Sunday, June 3, 2012

Case Update

Per my original call with the IRS in March, I was supposed to have a case manager contact me by 23 May via official mail.

Well, that date came and went, and I contacted the IRS on 31 May (approx 1430 hrs) to let them know I still lacked a letter, or any information for that matter on my case status.

I was connected with a very pleasant and straight-forward woman identified as "Ms Kelly," Cust Service # 1306598. She was a real straight shooter, polite, but no B.S.

I was dismayed to learn that yes, my file had been assigned a case worker on 17 May, however, it would be yet ANOTHER 90 days before the case manager would actually call me.

What. The. Hell.

Thus, its 180 days just to SPEAK to someone to get a legitimate status update. IRS Customer Service reps are also not permitted to provided the name of my case worker (which I find very weird).

However, Ms. Jelly was sympathetic, and explained that I was "on the ball" and far ahead of other folks. She said that the IRS was still handling cases from last year, but most individuals were not organized or proactive, and that I was actually assigned a case worker rather quickly.

I do appreciate her candid honesty, but still - 180 DAYS!? Granted, I did not experience the 2+ hour wait time (some articles have indicated 4-6) on the phone, and I have yet to visit an IRS office in person (which is where I believe most of those wait times exist). I waited for approximately 10 minutes, and Ms. Kelly was able to place me on hold for about 2 minutes while she researched my file.

She freely admitted that the new electronic system has complicated tax fraud issues, and without denigrating her employer, hinted that just going back to the old school paper filing method would help alleviate many of these issues with tax fraud/tax theft.

I agree... instant gratification or facilitating individuals who don't have a checking account have complicated so many things.

Argh... this is just frustrating.

3 comments:

  1. I've been working with the IRS to get my 2010 taxes after a case of identity theft. Everything you've experienced is exactly what I've been going through the past year. I promise you, this is just the beginning. It took 8 months before I received a caseworker. I remember when I called and said I hadn't heard from the worker they said they would submit a request for response and I needed to call back after 7 days if she didn't respond. I called back after the 7 days and they said they were going to send a 2nd request and I'd have to wait 7 days again. I called back again and this time they said they'd forward a message to the workers supervisor but I'd have to wait 7 days. It took over a month just for someone to say "Hey! This is your caseworker". Not that it really mattered since From November 2011 to June 2012 I've never got a call back from her, just two letters saying she was "working on it". WTF?

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  2. Thanks for visiting the page, and for sharing your experience.

    I agree that dealing with this situation is completely and utterly exhausting. Worse yet, this is an election year, and reforming this part of the IRS is far off the radar for both candidates. Lowering taxes may be all they talk about, but its hard to have faith in our policies when they allow the extremely broken parts of the IRS to play fast and loose with our hard-earned cash they they took in the form of high taxes to begin with!

    Question... you mentioned you are dealing with an issue surrounding your 2010 taxes. How did the following year go when filing your 2011 return?

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  3. 2011 taxes went smoothly, however, I filed the minute I could. I had learned that the IRS had sat on my 2010 identity theft affidavits for so long that they had missed the deadline to send me a protection PIN. When the rep told me this could happen again I figured the only thing I could do was beat the thieves to the punch.

    I should add that since yesterday I contacted a news station here in the Bay Area and they've expressed interest in my case. Mainly because of a recent IRS phone call that resulted in a rep telling me to shut up and then hanging up on me simply because I said she was being rude and asked for her name and ID.

    I've sent a letter of the incident to IRS complaints committee and will be sending an overview of my entire experience to my local congress.

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