Apparently not. Justamom says she was on hold for a LONG LONG time. You know…no one should be on hold for more than an hour.
Success! (well, if you can call it that)
As with the first call, I called their main number and left a callback number. This time, they returned my call and the first agent (very helpful) immediately created a case number, transferred the call the RIGHT way and I was able to speak to a fraud agent (also very helpful).
Yes. A state return was filed via turbotax with our SSN’s.
YES. A Federal return was filed via TT with our SSN’s. (ugh).
I have to call the IRS, the DRS, the FTC, perhaps the Police Dept, the Social Security Admin office.
Intuit is providing 2 years of free credit monitoring (and, they provided a free copy of turbotax to use for '14, whatever version I needed and an extra state to boot). Evidently all evidence says that Intuit is not to blame, they have not been breached, but are the tool that is being used for the fraudulent filings.
I’ve put a Fraud Alert out for both H and me via Equifax.
Boo hoo hoo.
I’d suggest calling the State instead. You don’t even know for sure it was filed through Turbo Tax do you?
Yes, I do. Turbotax’s fraud department verified that. Also they were able to tell me that a Federal return has been filed, which I wasn’t sure of.
DRS = the state Dept of Revenue Services. On my list of who to call.
@justamom5465, good thing you’re persistent!
Justamom, what a royal pain! So sorry this happened; at least the silver lining is the crook(s) did not get the check and you are aware of what is going on!
Maybe you missed the other thread on this, but TurboTax is giving everyone who asks a free upgrade to premier if you used TurboTax in the past, and gave me the whole thing (not just premier) free this year. They have also backtracked and said next year they will be going back to having those schedules in Deluxe instead of Premier.
Back to this thread – this is the first report I have heard that this fraud has also happened with federal returns. I had read that several states were having issues, but all the articles claimed the federal systems had more safeguards. Maybe not… 
I feel l like I better get going this weekend and get mine done so I can file and find out if someone has beaten me to it.
Wow - this is so crazy. I rcvd an email today that appeared to be from Turbo Tax - with a link regarding my 2014 tax filings - but I don’t use Turbo Tax - so I quickly deleted. I did file online 2 weeks ago and was very happy to receive confirmation that my return was accepted. My sympathies to anyone dealing with this situation.
Crooks could still get the federal refund and yeah, getting the state check is the only reason Justamom knows about it this soon.
My advice to everyone will be - if you have a way to check online to see your returns (for example, I can log into CT’s taxpayer filing portal), DO IT, just for haha’s. I can see the fraudulent return there, right next to all my valid ones from previous years.
What info did you need to enter the portal to see your returns? We can’t do that in our state but it seems if the login security isn’t that great, that’s a way to get all the info a crook needs to file a phony return.
Justamom…remember the old telephone filing for state returns here?
@annoyingdad, CT has a portal through the Department of Revenue Services where taxpayers can login and enter their returns online. You can also see historical returns, payments, pending payments, etc…That’s where the login would work. Does your state have something similar?
Gosh, thumper, yes now that you mention it I do remember those!!
We can’t view current or historical returns. We can e-file for free with a fillable pdf system. I understood what you could do in CT but my question was, how secure is that login? The ability to login like that and view prior returns could be a possible point of exploitation for the crooks.
As it is, with our e-file system or using any tax software to e-file, all a crook needs is an SSN and made-up entries for the tax forms. For state, they’d need to know what state the person with the SSN lives in to get away with it.
I don’t understand how this happens. When we have used turbotax, in addition to our names, SSN, address, and numbers for income and taxes paid, etc…we also have had to include our employer ID numbers.
Also, I have made made very very small mistakes on my taxes in the past, and they have not been processed. This has happened at the state and federal level. I received love notes telling me about my error and how it was corrected.
Just because a person puts that they overpaid taxes on their tax return would not necessarily mean they would just get any amount of money back. The government has the W2 forms also.
It’s just nuts to me that this refund was sent with no check or balance on the part of the DRS in this state.
True - I’m sure that system can be hacked, like anything else can be. it uses and email address for a login id and a user-defined password. I don’t even HAVE an email tied to my TurboTax returns. Honestly, in reading the articles about the filing issues this year and chatting with the fraud specialist at Intuit - right now the “breach point” is unknown. Intuit says that they’ve done due diligence (using external consultants) and they dont appear to have been hacked. The fact is, that they are being used as the “tool” for the fraudulent returns. They can look at their data and see, that state and federal TurboTax returns were e-filed through their systems using my and my H’s SSN. How the filer GOT the SSN’s is still unknown. I think its interesting though, that my street address was used and that a check was mailed to my home. Maybe if I had gotten a refund in the past couple of years and had it direct deposited, my bank account number would have been compromised too.
Hard to know.
I find it interesting that the State’s filters didn’t flag a return with 2 AGI amounts that were in even thousands of $$.
Well…maybe TT imported YOUR address, and the not so smart crooks didn’t notice that little part. When we start a TT filing, it ports over all that demographic stuff.
True, Thumper, but it uses the TT files from previous years on your hard drive to port the info. At least, it does for me since I use the desktop software only. It might be different if you have an online account.
That’s what I have too…I buy the software and install…I don’t download.
Same diff. In either case (download or boxed) you’re still just using the desktop version and the data files would be stored on your hard drive. As opposed to creating an “online” account and having all your stuff in their server.