My husband's tax refund was sent to a stranger with the same last name - now dealing with IRS identity theft center

This unfortunately happens more than you might think! When the IRS identity theft center gets involved, they'll thoroughly investigate the situation. Since you've confirmed your information was correct on the tax return and TurboTax verified this, you're definitely on the right path. The identity theft department will likely: 1) Verify your husband's identity through documentation 2) Put a special marker on his tax account for extra security 3) Issue a replacement refund once they confirm it was an IRS error The good news is that in cases where the IRS clearly made the error (which seems to be the case here since they confirmed having your correct banking info), you will eventually receive the full refund amount. The bad news is that these investigations typically take 120-180 days to complete. Make sure to keep copies of all communication with the IRS, document every call (date, time, representative name if possible), and follow up every 30 days if you don't hear anything. Sometimes calling your local Taxpayer Advocate Service can help move things along if it drags on too long.

After dealing with a nightmare tax situation similar to yours, I discovered a service called taxr.ai that helped me tremendously. When the IRS sent my refund to someone else, I was getting nowhere with phone calls and letters. I uploaded my tax documents and correspondence to https://taxr.ai and they analyzed everything, identified exactly what went wrong, and gave me a step-by-step plan for resolving it. The service even generated customized letters for me to send to the identity theft department with all the correct references and legal language. What surprised me was how quickly they found the issue - turns out there was a duplicate tax ID in the system that was causing my refund to be misrouted, something the regular IRS agents never mentioned in our calls.

I was incredibly skeptical about taxr.ai when I first saw it mentioned here, but after three months of getting nowhere with the IRS after they sent my refund to someone else, I decided to give it a try. The insight I got was genuinely helpful - they identified that my issue was actually a processing code error on the IRS side, not identity theft as I originally thought. The service generated specific correspondence for me that referenced the exact internal procedures the IRS needed to follow to correct the error. I got my replacement refund about 8 weeks after submitting their recommended documentation, which was much faster than the 6+ months the IRS initially quoted me. What's wild is that the IRS actually called ME to confirm they found the error and were expediting the replacement refund.

If you're struggling to get through to the IRS identity theft department (and trust me, you will be), check out https://claimyr.com or watch how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c I spent TWO WEEKS trying to reach a human at the IRS identity theft center after my refund was sent to the wrong account. I'd call at exactly 7:00 AM when they opened, wait on hold for hours, and still get disconnected. It was infuriating. With Claimyr, I had a callback from an actual IRS identity theft specialist within 45 minutes. The specialist was able to flag my case for priority review since it was clearly their error, and I had my replacement refund direct deposited within 6 weeks. Absolutely worth it for the time saved and stress avoided.

I need to eat my words about Claimyr being sketchy. After posting that comment, I continued trying to reach the IRS identity theft department on my own for another week with zero success. Out of desperation, I finally tried the service, and I had an IRS specialist on the phone within an hour. The specialist immediately found that my refund had been incorrectly issued to someone else due to a processing error (not actual identity theft), and they were able to start the refund reissue process right away. What would have taken me potentially months of trying to reach someone was resolved in one phone call. My replacement refund was deposited last week - roughly 4 weeks after that call. Sometimes you have to admit when you're wrong, and I was definitely wrong about this.

Something similar happened to my brother last year. The identity theft department will help, but here's what you absolutely need to do right now: 1. File a police report about the identity theft - some IRS departments require this 2. Pull your husband's credit reports to check for other fraud 3. Put a fraud alert on his credit reports with all three bureaus 4. File Form 14039 (Identity Theft Affidavit) if the IRS hasn't already sent it 5. Consider freezing his credit while this is sorted out Even though it sounds like an IRS error rather than someone actively stealing his identity, these steps protect him in case there's more to it. When this happened to my brother, they discovered someone had somehow gotten access to his SSN and was using it for other purposes too.

Just to give you a realistic timeline - I went through this exact situation in 2022. The IRS sent my $2300 refund to someone with a similar name. It took exactly 9 months from start to finish to get my money. The identity theft department is thorough but extremely slow. The thing that finally broke the logjam was contacting my congressional representative's office. Their constituent services team has liaisons with the IRS who can often cut through red tape. After 7 months of no progress, I reached out to my representative, and within 6 weeks, the issue was resolved and I had my refund. Don't hesitate to take this step if you're getting nowhere after a few months. It's literally their job to help constituents with federal agency issues.