My first IRS fiasco ever.....

Chasing down a '14 Tax Refund . The twist is I chose to have the refund put on a NetSpend VISA card ( won't do that again )

1. Refund by IRS 3 NOV

2. 3 NOV, Rx email from bank I need to get ahold of them

3. 5 Nov , contact bank. Told funds were returned to sender.

4. Contact bank 2 more times before they finally give me a transaction number.

5. Contact TurboTax for help tracking . Told to to contact IRS. Would hate to see how they react if I had got audited?

6,. Spent six weeks.. yes you read that right .. SIX WEEKS trying to get through .. finally. A competent person ( yes I was shocked ) on the other line gives me the bad news. No funds returned, but , i get a routing number that the money was sent to and a phone number.

****Now... one would assume, this would send me back to the NetSpend financial institution , but.. it doesn't. ***

7. Contact the GreenDot bank ( they handle cards that you put money into , apparently for folks with crappy credit that need a CC ). They have no idea what I'm talking about. IRS gave me their number, but .. they have no idea why. They claim they've know nothing of NetSpend ( hair on my neck is tingling, and ... a lil concerned at this point)

8. I google search the crap of them and the Greenpoint bank, and start calling 'related' banks telling my story all over again. No help.

9. Luck out into speaking to a competent employee at one the banks ( its a blur and so is my handwriting) .. and she tells me ... she read somewhere in an internal notice , that they had recently purchased "Tax Products" . Well, this is the same name that ties back to the initial IRS Routing number. She promises to call me back. No call back.

10. Call this week looking for Britainny ..no luck.. ... guy I speak to tells me he read a memo yesterday related to this fiasco. Gives me a phone number at Tax Products to call.. Their automated systems tells me I have no account with them.... grrrr

11. Reach a human today ... and ... my SSN , for the first time , is recognized by someone and I'm put through to yet another number at Tax Products.... after being on hold for thirty minutes, I'm wondering what the legal fees are going to be to get someone off their ass.

12. Merry Christmas to me! They are sending me $!

.... ... WAIT ...... it's my money.. .no interest for them holding it the last 6+ weeks... Several dozen phone calls .. hours on hold .... wondering if I'd ever see it..... bah humbug! Guess it could have been worse. Moral of the Story? Don't think there is one. But this was a first ....................

P.S. I bet if I'd owed THEM money, I wouldn't have spent a minute on hold .. with .. anybody .. anywhere?