by Legal Zoom Reviewer
Someone I know recently plunked down 500 bucks to have LegalZoom.com prepare a trust for him.
So of course I Googled everything I could about Legal Zoom reviews, Legal Zoom complaints (thankfully, I found none of those) and Legal Zoom referral codes.
Unfortunately, I haven't yet found any Legal Zoom referral codes or coupon discounts to make that fee less biting, but I'm more grateful that I've found no negative stuff about the site founded by Robert Shapiro.
I think LegalZoom.com is a great idea.
Heck, depending on the experience the guy I know has with it, I might use it for my will or something...
Monday, October 15, 2007
LegalZoom .com Reviews? Complaints? Referral Codes? I only see good stuff about this web site..
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21 comments:
There are 70 complaints against LegalZoom.com listed at http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=103107_better_business_bureau_complaint.htm
CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL!!!
I personally would NEVER think of using LegalZoom because of their decision 2 use O.J. Simpson's criminal attorney 4 their spokesperson. Maybe it's just me; but, I live here in Florida where Simpson is seen everywhere playing golf and having a good ole time thanks 2 LegalZoom's SPOKESPERSON and other criminal attorneys who (in my opinion) care more about the almighty dollar and fame than justice.
Legalzoom is very good at marketing, but unfortunately this mass-marketing of legal “services” fools people into thinking two things: 1) that they are saving money; and, 2) that they are receiving sound legal advice.
First, as far as saving money is concerned, legalzoom, like all of these mass-marketing “law” websites, quote a low price and then nickel-and-dime customers for each “additional” service or document to the point that their fees are actually as high as reasonably priced reputable attorneys. Then to add to that, the customer is not told that more work and expenses will be involved after they receive the documents (e.g. deed preparation, notary fees, recording fees, etc.). Those things would have been included in the fee a reputable attorney would have quoted. The fact is that most people who use these services end up paying as much or more than they would have by using a reasonably priced attorney.
Second, these websites make it appear that they are providing sound legal advice. Not true. Their marketing department hopes that you will never read the “disclaimer” or “terms of use disclosure” posted at the bottom of each website page. Their disclaimer will tell you that they are not providing any legal advice, that their documents may not work in your situation, that their documents may not be valid in your state, and that you agree to hold them harmless for any consequences resulting from your choice to use their services rather than seeking the advice of an attorney. If fact, they will even tell you to go see an attorney. Think I’m kidding? Go ahead; pick any one of these “law” services websites and look at their disclaimer for yourself.
How do I know all this? Because, I am an attorney and, when all is said and done, my fees are usually about the same (sometimes even less) that these mass-marketing “law” service websites. More importantly, as an attorney I don’t come with “disclaimers” or “terms of use disclosures” so: I do provide my clients the appropriate legal advice; my documents will work in my clients’ situation; my documents do conform to state law; and finally, I am always responsible for my work product. And like me, there are many good attorneys out there that are reasonably priced. Perhaps, most importantly, if you use an attorney you will actually know you are doing the right thing. So, before you buy into the sales pitches of these mass-marketed “law” service websites, make sure you understand what all the fees will be and what loose strings you will still need to take care of yourself. Likewise, make sure you read their “disclaimer” or “terms of use disclosure.” If that doesn’t make you think twice, go ahead, you’re their perfect customer.
I used Legalzoom to prepare my paperwork for my divorce and they gave me completely wrong information. I did everything that they said, to the "t" only to find out that I didn't need to file my divorce the way they said because it was uncontested, and therefore paid the court an additional $320, not to mention the $200 to wrongly prepare my papers. When my documents were returned to me to make changes, I promptly called legalzoom to help me. They let me know that they would be there to help me to make sure everything was done properly. However, by my third call to them, I was told that I would need to consult a lawyer if I needed more information. My divorce was uncontested, we have nothing in common anymore, it couldn't be more simple, and now I have to hire a lawyer?
Thankfully the county of Los Angeles provides a self help center where a lawyer will meet with you FOR FREE to make sure all you papers are in order for all kinds of issues. Turns out not only did legalzoom misinform me, they did not prepare my documents properly, and failed to provide me with all the forms necessary to complete my divorce. Thank you LegalZoom for costing me an extra $520 AND wasting a LOT of my time.
Dont use LegalZoom if you are looking to speed up the process. They take forever to get their filings in place and you never hear back from the same person twice. It's a mess, you dont save money or time. We get passed around from person to person on the phone in our normal lives, you dont expect that when you pay good money for a service. You would be better off picking any local firm to take care of your business. At the very least you would have a face to look at and the same voice to talk to.
Dont use LegalZoom if you are looking to speed up the process. They take forever to get their filings in place and you never hear back from the same person twice. It's a mess, you dont save money or time. We get passed around from person to person on the phone in our normal lives, you dont expect that when you pay good money for a service. You would be better off picking any local firm to take care of your business. At the very least you would have a face to look at and the same voice to talk to.
LegalZoon has been a complete disaster. The "add on fees" would have been tolerable if they did what they charged me for. Their form (DBA) is poorly formatted so printing for use is a joke but got around that only to find that first they needed another signature, then no, wait, notary didn't notarize (yes she did) last excuse was you only sent one document. They are disorganized and I have lost all confidence. I am now having to handle locally so will end up paying twice for the same outcome.
LegalZoon has been a complete disaster. The "add on fees" would have been tolerable if they did what they charged me for. Their form (DBA) is poorly formatted so printing for use is a joke but got around that only to find that first they needed another signature, then no, wait, notary didn't notarize (yes she did) last excuse was you only sent one document. They are disorganized and I have lost all confidence. I am now having to handle locally so will end up paying twice for the same outcome.
Legalzoom has cost me money time and frustration. They "lose" documents, do not review those documents they can find accurately and have no idea of the specific requirements for my state. Honestly been a nightmare.
using legalzoom in March 2008 cost me $140,000. I had them prepare a will for me and I was the sole beneficiary in my girlfrends will. $140000 went to others as bank accounts, cd's savings etc go outside the will. No where in my legalzoom documents do they mention this. USE AN ATTORNEY! BE SAFE AND PRUDENT!
Legal Zoom is horrendous. They just totally messed up a corporation for me, I paid for delivery in 10 days and after 20 found out they made a mistake on the application and never resubmitted it. It was lost. The employee's are inept, make mistakes, lie about them and at the end of the day take no responsibility. Stay away.
Legalzoom COMPLAINT. Don't use Legalzoom. I ordered a dba filing for our business and it has taken over 2 months to complete, in fact we are still trying to get it completed. After one month of not hearing back I called to check on the status of our order, a legalzoom rep called me back and left a message saying we needed to resubmit all paper work that they had lost our filing. I took it upon myself to call the county clerks office and they said legalzoom had in fact filed the documents already and they would be returned soon. Lucky I called to check on them. Then, legelzoom said they submitted our dba for public notice printing in a local legal paper, but here we sit one month later and that never happend. I took it upon myself to call the paper and they said it was never submitted to them. I called legalzoom again and their rep said they would check with the newspaper and call me yesterday by noon with an update. Guess what, no call from legalzoom and the newspaper has not received the order yet. I'm calling them back tomorrow to take them up on their 100% satisfaction refund guarantee. I could have done this process myself for about $60, but I did not have the time to handle it. Legalzoom charged me $150 and I did most of the work and follow through anyway. What a waste of time and money.
Legalzoom provides very poor customer service, use them at your own risk and only if you can deal with sleepless nights not knowing if your legel work is being completed at all, not to mention on time. After dealing with legalzoom, I'm sure they are nothing more than a call center full of 1-800 customer no service reps that punch out by 5pm. My legal procedure was very simple, I feel sorry for some of the other posters that got burned and lost $1,000's of dollars.
I just used legalzoom to form an LLC. I'm not really disapointed with the service, just felt that they could of done much better. Full review at: http://www.infohole.com/blog/business/legalzoom-llc-turnaround-time/
Regards,
Gordon
I agree legal zoom is a nightmare and a waste of money.
We used them for our Nonprofits paperwork. Our state nonprofit they over charged us since we dont want them to be our agent of record. Promised a 149.00 refund that never came. oh and the paperwork to remove them is also missing.
Now today 2/20/2009 I find our that our 501c3 paperwork is mia. We paid 12/3/2008 and faxed back a followup quesitonaire on 12/9 they claim I did that on 1/13??? I have the receipt and the documents right here. I honestly thought they would be filing the 501c3 as it's not accurately explained that you will receive your documents to file yourself. They are slow customer service is alot of lengthy waits. Copying down people names extensions and times of converstaions dont amount to much to them either.
Skip this place I wish I did.
Yeah, I don't know about that place. I called the other day, thinking
id take advantage of their cheap prices for wills. Also their website
made it seem like a lawyer had something to do with the will process.
When i called one of their phone reps, I got a song and dance about
how they can't help me with specifics, all they could do was take down
basic info and put it into a "standard" will document, whatever that
means. They also said that no lawyer would ever see it. AND I am
pretty sure EVERYONE should see a LAWYER for their will when it comes
to protecting their own assets and families. Legalzoom doings wills
is CRIMINAL.
I changed my mind. A will is something too serious to take lightly.
I am instead going to an actualy lawyer. It costs more, but I will
get a PROFESSIONAL to cross t's, dot i's, leaving no stone unturned. You shouldn't use quick
fix online documents made by god knows who, legal documents are
serious stuff that shouldn't be "zoomed".
Maybe I just got lucky, but my experience with LegalZoom was great!
I formed an LLC last year for a restaurant that I own (previously, I owned it with my brother under our own names.) I needed the restaurant in the LLC for asset protection reasons. Customer support got me the information I needed. It took about 2 weeks, got everything back in an impressive-looking binder along with the official-looking documents.
I had some questions about transferring my seller's permit and business license, and the customer support team was very helpful in telling me that I would need a new seller's permit because of the ownership change. They even helped me with the new seller's permit (only $50 I think). I just used a form downloaded from their website to transfer the restaurant assets into the LLC. Took it all to my accountant, and he said that everything looked good.
I have a lawyer that I normally use, but he wanted $3,000 for the LLC, which I thought was WAY too much (especially in this economy). Sure, I had to do some background little research on my own as well as a little grunt work, but I'm happy to do that if I can save $2500!
I have no idea how this thing works. But after reading the comments here I am little reluctant to go with this kind of service. Please suggest me? Trying to register a trademark .
I hate Legalzoom, i spent $400+ on a corporation and they misspelled my company name, i could not deal with them anymore. Everytime i call i had a different representative and it was horrible. Finally just went to Wikipedia to find their competitor, BusinessRocket.net, and they did a name change for me in something like 5 days!!!! Word of advice, any place you use, make sure you call them first to speak with a representative before you make any purchases.
I was referred to LegalZoom through a friend of a friend.
they seemed pretty ok at first, but then what's so difficult about typing up a form that you supply all the info for anyways!
the headaches started as soon as I had to get the authorities involved.
first LegalZoom gave me an outdated address for service of the corporation I was taking to court.
so I had to ask the court to dismiss the case since I got notice back from the sheriff less than 2 weeks before court date.
then LegalZoom supplied me with an outdated form for dismissal which the court didn't accept.
so I went home, printed out the correct form from the court's website myself and filed it.
summary, I could have done everything faster, correctly and in time for the court date!
and I would have saved myself $200 (LegalZoom's fee plus wasted parking expenses) and would have my judgment by now!
I used Legalzoom to form two LLCs and deeply regret it. Their add ons and hiden recurring costs are on par with telemarketing flimflam companies. I used an attorney (shop around for their fee) when I formed a third company and received better service, saved $400, and no recurring fees.
LegalZoom has done a ton of marketing, but they focus much more on sales than they do on quality. I do agree that you can save money by using an online company, but I'd go with an up-and-coming company like DocBuilder.com instead of a pure sales play.
LegalZoom should not be in business. They are incompetent and obviously have high turnover. For those of you (I think only 2 people) on this entire blog who had positive feedback with legalzoom.com I challenge you to use them again. You must have both gotten the only competent person at that company!
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