John Anton Sterbick

Don't let the smile full you. John Sterbic charged me $1500 for writing a letter to the IRS. When I asked for refund, he said that he will not give it to me. He charges $395 an hour. He charged me $1500 an hour. I feel cheated. The Universal Law of Justice will punish him. He will have to face the co...nsequences with the Karmic Law. I don't know how he can sleep at night. Please find a lawyer that is honest instead of this one. I already reported him to the Better Business Bureau. They asked me if I am willing to make a report to a press and I said that I will.

We hired Sterbick to handle a WA State DOR audit. We had many issues during the short time he was involved--which was midway through the audit. During the few months he was involved, Sterbick did not have a single meeting with us outside of the quick free consultation (which he later claims as a ch...arged item) where we paid him a flat fee of $2,000. He did not request or possess any of our business records. Instead we were responsible for gathering, pulling, scanning, copying hundreds of documents and provided it to him and/or the auditor directly. This should have been done by his office--we did pay them to do this work, but it all fell on our shoulders. John failed to provide the auditor documents at the one meeting he had with the auditor. We realized later and emailed them over to auditor. John failed to meet a deadline to submit documentation to DOR--despite the fact we had provided the info and docs over a week prior. I called and emailed to remind him--and finally he sent an email on deadline day stating he had met the deadline. We discovered later this was a lie. He did not and the auditor confirmed this. In fact, the auditor sent over a timeline of communication and also stated he had never received any documents by email at all from Sterbick. There was 1 fax the auditor received--it was duplicate info Sterbick had failed to give him at a previous meeting that I had already provided to the auditor by email. Sterbick also told the auditor false information that could have resulted in an IRS audit of our company if we had not caught it and cleared it up. Sterbick deleted pertinent questions the auditor had asked before forwarding an email to us--we saw no reason for this at all and it caused great confusion in the audit. Basically, Sterbick failed to do anything at all to represent us in this audit. We terminated our relationship, revoked the CTIA so he could no longer communicate with the auditor and requested a refund of $2,000. He asked why and we told him...these reasons and much more. I have all documentation to support my review and statements. Sterbick, to date, has refused to refund a single penny. We had hoped to hire another atty, but because Sterbick won't refund the money we couldn't. We continued handling the audit ourselves--which is what we were doing anyhow when Sterbick was involved--and we were able to bring it to a successful and satisfactory end. We would never refer anyone to this attorney. We were very displeased with his knowledge of the laws regarding the construction industry, a complete failure and lack of representation and the fact he demanded we do all the work that he was paid to do. We will be contacting the WA State Bar as well. If you need documentation supporting my comments, please contact me. I have it in print.

My husband had a corporation and needed a tax attorney for back taxes. When looking for a tax attorney in Tacoma, John Sterbick's website popped up. It looked impressive so we set up an appointment. Mr. Sterbick made us feel like everything was going to be taken care of. We paid him his $1,800 fee an...d quickly got all the paperwork he asked for. Mr. Sterbick said he would contact us. After months and no word from Mr. Sterbick we called to check on the status. They said he's working on it and they'll call us. Soon a notice came in the mail from the IRS. We took it over to John Sterbick and again they said they're working on it and don't worry. Next the IRS came to our house and left a business card. My husband was upset and called Mr. Sterbick to let him know about the visit. Mr. Sterbick said not to worry, he would call them right away. Another month passed and more IRS notices came in the mail as well as certified mail. My husband again delivered the information to Mr. Sterbick and was reassured it was nothing to worry about. after another month and no word from Mr. Sterbick we set up a meeting with him to ask questions and find out what the status was. We needed to know what the next step was. John Sterbick entered the room with our folder and asked questions (like it was our first visit). My husband had to keep reminding him what he said before and what he was suppose to be doing. John Sterbeck said "ohhhh, this is a corporation!?" He leaned back looking at the ceiling (for a long time) not saying anything then he stood up and closed the door. He quietly told us "For another $1,500 cash, I can get the amount lowered for you and start immediately." He asked, "how soon can you get the cash?" We said how about the next day? He asked, can you go get it ASAP (that afternoon) and he'd take care of everything immediately. So we did. (It didn't feel right in our gut) but we were wanting to resolve this. Another month past, we heard nothing from Sterbick. We received another notice from the IRS We called John Sterbik and received a voice message stating he was playing phone tag with the IRS and he would be in touch with us. Waiting again....We received another certified letter stating "since we have heard nothing from you, we will go the next step and seize your bank accounts. OMG, this time we thought screw STERBIK, we called the IRS ourselves. The IRS lady made it clear she hadn't heard from Sterbick and had never heard of him. She explained the IRS does reduce the amount owing for people whom owe back taxes with corporations. What a blow, John Sterbik lead us to think he could get the amount lowered (for another $1,500 dollars) we feel like a couple of idiots. My husband called Sterbiks office PISSED OFF. He told them about the call to the IRS. He told him what the IRS lady said. The IRS lady told us that Sterbick finally called her to set up an appointment. We stayed in contact with the IRS and handled everything ourselves. hard telling what the outcome would have been if we didn't. We spent $3,300.00 for NOTHING! DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!!!! As we see it, the good reviews someone left on here were probably written by himself or one of his family members! STATUS UPDATE: We are in the process of reporting him to the Washington State Bar Association.