When I say "WE" I mean we as in over 4,000 and possibly up to 90,000 people who filed our taxes using TaxBrain. For those of us who were in the first batch of returns (and now we're finding out possibly the second as well) that were transmitted to the IRS, we are in a horrible situation.
Long story short, TaxBrain used the wrong bank routing number on the returns. For everyone that had their filing fees taken out of their refund, the refund was supposed to go to SBBT/META to be deposited into our bank accounts. Unfortunately, TaxBrain used the routing number for Republic Bank and we're all sitting around with no answers. Our refunds were sent to Republic Bank last week, the 27th. TaxBrain made no attempt to notify us of this situation. As a matter of fact, when they realized the mistake, they tried to resubmit our returns to the IRS with the corrected routing number but of course they were rejected.
TaxBrain is giving us the runaround. We can't get a straight answer from ANYONE. TaxBrain, the IRS, Republic Bank, the Treasury, SBBT/META. The IRS agents are all completely dumbfounded when any of us call and try to explain the situation. We've been told we would receive a paper check anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks. We have no idea if or when we will receive this money.
What's even more alarming that is our Social Security Numbers, addresses, names and refund amounts were released to a third party that we did not authorize to have that information. Not only are we missing money, but our privacy has been compromised.
We've started a Yahoo group Taxbrainvictims2010 http://finance. Groups. Yahoo.com/group / Taxbrainvictims2 010/ and have made a lot of progress in contacting the media and bringing this situation to light. Members have been able to stir some media interest and several stations have interviewed victims and posted stories.
We are getting NO cooperation from TaxBrain or the IRS. Not one soul can tell us where our money is or when we will receive it. We can make 10 different calls to the IRS and receive 10 different answers.
I'm one of the lucky ones. I don't particularly NEED my refund like so many do. I don't however, appreciate knowing that my personal information was sent to the wrong bank or that I have a significant amount of money floating around in financial outer space.
If there's any way you could shed some light on this or possibly even help us bring our case a little closer to the top, we would certainly appreciate it. The sheer number of people that this has impacted should be alarming without the compromise of our identity or the missing funds.
Sincerely,
Another TaxBrain Victim
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