About 15,000 Stimulus Payments Sent to the Wrong Accounts

Some of you have commented that you haven’t received your stimulus payment yet, even though you should have. I just saw this news clip and thought I would pass it on:

ABCnews.com

According to ABC News, about 15,000 stimulus payments were routed into the incorrect bank account due to a computer error. It didn’t give more detail than that.

If you should have received your payment but didn’t, there is a hotline number to call at the bottom of the stimulus payment info page at the IRS website.

EDIT (11:14 p.m.): Here’s a link to a Yahoo story that claims that the number is 1,500. It also notes that some households did not receive the $300 for a child refund.

Posted by Tricia on May 15, 2008 at 5:12 PM in Making Money | 9 Comments »
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.

Newer Posts Older Posts

Experts on Credit responded:
Posted: May 15th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I received a stimulus check, but feel the amount was wrong, and not in my favor. I wonder if it could be mistake.
Maria responded:
Posted: May 15th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
HA! Exactly why I REFUSE to e-file my taxes AND have the IRS direct deposit into my account. I do NOT trust the IRS to correctly process my e-filed tax return, and obviously, they can’t direct deposit the funds correctly. I will hold out on the whole e-file/direct deposit thing until the very end.
Frugal Dad responded:
Posted: May 15th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
And these are the same people some would like to see in charge of a national healthcare system! Frightening!
Beth responded:
Posted: May 16th, 2008 at 6:01 am
I got into a pickle because I learned the deposit dates for the rebates, then spent money anticipating that income on that particular date. When Tricia posted about the deposits being early, I followed the link to find out the new date. The information there included the TINY detail that your tax return must have been received at least 6 weeks prior. Since I did not submit my return until April 15, I will not see my rebate until the end of May. Several bills are perilously close to being late this month as a result of this situation. Another example of the painful lesson — NEVER SPEND ON ANTICIPATED INCOME UNTIL IT IS RECEIVED.
Wren responded:
Posted: May 16th, 2008 at 6:35 am
In response to Beth, I’m not sure if that is exactly true. I filed my taxes on the 15th as well, my rebate was due on May 9th, and that’s when I got it. Now, I did file my taxes electronically, so perhaps that had something to do with it. But I understand it was going out according to the last 4 of one’s social security number.

That’s is a good rule to live by, however… never count your chickens before they’re hatched, so to speak.
Tricia responded:
Posted: May 16th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Beth – Sorry to hear about your situation. It’s one I’ve been in many times before, and I was burned as well expecting a tax refund by the IRS that ended up being late (this was 6 or so years ago – pre-debt reduction).

Hopefully the bills that might be late are for companies that are a little lenient. I used to take advantage of that a lot when things were really tight.
Beth responded:
Posted: May 17th, 2008 at 6:26 am
Thanks for the follow-up comments, Wren and Tricia. Two big paychecks hit on Thursday and all the remaining monthly bills got paid. It was just a matter of uncomfortably tight timing. I did file my taxes by snail mail, so that may affect the timing of the rebate.
Dana Seilhan responded:
Posted: May 21st, 2008 at 12:13 am
Hey, *I* want a national healthcare system. It wasn’t the *people* at the IRS that screwed this up, it was the *computers.* All this says is that maybe automating *everything* is not a great idea.

Anyone who writes seriously about personal finance knows that one of the major causes of personal bankruptcy is an unexpected major medical expense, and that a significant percentage of these bankruptcies happen to people who had health insurance when they got sick or injured.

The savings from (1) streamlining the fee-payment process into a single payer and (2) preventing as many as fifty percent of personal bankruptcy cases would be staggering.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w5.63/DC1

Meanwhile, now I’m a little worried about my regular tax refund that’s supposed to go into my savings account. Thanks for the tip, because if I don’t see it in about another four weeks I can call them to see if I was affected.
Capt. John responded:
Posted: May 28th, 2008 at 10:39 am
To shana: It was not the computers that screwed up, it was the “Humans” at IRS that input the Info
into the computers that screwed up, pure and simple!!!