Stolen Tax Refund

So my husband filed his taxes online, like he does every year. Filing this year in general just felt a little weird, maybe it was the pandemic, maybe it was that I felt more confident filing this year than I had when we filed previous years.

We were told the earliest it'd be deposited was by the 4th & if we didn't get anything by the 8th to call the IRS. My husband called his bank, which is a small local bank that only has 4 branches located in our area, each & every one of those days to try & find out what was going on with his refund. We have friends that go through that same bank & they had no problem receiving their refund. Finally yesterday, the 9th, my husband decided to call his tax people & find out if he could figure out what was going on. 

Turns out, it was his bank account number. He flipped the last two numbers (an honest mistake that should be able to be easily fixed) & it ended up in someone else's bank account. This person drained that account & took the money. Now I know what you're thinking "Oh that sucks but well it's your husband's fault, he put in the wrong numbers," & yes to a degree I agree with you & so does my husband BUT I'm gonna point out some inconsistencies with the bank that might piss you off or have you totally confused.

(1) This bank has two account numbers that are the EXACT SAME except the last 2 numbers are flipped. How is that even possible? That honestly seems so shady to me.

(2) This bank "reviews" all transactions for 24 hours. I put review in quotation marks because they obviously don't. The bank lady tried to say the transaction was just numbers & when my husband doubled down & was like "No, I know my name and social security number were attached to that transaction," she said "Well because you knew his account number we had to honor it". Then went on to tell my husband not to get the IRS involved because it'd take longer 🙄 if that ain't the shadiest thing I ever heard.

(3) A couple years back when my husband was only using that bank to cash the actual checks he was getting from work, they implemented a new policy that no one could cash checks there that didn't have an account because they were having tourists come through & cash bad checks. So even though my husband had been cashing his checks there for months at this point, they wouldn't let him cash them (even though they knew they were good cuz it was from the exact same company as before) because of their policy. I'm talking about this because OBVIOUSLY they felt like their system wasn't secure enough so they implemented a new policy.

(4) I really believe that the BANK has all that money & the dude who's account it got put into just owed the bank alot of money & they took it but won't own up to it. They told my husband that the dude had loans with them that he was paying on (like that was even relevant 🙄) which personally lead me to believe that he had given them the money.

(5) My husband's aunt told him that the bank should reimburse my husband because that's what they have insurance for, this kind of fraud. But they claim they can't because my husband "knew" this guy's bank account number 🙄 

The bank is trying to claim they did nothing wrong but I beg to differ.

They obviously didn't review the transaction & don't want to own up to it so they had to come up with another excuse to try to cover their asses. Yes, my husband did flip his account numbers but we've done that before, our tax return was just rejected that time because it wasn't the right account numbers & at that time we had a PREPAID debit card, how in tf is a prepaid debit card more secure than an actual bank? 🙃 Obviously even prepaid cards don't put their account numbers THAT close because it is a fucking identify theft hazard 😒

The anxiety this has caused, I can't even describe. I've NEVER struggled with being this anxious before & I constantly feel like I'm gonna puke.

Y'all, send some good vibes my way. I need all the good energy I can get.