Helaine and I attempted to do our taxes yesterday. We’re about 95% of the way through the process. Part of what’s keeping us from completion is Google.
One of the tinier parts of my tax return relates to this site, geofffox.com! See those ads on the right side of the screen? I get money as people click them.
DON’T click them just to get me money. Please, don’t. Legitimate clicks are fine. I have no need or desire to scam the system.
Since I received cash, Google must send documentation to me and the IRS in the form of a 1099-misc. They did – twice!
With two 1099’s, the IRS thinks I earned twice as much as I did, which means twice the taxes (which I must pay, even on this income).
Google printed a phone number on the Form 1099-misc which I dialed. It’s not in service. They only printed the 1099-misc last week.
I tried again. Same thing.
The ‘not in service’ voice invited me to press “0” if I needed to speak to the Google operator. I did, and then spent four quality minutes as she decided she had no clue who to send my call to.
Finally, she conjured up a name. My message to his voice mail politely asked him to call me, even if he isn’t the right person. Then I could at least know if anything was being done.
That was around seven hours ago.
You would think, with a problem like this, I should be able to use Google.com itself for the answer… you would think… incorrectly.
This evening, I found a place on Google’s AdSense site with an email link. I sent a note and immediately got a response that showed no one had looked at my question. Again, Google seems to be the place where this shouldn’t happen. Their machine intelligence should understand my query… you would think.
I’ve now replied and am waiting. In the end, they very well may help me. I can’t imagine under what conditions they’ll be happy to do it.