I will try to keep this as simple as possible. I was eligible for the 3rd covid stimulus check back in 2021 – $4200. I was expecting to receive this in the form of a physical check in the mail several months after it was announced because that is how long the first two stimulus checks took to reach me in Switzerland.
It never came. After unsuccessfully trying to claim the stimulus through a credit on my 2021 tax return, I finally called the IRS in early 2023 to learn that they (for some unknown reason) had decided to deposit the stimulus check in 2021 directly in the bank account they had on file for me in the US. Fortunately the account was still active, but we hardly ever use it. Fine. I called the bank expecting to find the $4200 there. It wasn’t. I called the IRS again and they instructed me to initiate a trace by filling out and mailing in a form (from Switzerland to the US). They told me it would take several months to do the trace and not to call them until that time passed. I finally called them in October. They had no record of the trace. So I initiated another trace, this time with the help of the agent on the phone.
The allotted four months passed and I received a letter from the IRS. The trace report included a section for the recipient bank to complete, and I saw a box checked (presumably by the bank) saying that they had credited me the $4200 on 19 October 2023 (which would have been shortly after I started the second trace). Progress, I thought. So I called the bank again. No money. So I initiated a trace with them. I received a report from the bank yesterday confirming that they had received nothing from the IRS for me.
So I am completely at a loss. Every step of the way, people have been reasonably helpful, but the bottom line is that the IRS is insisting that they sent the money to my bank and my bank is insisting that they never received it. And they are not talking to each other, only to me (when I chase them).
I am beginning to feel that this is hopeless and I just need to accept that I will never see the $4200.
Contact the office of a politician who represents your district. Congresscritter if they’re at all useful (and remember, it will be their staffers you mostly interact with, and many of these politicians like a few “local pothole fixer” success stories to burnish the notion that they’re actually serving the people who elect them). If that doesn’t seem viable, consider getting a local Bar Association referral to an attorney — if it works like it does around here, you can get a one-time referral that’s tied to a flat-rate fee for a consultation.
I would file a complaint against the bank with both the FDIC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). At the same time, file a complaint against the IRS with the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). That might shake things up a little in both directions.
Wouldn’t complaints go to the Comptroller of the Currency? I did that once when a bank took $500 from me and refused to deal with the problem. I got my money back post-haste.
My brother, SiL, and I opened a savings account that we were supposed to use jointly to save money for a trip to Italy. As a group, we started out healthy with about $6,000, but the money just sat there and there was no activity in the account at all. After a few months, we got a letter stating that if we didn’t contact the bank and fill out a form, the State of Illinois was going to take the money. Apparently, when people die and their bank accounts become inactive because no one is accessing the money, the State of Illinois will take the money. Could it be something like that?
I second this recommendation. Contact both your U.S. Representative and both of your Senators. They will have “casework” staff whose whole job is to help constituents who are having an issue with the federal bureaucracy. I note that you’re in Switzerland, but I assume you still have an official US residence? You can find your member of Congress at: Find Your Members in the U.S. Congress | Congress.gov | Library of Congress.
Not at all! It’s the bureaucracy that will ultimately have to fix the problem, but legislators can keep the heat on them and make sure things don’t get blown off or slip through the cracks. Some of the most dogged people I know are caseworkers.
In my case, when a higherup at Bank of America received the complaint from the Comptroller’s office they took care of the problem. But that depended on the bank officer taking action. Also yours was a government payment so I second involving your Rep & Senators in the loop in addition to using the bureaucracy.
I totally agree! They’re being very aggressive. It actually happened a second time, and we decided to close the account and save money on our own in our regular, active accounts.
Yeah, that’s really odd. So far as I can tell, in Illinois it’s either three years or five years of inactivity before they seize it, and that’s if the owner can’t be found. I’ve had accounts sitting around for years with no activity and no issues. Weird.
I have a similar but different story. I work for a small company and we really took a hit during Covid. We were eligible for ERC (Employee Retention Credit) for keeping our employees working. It was a pretty big sum of money that went by our quarterly tax reports and we really needed it. We received checks for the first, second and fourth quarters but not the third. We have called the IRS numerous times. At first they said they didn’t receive the proper form. So we re-sent it. We waited a few months but still no check. Called IRS again (each call included hours on hold). This time we were told we were missing a page. So we sent it out again this past October. And still no check. We called the IRS again. This time they said that it was going to be a tax credit instead of a check! We don’t want a tax credit, we are in desperate need of the money. I don’t know all of the details because my boss is the one that has been dealing with this issue. But don’t you think we should have the option of a check or credit, especially when we were promised a check? We’re still waiting for some paperwork regarding this so-called credit. And another thing- our accountants sent the exact same paperwork each time, so the excuse of missing or incorrect forms is B as in B, S as in S. UGH
Yeah, my experience has been similar. When you can get through to people at the IRS, they are generally really nice and helpful and get your hopes up, but things just enter a vortex of bureaucracy with mind-numbing delays and astonishing levels of careless errors. I had to reclaim some UK tax through a supposedly routine process that required the IRS to send some paperwork direct to the UK tax authorities. I submitted the forms, the turnaround was 18 months, and they sent an incomplete package (obviously including a lot of personal tax information) to a random person in Florida.
thanks everyone. Sorry for not responding yesterday but there were some family issues. Just a few reactions/clarifications:
I have lived in Switzerland for many years and no longer have a US residence. My state for voting is the last place I lived 24 years ago, Washington DC. I guess I can contact my representative for DC, but wonder whether they care about expats
The balance of the bank account is always quite low (less than $500) but it is not dormant. I keep a US credit card for internet purchases that don’t accept my Swiss card (notably Amazon), and I use the US bank account to pay off the CC balance every month.
One thing I am confused about is which of these two parties is legally responsible for the situation? I guess I can lodge complaints about both, but one of them did nothing wrong did they?
Are there US newspapers with consumer complaints sections? My paper has a regular column on problems and glitches like this (surprising how often it comes down to someone misplacing a digit in an account number somewhere along the line).
A newspaper’s call to a bureaucracy’s press office often seems to get things sorted.
The trace should have solved it. Unfortunately, it didn’t so you need to keep badgering them until someone gives you a good answer.
Are you dead? Does the IRS or your bank think you are/were dead? It can be a comedy/tragedy working thru one of these, especially if the right person isn’t looking in the right place to notice the check box/code that indicates you’re dead.
Note: RDFI = Receiving Depository Financial Institution, which is a fancy way of saying “your bank”
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From the Green Book
*Death Notification Entry The Death Notification Entry (DNE) allows federal agencies to notify financial institutions of a benefit recipient’s death. Only an agency of the federal government may originate a DNE. Currently, SSA, OPM, and RRB originate DNEs. Other federal benefit agencies may originate DNEs at a future date. The DNE is a zero-dollar entry with an addenda record. The addenda record contains the date of death, the deceased individual’s SSN, and the amount of the next scheduled benefit payment. Upon receipt of a DNE, the financial institution is encouraged to “flag” the deceased recipient’s account to prevent accepting further post-death federal benefit payments. See below form common errors with flagging. Example: Flagging Joint Accounts A married couple own a joint account. One spouse dies. A DNE is sent from the federal benefit agency to the RDFI. The RDFI receives the DNE and the account is “flagged”. The surviving spouse becomes eligible for surviving spousal’s benefits, and a benefit payment is sent to the joint account. Since the account is “flagged,” the RDFI improperly returns the surviving spousal’s benefits with a reason code of R15 (beneficiary or account holder deceased). The agency receives the returned benefit and processes an improper death termination for the surviving spouse. The agency also sends an improper DNE for the surviving spouse to the RDFI. Solution: To protect joint account holders, the account should be “flagged” with another piece of identifying information (i.e., deceased name, SSN). This allows the joint account holder to continue receiving their own payments. If this is not possible, a new account with a new Direct Deposit authorization should be established. Example: Flagging Erroneous Report of Death A recipient is receiving benefits. An erroneous report of death is received by the federal benefit agency for the recipient. A DNE is sent from the agency to the RDFI and the account is “flagged”. The recipient discovers the problem and presents proof to the agency and the RDFI of the error in the fact of death. The RDFI fails to remove the flagging from the account. The agency resends the benefit payment to the recipient’s account, which is still “flagged”. The RDFI returns benefits with a 4. Returns Green Book 4-4 A Guide to Federal Government ACH Payments reason code for death of R15 (beneficiary or account holder deceased) to the agency based on the erroneous flagging. The agency receives the returned benefit and re-processes the death termination. The agency sends an improper DNE once again to the RDFI. Solution: Always remember to remove any “flagging” on an account when a report of death proves to be erroneous. Note: If a financial institution needs to correct errors in their use of return reason codes when returning funds, they should contact the agency receiving the return. Please see Chapter 7, Contacts, for major paying agency contact information. *
I am bumping this thread to give an update and to ask some others questions.
Based on the recommendations in this thread I checked out the FDIC website and found a way to lodge an official complaint. This seemed straightforward and promising, but I decided to give the bank one more chance. About six weeks ago I called them again and said I was not satisfied with their previous inquiry. I explained again (more carefully and firmly) about the trace the IRS had done and the resultant letter. They agreed to relaunch the inquiry which would take 3 to 6 months.
I called them again yesterday to confirm that they had received my supporting documents and to my surprise they said that the inquiry had been completed (I don’t know why they hadn’t notified me. There’s a lesson here…). The inquiry had indeed ‘found’ the missing money. It had been credited to a different account number. They were not allowed to tell me which, but said it was different from the 10-digit number of my account. However they said that since this was someone else’s account and it was long ago (more than 40 months), they would not be able to recover the money. The call center person implied that there was nothing else that they could do, at which point I got really firm that said this was unacceptable and that I was ready to launch an official complaint with the FDIC. The word complaint worked its magic and they immediately transferred me to a manager in Washington DC who was better informed and more helpful.
He said that I needed to contact the IRS again and to request that they launch a Claim and Dispute process with the bank, and that the IRS, as the original payer, should be able to reverse the payment to the wrong account and to reissue it to the correct account. The manager promised to give me this all in writing and also gave me a fax number where the IRS can reach the bank’s investigation team directly.
So my additional questions:
Is this a legitimate explanation and not some BS? All the info I have from the IRS references my correct account number, so how could the money go somewhere else? And can a payer take back money they deposited in someone’s account almost four years ago? If this was an option, why didn’t they offer to do it when I first asked them?
How can I get the IRS to listen to me? When I first spoke to them I suggested that they contact the bank directly, and they refused. So why should they take my request seriously now? I feel that if the two of them actually spoke together, this could be quickly fixed, but they both insist on keeping me in the middle. My threat of a complaint got the bank to escalate this, but how can I escalate this within the IRS beyond the low-level employee I am able to eventually get on the phone (after much difficulty I might add).
On one hand I feel this is a step forward as the bank has ‘found’ the missing money, but on the other hand I don’t feel much hope I can get this bureaucratic behemoth to take the necessary action.
I find it a bit odd that the IRS decided to change your payout method of their own volition. I don’t know enough about the IRS to know how that happens; is it automated in some way or did it involve some clerk working some report & keying your bank info into their system? If the latter, I’m betting the crux of the issue is either a fat finger or a transposition of digits in your acct #, resulting in their instructions to credit the wrong, but another valid acct at your bank. That could be why your bank won’t give you any info about it, including the acct #.
Your bank can only process what was given to them. If the IRS sent them acct 124356 instead of your acct #123456, then that’s where they credited it & they can’t just take the money from the other party, especially after so long, & give it to you. Why should the bank be out any $ when they followed (valid-but-wrong) instructions given to them?
That’s my guess as to why they’re telling you to go back to the IRS. You’re job now is to be a squeaky wheel, whether that’s wasting spending time with the IRS or contacting a congresscritter or even a TV station ‘on your side’ / consumer affairs reporter. Given where you live, I’d go for a DC TV station since that’s the home of the IRS.
If you want to go that route, there is a Doper who works for one of the DC area TV stations. If you want to go that route, LMK & I’ll DM that person so as to not dox them; whether they reply, DM you, or post in this thread is up to them.
One more thing - before you contact the IRS again, is it a checking or savings acct (that matters to ACH as they have different codes)? If checking, do you have a check. If not, contact your bank & make sure you know the correct R&T/ABA # (some banks have more than one) & full acct #. At my bank, the full acct # is the <base acct #> + <:acct type> (checking, savings, MM, code) + <:check digit> so even though I only need to enter 123456 on my bank’s system my full acct # is 123456011 (123456+01+1) & that’s what I should give another party for ACH txns.