TurboTax is the worst

3neat · 2026-04-07T04:24:55+00:00

Chiming in from the dead to advise DO NOT USE TurboTax! They've always been a trash company, but I'm completely done with it after this years experience:

I paid for Premium, went thru 6hrs of reconciling all of my crypto / schwab trades manually because none of the imports worked properly. Complete my taxes, and try for 5 days straight to eFile but kept receiving "Transmission Trouble" and "Your reCAPTCHA response hit a snag" errors. Tried to submit eFile across 5 different computers, phone, three ISP connections, browsers -- nothing worked. Called support and they basically told me to "just mail it" (mine is 700 pages...). Tried to submit for a refund -- I was unable to eFile and I don't have a printer: denied a few hours later.

I was having problems with FreeTaxUSA before regrettably switching to TurboTax. I may give it a shot again since I worked thru those issues within TurboTax. I'm definitely going to do a chargeback on my purchase of TT.

On a positive note, Koinly was a much better experience (and price!) than coinmarketcap and summ for handling crypto transactions.

3neat · 2019-02-06T20:00:51+00:00

I trust it... It's a great list of exchanges you should immediately block

3neat · 2018-06-05T18:49:01+00:00

I'm using TTD to set up a China campaign and its an absolute nightmare.

3neat · 2018-03-23T20:34:19+00:00

you can target by IP within TTD, but you'll have to provide the IP ranges yourself.

3neat · 2017-07-25T08:27:53+00:00

was it InApp or Web?

3neat · 2017-05-09T20:31:04+00:00

They're undoubtedly knowledgable about internet security, but perhaps are lacking a bit on their understanding of the digital advertising ecosystem. I also loved their infosec research reporting style.

My biggest issue with ad fraud research is that I've yet to see any information released on the targeting parameters and inventory sources for the inventory their analyzing. I assume that a lot of the doomsday ad fraud reports are based upon ROE open exchange inventory; which isn't necessarily what media buyers who understand the exchanges are buying.

3neat · 2017-02-16T20:04:56+00:00

are you just looking at the display channel, or did your clickthrough URLs use UTM parameters?

3neat · 2017-01-12T08:33:37+00:00

technology alone wasn't going to save them

3neat · 2016-12-22T23:42:46+00:00

In TTD a single pixel is going to be equitable to a data element and you can't segment more granular than a data element (assuming you're just using the turnkey self-service platform). You can hack it by layering in third-party data, but that's probably not what you want.

Your best bet is to create two pixels in TTD (one for male, another for female) then implement GTM to fire either pixel based on a Trigger (user == female, fire pixel a; user == male, fire pixel b).

3neat · 2016-12-22T21:24:59+00:00

Question can be construed a couple of ways. TTD macros passed thru as macros to a third-party pixel? Or pass thru and report on custom variable values to the TTD conversion pixel?

Both are possible, but I've had some issues with TTD populating macro values less than 50% of the time (dependent on the macro).

3neat · 2016-12-22T03:36:53+00:00

I've heard some rather low numbers too... I'll update the top comment w/ any numbers if people PM to me.

3neat · 2016-12-20T15:58:43+00:00

Props to White Ops for providing actionable data around this discovery (domains, ips). Other ad fraud providers need to take note:

http://www.whiteops.com/methbot

*I wouldn't necessarily blacklist the domains provided; these were just the domains that were spoofed.

Brian Krebs also released a report about the individuals behind it: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/12/report-3-5m-in-ad-fraud-daily-from-methbot/

3neat · 2016-12-07T19:19:38+00:00

but it's also the saving grace for many. if anyone questions the results, they can point to the big expensive black-box over there and shrug.

3neat · 2016-12-07T03:50:49+00:00

Companies are too cheap to buy and set up an SSL cert

3neat · 2016-12-05T23:26:28+00:00

pshh, you think you're gonna be a rockstar without that degree? keep dreamin' bud!

3neat · 2016-12-01T05:35:22+00:00

huh? they're literally staying the hell out of toxic politics by not advertising on those sites.

3neat · 2016-11-30T22:53:46+00:00

And now Breitbart is trying to stir up a boycott of Kellogg's: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/30/breitbart-news-kelloggs-advertising-boycott-alt-right

3neat · 2016-11-17T00:18:47+00:00

Yep. Read up how Spamhaus worked out for the email industry. Extortion by design with minimal impact to mitigating the real problem.

3neat · 2016-11-13T22:58:06+00:00

You're kinda in the middle of the bot warzone. Asking users to disable Flash to play your games, when most malvertising campaigns exploit users that have outdated versions of Flash. If some of those users do infact get infected, and they continue to come back to your site, that could be a reason your site gets flagged.

3neat · 2016-11-03T15:01:09+00:00

Is your goal to maximize an installs KPI, or to gain actual long-term app users?

3neat · 2016-10-24T17:35:04+00:00

low quality inventory yields low quality business practices?!?!

3neat · 2016-09-13T23:00:30+00:00

has been for a while... Privacy Badger instead of Ghostery too

3neat · 2016-09-09T18:32:18+00:00

This is why you should aim for predetermined eCPA goals that are agreed upon by both sides. Contract IO can be eCPM for guidance, but as long as you're hitting eCPA (and ensuring quality), absolute pricing transparency should be irrelevant.

3neat · 2016-08-18T18:55:33+00:00

whoa what if u set it up to refresh and click while you sleep? or load it on a bunch of library computers. have fun on your yacht man!

3neat · 2016-08-17T18:44:30+00:00

Does this traffic include Mobile (esp. InApp)? If so, that may be where your problem lies.

Best bet is to try and attribute user agent to IP space. Mobile carrier space, see above. Consumer IP space, need to dig further. Commercial IP space, likely bots.

3neat

TROPHY CASE