Image by NikolayFrolochkin from Pixabay
KEY POINTS
- Recipients have complained on social media of various glitches and problems plaguing the IRS' stimulus web tool and the first wave of checks being deposited
- Problems have included the web tool crashing from traffic, checks being deposited into the wrong accounts and tax services taking service fees out of the stimulus check
- Some have reported checks being sent to the accounts of the recently deceased, causing further confusion among some recipients
As the Internal Revenue Service began sending stimulus checks to help Americans affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but some recipients said Thursday their checks went to the wrong bank accounts while other checks were sent to accounts belonging to the recently deceased. Others have reported glitches related to several popular tax programs that kept them from receiving their checks.
The apparent root of the problems has been the IRS' Get My Payment web tool that recipients could use to track the stimulus checks. However, complaints began flooding the IRS on Wednesday as users complained of various glitches or being unable to enter the necessary information.
Some users who managed to get into the tool said on social media their stimulus check was sent to either an inactive accouns or an account belonging to someone else. Despite the problems, some banks reportedly told recipients there was nothing they could do.
"You're jubilant because you've been waiting to get that money. And you look down and the bank account number is not even close," Lansing, Michigan, resident Chris Rodriguez told USA Today.
Another problem being reported by recipients is that either the wrong amount or no money was dropped into their accounts at all. The U.S. Treasury Department and other experts said this was because the IRS was unable to get direct deposit information from various tax services, such as H&R Block and TurboTax.
Consumer law expert Vijay Raghavan told the Washington Post the IRS sent the stimulus out to the tax services first because it had "temporary bank accounts" on file belonging to the services. Raghavan said this was due to either people getting an advance on their tax returns from employers or because they had the service fee taken out of their 2019 returns. This meant the tax services saw the stimulus money first, took out the service fee, and distributed the remaining money to customers.