From my experience last year with an offset situation, WMR is absolutely the slowest system to update with the correct remaining amount. I had a $2,400 refund with a $800 offset for an old debt, and it took WMR a full 9 days to show the correct $1,600 remainder amount. What's really important to understand is that the actual processing and deposit of your remaining refund happens independently of what WMR displays. My remaining $1,600 was deposited exactly on day 14 after approval, even though WMR was still showing confusing information. The key is to focus on the timeline they gave you (March 17th in your case) rather than what WMR shows. Also, definitely check your tax transcript - it updated within 48 hours and showed exactly what was happening with codes 898 and 776, which gave me peace of mind while waiting for WMR to catch up.

I'm going through this exact same situation right now! Got my approval notice 5 days ago showing an offset, and I've been checking WMR constantly hoping to see the remaining amount. Reading through everyone's experiences here is really helpful - sounds like I need to stop obsessing over WMR and just trust that my remaining refund will arrive by the date they gave me (March 20th in my case). The transcript suggestion is great too - I had no idea that would show more detailed information faster than WMR. It's frustrating that these systems don't talk to each other better, but at least now I know this delay is totally normal. Thanks everyone for sharing your timelines and experiences!

Umm sorry if this is a dumb question, but I'm in the same situation and wondering how box 5 on the 1098-T (scholarships/grants) affects all this? I had a scholarship for part of my undergrad semester and it's showing in box 5. Do I need to subtract that from my qualified expenses before calculating AOTC?

Just wanted to add some clarity since I see some confusion in the comments. As a tax professional, I can confirm that you absolutely cannot claim both AOTC and LLC in the same tax year for the same student - this is a hard IRS rule. However, there's an important nuance about your situation: since your undergraduate expenses occurred in the first part of 2024 and your graduate expenses in the second part, you need to be strategic about which credit to use. If you've only used AOTC for 3 years so far, you have one year of eligibility left, but it can ONLY be applied to undergraduate expenses. Your graduate school expenses would not qualify for AOTC at all - they could only qualify for LLC. So your real choice is: use your final year of AOTC on just your $7,200 undergrad expenses, or use LLC on the combined $25,700 total expenses. Run the numbers both ways - AOTC might give you up to $2,500 (and up to $1,000 is refundable), while LLC gives you 20% of qualified expenses up to $2,000 total. Given your amounts, AOTC on just the undergrad expenses would likely be more beneficial than LLC on everything.

Just a quick warning to anyone using the automatic extension - make sure you still file Form 4868 for an extension of your actual tax return by April 18th! The FBAR automatic extension ONLY applies to the FBAR itself (FinCEN Form 114), not your tax return. I made this mistake last year thinking the automatic extension covered everything related to foreign accounts. Ended up having to explain to the IRS why my tax return was late even though my FBAR was timely filed. Don't repeat my mistake!

Something nobody has mentioned yet - if you haven't filed FBARs in previous years when you should have, look into the Streamlined Filing Compliance Procedures. The penalties for late/missed FBARs can be INSANE (like $10,000 per account per year), but the Streamlined program lets you catch up without penalties if your failure to file wasn't willful. I went through this last year after realizing I should have been filing FBARs for 5 years. You file your past FBARs, certify that your failure was non-willful, and you're good. Much better than waiting for them to find you!

Pro tip: save your transcripts as PDFs whenever you can get in. learned this the hard way

You might be able to call them at 800-908-4490 to get help with access. but goodluck getting thru to anyone 💀

I went through this exact same situation in February! Got denied for the TurboTax advance after about 40 hours of waiting, and I was panicking about where my refund would end up. Can confirm that it automatically switches to SBTPG - you don't need to do anything on your end. The routing info in your TurboTax account will update to show SBTPG instead of Cross River Bank. I'd recommend checking the SBTPG website directly for tracking once your refund gets approved by the IRS. Their system is pretty reliable and gives you better updates than the TurboTax tracker. My refund took about 6 days after IRS approval to hit my account through SBTPG. The whole denial process was stressful but the actual refund went smoothly once it got routed properly.

I can relate to this situation! Got denied for the TurboTax advance last year and was stressed about the same thing. The good news is that everything switches over to SBTPG automatically - no action needed from you. What helped me was logging into my TurboTax account and confirming that the refund details section showed SBTPG instead of Cross River Bank. Once that updated, I knew I was back on the standard processing track. The timeline ended up being about 10 days total from IRS acceptance to money in my account, which honestly wasn't much different than if I had just gone with the regular option from the start. The advance denial was disappointing but didn't actually delay my refund significantly.