Signed up for Free service to check for tax refund, is it over?

L'auteur a signé pour un service gratuit de vérification de remboursement d'impôts il y a 15 ans, ce qui a pu lui coûter de l'argent à cause d'une correspondance erronée avec les autorités fiscales.

Tldr; I signed up for a free service 15 years ago and it could have cost me a lot of money. 15-20 years ago I heard about those free services that would check to see if you were owed any tax back, claim it for you and take about 15%. I was young and dumb and thought it seemed like a good idea because I wouldn't get the money otherwise, right? Well they checked and sent me a letter explaining I was owed nothing, so I forgot about it. Over the years I changed profession and began working in an industry where I could claim additional costs back from my tax. This worked the first time I did it. Three years later when I sat down to claim the money for those three years, it didn't work. When I called in to find out why it wasn't working I was told that I had already filled out the form. I said I hadn't but the guy that I spoke to said something like "it must have rolled over automatically", which didn't make sense to me but he was telling me it was done. More recently I received a letter from a debt collection agency saying they were collecting on my debt. Turns out when I had moved jobs 5 years before I had not paid tax for the first few months, and I had been sent many letters about this, "to my accountant". I did not have an accountant. The letters were sent to the company who I had signed up with nearly 2 decades ago! When I had signed up for their free service they had registered as my accountant and all my correspondence from hmrc was going to their PO box. My parents still live in the same house so I know the demands for payment were not forwarded on from the accountant. I do not even know if the company still operates. They were the ones who had filled out my tax claims, not knowing that I could now claim for additional costs. Hmrc had sent me many demands for payment before handing my debt over to a debt collector who tracked me down. So... Yeah. I am now on a repayment plan for the debt. The hmrc has my correct details. I've never been in this situat