Not only would I never file through this organization or any of its affiliated tax preperation services. (TurboTax, Drake, Jackson Hewit, Liberty Tax, etc..) but I have worked for this company for over 7 years. They have shoddy business practices, and have absolutely no second thoughts about holding your federal refunds indefinetly as a "Dormant Check." Some of you have probably heard that one before eh? Not only will they do that but they earn interest on it, sometimes up to 6-8 years on some tax checks. I am not talking about a small handful of checks either. Literally millions of dollars worth of unclaimed tax refund checks just sit around there locked away in cabinets making no attempt to get the checks either to the taxpayer, or the IRS. When you call to claim these checks, they bounce you around in different departments like they dont know whats going on. When in reality the two people in charge of it are completely and totally inept, and usually make all efforts to avoid doing actual work that doesn't involve organizing company bbq's or socializing on your dime. (I'm talking about you Carlos Perez & Chrissie Hunter.. get your shit together. Seriously.) I wish I could stop there in critisizms but the reality is a much uglier picture than I could ever paint. Even the IRS wants this company shutdown for its borderline illegal activities, as they are constantly making efforts to hinder this companies growth and other RAL lenders around the country by changing laws in congress in an effort to stop their predatory lending practices. Some time ago congress passed laws not allowing loans to military families to be over a certain set percentage because they were considered predatory loans. So what did SBTPG do? They denied every last loan (with some special exceptions that were few and very far in between) to all military families that applied for any type of tax refund loan product. Nice huh? At least they didn't do it during the holiday season, oh wait they did.. In January of 2010 MetaBank (the Cashcard company from hell that S.B.T.P.G. uses) was actually linked to the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, India. The terrorists involved in the assassination obtained the majority of their funding through Metabank tax refund cashcards filed fraudulently though online tax preparers. Keep in mind this is the company that boasts about its anti-fraud procedures saving taxpayers millions, how they did that I have no idea, unless you count the 40,000 individual tax refunds they & TurboTax made an error on last year. Some of you may recall exceptionally long delays in getting your "Turbo"Tax refund last year due to you entering information incorrectly. Well it wasn't that at all... it was a massive error on Intuit's part, as well as SBTPG that was blamed on user error mostly. The majority of these tax refund checks were supposed to be direct deposited into the RTN/DAN for the current year except the system used last years RTN/DANS and in some cases checks were mailed without any sort of address verification at all. And the answer from the management in this department in regards to this??? "At the end of the day we're not the ones out of any money...." <-Connie Pimentel (Personal Division MNGR.) On November 21, 2008, Treasury approved Santa Barbara as a recipient of $180 million US Govt bailout from the TARP program. Which in turn was used for Predatory RAL lending practices to low-income American taxpayers with incredibly high interest rates. RALs are loans secured by a taxpayer's federal refund, lasting only one to two weeks. They cost between $32 to $130 in loan fees, plus the ancillary fees, and can translate into high Annual Percentage Rates (APRs) of 50 percent to 500 percent. Nearly 9 million taxpayers received RALs in 2006, costing them nearly $1 billion in loan fees. This was also when they began laying off long time employees and outsourcing to Canada for cheaper labor. Shortly after receiving the bailouts from the US government Santa Barbara Bank & Trust sold its RAL lending division to a private party under the new name Santa Barbara Tax Products Group, LLC. Run by Rich Turner (CEO) and Jeff Henseler (VP), I have never seen Rich do anything contestable but Jeff is the lowest of the low. This guy threw a fit in front of all the employees one time because instead of buying two birthday cakes and having 2 seperate parties the employees bought a cake and put both names and threw 1 party. Which obviously wasn't good enough for Jeff. Well now he's sitting pretty under his new company name still making money off these types of practices, driving his Bentley or Lamborghini... whichever it is now. (The last guy that made fun of him for revving his lambo all over the parking lot is no longer employed here, big surprise. Who btw was about the only useful employee in their Jackson Hewit dept) Talk a little louder while your at it Jeff, the other side of the building feels left out. Santa Barbara made 1.83 million RALs in 2007, earning $118 million in fees. It is one of the higher-priced RAL lenders, charging about 40 percent more than some of its competitors. The bank relies heavily on revenue from RALs and a related product, refund anticipation checks, and these products at one point constituted 56 percent of its after-tax income. This review could go on for days honestly. All I hope by posting this is that in reading it I can save a few people from the clutches of this grotesque leech of a company. ***NOTE*** If you are finding this page because you have already done business with them and are regretting it, you may want to try calling the IRS directly. There is the possibility you can stop the refund altogether and not allow this institution the chance to touch your money. (Which btw is 100% unnecessary anyway, unless of course they need fees from your refund. Which is free to file online.) You can reach the IRS at 800-Tax-1040 or (800) 829-1040, when prompted to select an option the easiest way to get through to a live person quickly is to ignore the voice/button prompts. And an operator usually picks up in 2-5 minutes.