Bell, Donald W, CPA

I had a terrible experience before even deciding whether or not to hire Donald Bell as the CPA for my company. I recently opened a consulting business and have been looking for a CPA we trust to establish a long-term relationship with. We had interviewed a couple of CPAs before interviewing Donald Bell and hadn’t “clicked” with anyone yet. My business partner and I came over to Donald Bell’s office one morning to chat and get to know him. He didn’t mention anything about charging us for this initial meet-and-greet and we didn’t ask since none of the other CPAs charged us for the interview. As consultants, we also don’t charge future clients before establishing a business relationship. A few weeks after meeting with Donald Bell, we received an invoice for our meeting with him. We never got charged for an initial meeting with a CPA, or any other service provider for that matter. I emailed him back, saying that it would have been good business practice to let us know ahead of time that we were being charged. I also reassured him that we would send the check anyways. We were already pretty upset with the situation, but the worst was yet to come. He replied to our email and was completely unprofessional, rude and offensive. He called us naive for thinking we could “take advantage” of him, and concluded his email by saying he doesn’t think we will succeed in this business world. I’m not a young professional. In my 20 years of career, I had never dealt with someone so rude and unprofessional. Donald Bell might be a knowledgeable CPA, but if he acts like this with his potential clients, that tells you about him as a human being. I would not recommend Donald Bell to anyone, not even my worst enemy.