Why are there so many stupid people in the world?

I filed my taxes on the web through TurboTax. Microsoft had a deal with ProBusiness, the company that handled their W-2s, that should have ended up giving me a 15% discount on the TurboTax price. I was charged full price.

• I did a Live Chat with a TurboTax support person and explained my problem.


• They directed me to contact ProBusiness. I attempted to call ProBusiness, but their customer support line only takes calls for a limited portion of the day and was closed down.


• I emailed ProBusiness.


• ProBusiness emailed back after several days and said, "Not my problem! Talk to your company benefits or to TurboTax."


• I emailed ProBusiness again, along with MS Benefits, and ProBusiness responded by saying, "Oh, it is our problem. But you'll have to talk to TurboTax anyway."


• I spent a long time searching the TurboTax and Intuit web sites looking an email contact address, but couldn't find any. I DID eventually find a FAQ Question for my specific problem ("I didn't receive my 15% Employer Program discount. How do I get a refund of the difference?") that directed me to fill out a Refunds web form.


• I filled out the form. Some required fields were irrelevant to TurboTax on the Web, so I had to choose answers that didn't apply. It was annoying. I entered LOTS of information in the comment box; should have been plenty.


• I recieved an email response saying that they need more information and I need to do a live chat. (Argh - straingt back to where I started!) There was no case number included. The page they pointed me to has a link to do live chat if you have a case number, but not otherwise.


• I browsed around for a while looking for a live chat link that didn't require a case number but couldn't find it right off, so I responded to the email.


• My email response BOUNCED BACK. They sent me email from an address (taxservice@intuit.com) that is apparently not even a valid address.

All this for a refund that will amount to less than $2.00. At this point I'm not even doing it for the money, just for the principal of the matter, but #@$@#%. I'm thinking now that it's just not worth it; I'm pretty peeved and this is probably doing horrid things to my blood pressure.

Then, I logged back into my mail account to find another, unrelated email. Several days ago I emailed the MS charitable giving program. In the email I indicated that I no longer work at MS and thus cannot access their internal website, and I asked if there was any other means for me to get a record of how much money had been pulled out of my salary last year for the organizations I'd chosen to donate to. Their response gave a link to their internal website and directed me to look it up there. Hello! I mailed you because I can't access the internal website since I no longer have access to the internal network! @#$@#^%.

Argh.

I feel like banging my head against a wall.