ComplaintsforZappitelli Financial Services

• Initial Complaint

  01/27/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  After using Zappitelli Financial services for years, I stopped in to pay an invoice and pick up payroll documents for 2023. I was promised return phone calls from Carol throughout the year and after not receiving a response felt a personal visit at the Concord office would expedite resolution. I learned Carol is the wife of Mr. Zappitelli and her daughter Diana are employed there as well. Typically, these facts would be inconsequential. Recently retired I simply requested and adjustment on my balance as I only had two employees for one quarter of the entire year billed. I was prepared to pay the invoice regardless of any adjustments. Dianna through the lobby window was offensive, aggressive, unreasonable and unprofessional. She claimed she knew me and that I resided next door to *** ************* in the past. She drew illogical payment analogies to my profession and told me to go home and do my own payroll taxes. Offended personally and professionally I attempted to defend my position and asked to see Carol. Several individuals finally came to the window to assist when Mr. Zappitelli entered the Lobby and asked me to leave the premises. I have never been asked to leave an establishment and immediately complied, ending my visit. I remain shocked that a professional accounting organization would treat any client with such disregard.

  Business response

  02/06/2024

  Mr. ****** came into our office to argue about the cost of his bill. We, as an Accounting firm, work on an hourly rate that is highly publicized in our website. We performed multiple quarters of work for him and had already decreased his bill below what our hourly rate charged was. Mr. ****** had not only not picked up work previously completed by our firm yet not paid for, but needed additional work done as well. Although he had retired, the filing requirements he is held to by law do not lapse due to there being a few employees. Mr. ****** questioned the time involved to file his reports, and was trying to argue our pricing in comparing his company to a publicly traded company and what we as a firm would charge for similar work. You can refer to those comparisons as "illogical payment analogies to our profession". He said he had filed his own report for years, and that it was easy so we should adjust our billing. Diana invited him to file his own reports since he had past experience with them and they are "easy". He then said he didn't want to do that and thought a fair price for the entire year was the cost of his 4^th quarter reporting job (and wanted over $500 of services removed from his bill). Mr. ****** was rude, offensive and belittling to Diana at our window, and was so loud that it drew every Accountant out of their office to see who was speaking to Diana in such a way.  At one point Mr. ****** said "you don't even know me" which is what prompted Diana to let Mr. ****** know that she did, in fact, know who he was. His scene at the window was so loud that it also brought both Partners out of their offices to see what was going on. It was the Partners who asked him to leave. We do not have to accept to be spoken to in the way that Mr. ****** spoke to Diana. As relayed to Mr. ******, we have hundreds of clients that appreciate the work we do and pay their bill. We are not a market where prices will be bartered while the work performed is under such scrutiny. We choose not to work with him going forward, which is our right. 

  
  

  Thank you for your time,

  ***** *******************

  Customer response

  02/07/2024

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
  
  [To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, we would like to know your view on the matter.]
  
  My intention was to simply pay my balance and have my 2023 payroll taxes completed. My request to have the account adjusted due to having only two employees one quarter of the entire year was not intended to be treated unprofessionally and asked to leave the establishment. If I had been aware that I would be dealing with an entitled young lady lacking common courtesy or diplomatic skills I would have simply sought another accounting service. This was quite a horrific experience,
  
  
   

• Initial Complaint

  09/27/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  About a month ago, we (**** ******) realized that Z******** incorrectly set up the ownership of our 25 rental homes in our tax returns in such a way that it opened us up to liability if sued. In addition, our annual accounting fees were much higher than they should have been. They should have been submitting 1 tax return a year for **** ****** Ohio instead of 8 returns for all of the Sub LLCs as they were "disinterested entities" to the IRS Fortunately, I keep all emails relating to our business. I found and sent her copies of the emails that I sent her back in 2018 that had the Operating Agreements describing ownership attached (uploaded to this complaint). This was irrefutable evidence of their mistake setting up our tax returns. I decided to call to speak to Laura first. I was in a good mood, and just wanted them to correct the returns and put the mistake behind us. She started calmly, but quickly flared and became aggressive yelling “as a young professional woman, I don’t appreciate your attitude!!! I never received your Operating Agreement describing who the owners were, I sent you a screenshot of my hard drive showing you its not there (seriously?), and entered you and your partner as owners as I THOUGHT I had seen that somewhere!! (now this is a CPA mind you)”. She continued, “It was YOUR responsibility to have found and corrected our error before this!!” Her father Bob Z********, who was listening in the background, interrupted me yelling out, “YOU CAN GO F--- YOURSELF!!! COME AND GET YOUR BOXES AND GET THEM OUT OF HERE!!!". Reviews of them on other sites reflect similar experiences of ineptitude and inexplicably rude behavior. Is it the customers responsibility to find and corrects an accountants errors? Plus, she should NEVER have set up our returns without the Operating Agreements in hand. That's accounting 101. We would like them to correct our 2022 return, file it, and issue a refund for all of the sub LLC's they charged us for since 2018.

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