I should be working on my income taxes today instead of writing this
blog. I'm not one of those taxpayers who rushes to file for my refund in early
February, as soon as the W-2s come out. First of all, I rarely get a refund,
and secondly, I have some investments that don't report until March. I take
that as my license to procrastinate.
But these days, with identity theft running rampant, it's risky to
put off filing your tax return. Two years ago, someone beat me to it.
About this time in 2015, my husband and I received a cashier's
check in the mail for $9156.02. Nice sum of money, but we weren't expecting
such a payment. I assumed it was a fraudulent check and studied it carefully
for the fine print stating that cashing it obligated me to buy something or
subscribe to some service I didn't want. My mother-in-law used to receive
checks in the mail claiming to be prize money; instructions were included for
her to deposit the check and then mail in a "processing fee." But the
check we received looked real. I couldn't find the catch.
We even called the police department for advice. "If you got
a check you weren't expecting, of course it's fraudulent. Tear it up,"
they instructed us.
But we were hesitant to tear it up until we knew for sure it was a
scam. My husband called the bank that had issued the check and read them the
information. "It's real," they told him. "It came out of our San
Diego branch that issues refunds for TurboTax."
TurboTax? We've never used TurboTax. And we hadn't even filed our 2014 taxes yet, so how could it be our tax refund?
My husband called the Clark Howard radio show. Clark, a consumer advocate, suggested we
go to the IRS website under "Where's My Refund?" and put in my
husband's Social Security number, our filing status, and the amount of the
check.
Bingo! "Your refund has been processed and $9156.02 has been
electronically deposited to your bank account."
Fortunately, the crooks screwed something up, and instead of a
direct deposit to a thief's bank account, a paper check was generated and
mailed to the address on file with the IRS. Otherwise, we never would have
known we'd been scammed.
The fun began. We had to file a police report, alert the credit
bureaus, and contact the IRS, who assigned us a special counselor to handle
return of the fraudulent check (no, unfortunately, we didn't get to keep the
money!) and processing of our real return. Although I'd expected to owe money
that year, we actually had a refund due—which we didn't receive until December,
after our claim of identity theft had been investigated and resolved.
We never learned how it happened. The same fate had befallen our
neighbor the year before; he found out because he filed electronically, and
when he pushed the Submit button, he was advised he had already filed a return
under that Social Security number. The common denominator was an urgent care facility,
where both my husband and neighbor had recently received medical treatment.
So far, thankfully, we have not seen any other evidence of
identity theft in our financial lives. The IRS has given us a PIN to use when
we file subsequent tax returns. However, we're still experiencing fallout from
this incident. Our 2014 state tax return is under audit, because the figures I
submitted don't match the numbers the IRS sent them--from the fraudulent
return, which arrived first.
Have you ever been a victim of identity theft? What suggestions do
you have for preventing it?
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