SBBT (Santa Barbara Bank & Trust) Tax refund, delay, run-around, Santa Barbara California

I filed my taxes on 1/27/09 using TurboTax and chose to have my filing fee for my state refund deducted from my return. My refund was accepted by the government on 1/28/09 with an expected refund date of 2/6/09. After I filed I learned there was an error on my taxes for the previous year and that I owed money to the IRS. So I expected a delay. I checked the IRS website and indeed they moved my anticipated refund date from 2/6/09 to 2/17/09. On Friday 2/13/09 the IRS website stated that my refund was processesed and direct deposited to my bank on that day. I checked my bank account and my refund was not there. I called up SBBT and was told they had not received my funds. During the past 5 days I have spoken with 6 different individuals at SBBT, each of them telling me something completely different. Ranging from, the IRS has not sent us your funds, to we have your funds we just have not deducted our fee and it will take a few days. I'm exasperated and confused. Here is this bank, holding thousands of dollars of my hard earned money just to collect $50. The last person I spoke with was a line manager who stated that although the IRS releases their funds on 2/13/09, because of the ACH system it takes 1-2 business days to be credited to your account at SBBT, one there, they take out their fee and then forward your refund to your regular checking account using the same method which can take another 1-2 business days. This is enough to make me want to scream. Why is it that when I pay my fees up front and the IRS deposits my refund to my bank it doesn't take days to get there using the same supposed system they are using with SBBT and every other bank? Yet, when you chose to have your filing fee deducted from your refund you end up having to wait presumably a whole week extra before you get your refund. No-one at SBBT has been able to explain this to me. So I'm going to call up the IRS today and file a report with them since my monies are not in my account today as stated by the IRS. And then I'm going to file a complaint with the BBB. And for the person who stated that SBBT has an A+ rating and only 2 complaints in the past 3 years. Well if you research you will find that although there are only 2 complaints to the BBB there were 9 lawsuits in the past 10 years regarding tax refunds with this company. And if you understand the business world, 9 lawsuits in such a short period of time is a very bold declaration that there is something extremely wrong with this company.

Amanda
Anytown, New York
U.S.A.