Not sure I understand.. if they used the Free Edition, shouldn't they not have paid anything? I'm guessing that is the crux of the issue, but I guess I always assumed Turbo Tax got you started on the Free Edition then tried to upsell you. Sounds like they charge you money while keeping you on the Free Edition?
The Free Edition doesn't support most use cases so it's not really free. According to the article, iirc, it supports less than a quarter of tax returns.