Treasury Nightmare
From Free Talk Live
- This topic was discussed on the Dec 14, 2005 show. This is a personal story from Triddle whom called in about it but made a small error on the air. Live he stated that he had waited two months in regard to the receptionist who lied to him about the required form. This story is factually accurate and a waiting period totaling one month transpired because of her lie, not two months.
The saga begins a couple years ago with a mistake on my income tax return. I did not know all of the deductions that were available to me at the time and wound up paying too much for my taxes. After a couple years the IRS had proactively refigured my income tax return for that year and found a little more than two thousand dollars owed to me. The IRS then took it upon itself to send a check to me, with out my knowledge or consent, and wound up sending it to an address I have never lived at inside a state I have never visited. The person at that address cashed the check in short order.
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So it begins
All of this was with out my knowledge. About 6 months after that happened I had my income taxes for the same year refigured by an accountant. The accountant found the IRS owed me over $2,500. After submission of my amended return I received a check for approximately $500. Upon inquiry I learned of the fraudulent cashing of my check by a person residing in Georgia. I was told there was a simple process to go about recovering the lost funds and immediately began it.
The Financial Management Service department of the Department of the Treasury sent me a claim form to fill out. Unfortunately, I answered one of the questions in error. I openly admit this mistake as I misread the claim form but the repercussions from it are completely unreasonable. A rejection letter was sent to me and the verbiage "If, however, the answer was done in error, please complete and return the enclosed claim form." appeared in that letter. Present in the envelope it came in was a self-addressed envelope and a copy of the page that was filled out in error. There was no claim form enclosed to complete and return.
Claim form hell
I set about looking for the form by form number. I was unable to find this form on any government website and eventually wound up calling the FMS to receive a copy of the form that was missing from the envelope. The employee I spoke to, a receptionist, told me that she would immediately get a copy of the claim form into the mail for me. I patiently waited for two weeks and no such form showed up.
I called back and spoke to the same person again. She told me that she was swamped but that my claim form was sitting on her desk and she would get it out in the mail tonight. Another patient two weeks went by and no claim form showed up.
Lied to?!?!?!
I called back again and luckily did not receive the same receptionist. This time I was transfered to a claims representative and that phone call was very telling. This representative informed me that the only way to receive that claim form is to reopen the case with my claim representative, which she was not, so she could not help me. The previous receptionist had actively lied to me. It is impossible that she would have that claim form on her desk ready to be mailed because she has no authority to do so nor access to the form in the first place.
As if that was not bad enough I was also informed that the rejection letter sent to me has incorrect instructions on it. One does not "complete the enclosed claim form" but instead is to correct the enclosed page that is in error and send it back. This marks the second major error on the part of the FMS. This particular error delayed my check processing by an entire month. My mistake should of taken about a week to rectify. Truly this is a sad state of affairs.
Unresponsive bureaucrats
This representative told me I can easily solve this situation by correcting my page and simply faxing it in. I did this and got the ball rolling again. After another period of patient wait I still did not receive any status update on my case. I drafted two letters to my claim representative, both of which asked for explicit answers to explicit questions and immediate reply. Both of those letters went unanswered. The first letter asked my claim representative to only contact me via FAX as it is impossible, due to time zones, to communicate via telephone. With in a couple days, on a matter not referenced by the letter, my representative called me at home and left a message with instructions to call her back but no return phone number.
I finally took the day off of school to try to resolve this problem. After some arguing and getting escalated to supervisors I finally found out that my check had been authorized and it would only be a matter of time before it would show up in the mail. When I attempted to report my problems with employees lying to me and errors in form letters I was met with stiff resistance. In fact the supervisor attempted to talk me out of it by telling me that I am getting my money and that should be good enough.
Supervisor hell
Finally, in frustration, I told the supervisor that I intended to see that these employees were met with disciplinary action and promised her that I would check up on it. She attempted to explain that I would have no method to do that and I finally had to tell her that I would invoke FOIA to verify that my complaints were at least on file. Upon mention of FOIA the supervisor reluctantly took my complaints.
More patient wait proceeded and again my check still did not show up. Fearing that the FMS was lying to me once again I called in and spoke to that same supervisor. I insisted that the supervisor send me a confirmation letter that my check was issued which the supervisor informed is also standard policy but no such letter showed up here. A letter was finally sent to me by her and I received this letter dated December 13. The letter said it could be up to two weeks before I saw my check so I then went out on Christmas vacation and decided to worry about this matter upon my return around December 28.
Run around
Indeed when I got home no check was waiting for me. I called the FMS back once again to inquire about my check. It turns out that my check had been issued on November 19 and no one notified me. As well, the check had now been outstanding for such a long period that policy dictates that the check be canceled and a new check be issued. I was informed that according to all indications the check had been placed into the mail and just failed to arrive.
After much arguing with a high level supervisor whom reports to the Director of Financial Processing Division, we agreed on another method of payment. The FMS would credit the funds back to the IRS who then would be able to do direct deposit to place the funds into my bank account. I was satisfied with this method of resolution because it would finally be a method that can be tracked. The "check is in the mail" bit is very old and I did not intend to fall victim to it again.
Eventually I received an update from the FMS again. By policy the IRS will not direct deposit the funds because it was not requested at the initial filing. I was also informed that the only recourse was to have the check issued again. Finding this to be entirely unreasonable I instructed the FMS to follow all policies that are applicable when returning my money to me and no longer felt that I could deal with them.
Systemic problem
I contacted the office of my Congressional Representative and found out some very interesting information. First of all, my rep has a member on staff that is dedicated to helping his constituents deal with the IRS. Also, he knew of the FMS and told me they are known to be a difficult division to work with inside the Treasury Department.
This story is an indication of so much wrong with our Federal Government. Not only are our tax dollars going to pay for employees who would rather lie to me than do their job but my tax dollars are also paying another individual to help me fight the original problem. Delaying over two thousand dollars for over three months should be criminal if it is not already.
The true irony here is that supervisor after supervisor kept telling me they are dedicated to excellent customer service. By no reasonable measure can this be considered even good customer service. While all the supervisors agreed they keep telling me this is an isolated case. After speaking with my congressional representative's office it has become very clear this is not true.
