
Google Reviews gives them a 3.1 which is somewhat better, although my opinion with regard to Google is that anything less than a 4.0 is questionable. Another common complaint - listed on Yelp! as well - was that the customer service is in India, so good luck getting any answers to your questions. Missing hearing dates was also a common complaint. General dissatisfaction with the performance was also mentioned.
The upshot from these reviews seems to be that come claim they "represent" people without their permission (again, sorry Joe Blow, if you exist!) and many claim they don't do a very good job of representation. It is claimed that they charge you 50% of savings - every year from then on. What's more, as many reviewers noted, it ain't all that hard to protest an assessment, provided it really is over-valued.
Speaking of online reviews, check out the robot-responses to each one. "We're sorry you've had such a negative experience, blah,blah,blah" Although it seems in recent years, they gave up on that. Maybe they need to re-open under a new name, now that their online reputation is so low. Hey, it works for the invention brokers, right?
Then there is this article from the Dallas Morning News. Ouch.
It reminds me of personal injury attorneys. There are a lot of them, and they advertise heavily (again, 100 paces) and the scummy ones (are there no other kind?) just have paralegals prepare boilerplate pleadings and then go through the motions of discovery and then settle right before trial for less than the insurance company would have paid you two years ago. They take half of that pitiful amount plus expenses, leaving you with little or nothing. How do they make money at this? Volume. When they have thousands of such cases pending, making $5,000 to $10,000 a case means millions in their bank account. Perhaps, based on these reviews, this company works the same way - make a little from each case, and overall, you make a lot, without a lot of effort involved.
Assessments are fact-based. If you can bring a printout of comparable properties in your neighborhood and show that your festering shit-hole is being assessed for more than the neighbor's Taj Mahal, well, it is a no-brainer. But if you think your assessment should be lower because you don't like paying taxes, well, too bad for you.
There was one comment I found very, very disturbing and that was that one reviewer claimed that the company somehow negated their homestead exemption. I am not sure how that is possible, but I guess if the contract you signed gives them power-of-attorney, they could. And that is the deal - this is all based on trust. Do you trust someone with a 1.5 rating on Yelp?
Yup, if something sounds too-good-to-be true, it probably is. And protesting your assessment isn't hard to do - if you are really over-assessed. Odds are, you aren't. But if you are, it isn't a matter of legal majick or special incanted spells before the assessment board, but just presenting the facts.
And you don't need some company on a post card for that.
