Cliff P.
1/5
After running many businesses, I can share that I have had a great deal of experience with CPA's and accounting firms, small and large. Without question, Famiglio is the single worst I have ever dealt with. The office is extremely disorganized and no one seems to know what the other is doing. The rates they charge seem way above average, and George himself seems to think he is the single most knowledgeable CPA on the planet--he is a shameless braggadocio, and a big part of the relationship requires extreme patience while he waxes on and on and on about how smart and accomplished he is. This may in fact be true, I am not sure. The problem is, his expertise or lack thereof is in my opinion sorely overshadowed by a disorganized office in which no one has any idea what the other is doing.
My tax situation requires periodic reporting that does not correspond with April 15, which will help to understand the frustrations I lay out below.
My year with Famiglio was riddled with multiple duplicative phone calls from different staff members all repeating each other and contradicting each other and, in addition, they would typically not reach out until the day a filing was due and then in a panic ask me to drop everything, send financials, and then rush down to the office to sign docs in an instant. The duplicative and contradictory phone calls form my opinion that they do not communicate or know what each other is doing; the contacts on the day of deadline, without any prior communications, form my opinion that they are disorganized or don't plan ahead.
George has a sorely inflated ego, is pompous and arrogant. He does not seem to comprehend that his office is a mess, his organization a disaster. He is so pre-disposed to impressing anyone he speaks with and fanning his peacock feathers that he is blind to the fact that the service provided by his office requires constant and extraordinary effort by the client to keep them organized, coach one staffer about what the other is doing, and keep them on schedule. Apparently, in his mind, he is so extra-ordinarily super-human that none of this is even worth discussing, because the one time I asked for a meeting, and showed up with documentation showing the constant lack of follow-thru and the constant dropping of the ball, he responded by, once realizing I did indeed have such documentation, steering the meeting "away from the past to focus on the future". George does not know how to listen, but he is a great manipulator.
I stopped using them over a year ago, went to a different CPA whose office is far more organized, who works well in advance and plans ahead, and who bills at about a third of the rate as Famiglio. In addition, the CPA is humble, easy to talk with and listens well.
Over a year and a half later, after having long left Famiglio, I suddenly received a tax return in the mail, prepared by Famiglio, with an invoice, for a return I never asked them to do, and using financial data they LITERALLY MADE UP because they had never asked for any financials from me.
I called and reiterated that they had been fired long ago, had done this return without my consent and without any relevant financial information. George jumped on the call and went on and on about how he needed to "protect me" because nobody else can do tax returns as brilliantly as he and he wanted to be sure I didn't miss a deadline (remember how I had mentioned how they never reach out prior to a deadline, only on the day of the deadline? Bingo.)
I informed him I had been working with someone else and his services weren't wanted or needed, and he promised to make the bill go away. Yet, I continue to receive past due statements, and every time I call I have the same conversation, he promises to make the bill go away, and the past due notices keep coming anyway and the billing department knows nothing. Over and over I have this same phone call. I have literally asked George what I have to do to make them understand they are fired
Stay away. Working with Famiglio is akin to torture.
