Taxpayer Identity Theft — Part 15

NOTE: I wrote this post in 2013, so be aware of its age.

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I’ve been telling the story of Wendy Boka and the identity theft nightmare she’s going through with the IRS. Her husband Brian died at age 31 in 2010. Someone stole his identity and filed a fraudulent tax return in his name.

The IRS still has not processed Brian and Wendy’s final joint tax return for 2010. Wendy is owed a refund from that tax return and we’re still waiting for that refund to be paid.

Brian and Wendy were native Iowans. After Brian died, Wendy — a widow at age 29 — moved to Texas. The names are real and are used with Wendy’s permission.

You can read the other parts of this series here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 14

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The saga continues.

Back in early April, the IRS told me that Wendy’s refund check from 2010 would be sent in “6-8 weeks.” Eight weeks passed at the end of May, and of course there was no refund check to be found.

So I called the IRS again yesterday.

As usual, the first minute or two of the conversation was spent explaining the entire situation to the random IRS call-center person. Then waiting on hold while the random call-center person tries to figure out whether to look things up under Brian’s Social Security Number or Wendy’s.

Then more waiting as the random call-center person tries to figure out why a check hasn’t been issued yet.

I never really got a straight answer as to why they didn’t issue a check in the promised timeframe. Something about their records not matching what I was telling them. But then with me patiently explaining things — and more time on hold so the person could “talk to their manager” — suddenly the random call-center person agreed with me that a check should have been issued and that they would put in the request “right away.”

Current timeline: “two to three weeks.”

We’ll see.