Just curious how many OK banks are seeing OTC tax refund checks after we were told that no such checks would be issued this year. We have had 5 so far.

The OBA put this out yesterday....

Yes Virginia, there are STILL checks issued for Oklahoma tax refunds
Our OBA Fraud and Security Committee has asked we send fraud “snippets” once or twice a month in the OBA Update to get as much fraud information as possible into our bankers' hands. Consider this the first of many and we are always open to suggestions as to what you would like to see or are actually seeing as far as scams in our Oklahoma banks.

To prime the pump this time, we thought it would be nice to have something we thought might be fraudulent but actually is not the case. One of our banks received a check today for an Oklahoma state tax refund. Since all media reports have touted the fact all refunds will be direct deposit or on a debit card, the assumption was it must be fraudulent.

A call to the helpful folks at the Tax Commission revealed there are four scenarios they will still be issuing checks, including warrant intercept checks. There are also situations where corporate refunds will be in the form of a check. If you receive paper checks for state refunds and you have reason to suspect it is suspicious, you can still place holds or do additional steps to verify, but you do not want to just reject all paper checks as fraudulent.

As it is tax season and the Tax Commission's phones are busy, we thought this might be helpful information.

FYI - I just received the refund on my mom's return. She died in July. The return had in big bold letters at the top "DECEASED" and yet they sent a debit card and not a check. I tried calling the 800 number for customer service and it took me 30 minutes of calling back and using every option before I found something that would connect me to a customer service rep. On hold forever and finally gave up. Went online and created a user id using her information and it showed where you could do a bank transfer. So I thought I would just set it up to ACH it into the account we are using to close out her estate. It kept telling me there wasn't enough funds in the account for that transfer but I was putting in the entire balance it told me. After investigating more, I found that there would be a charge for doing this transfer - ah - that's why there wasn't enough in the account. I didn't deduct the fee off the transferred amount. So I kept trying to figure it out. It said you could do an ATM withdrawal but that there might be a withdrawal fee depending on the ATM network. Then I saw where you could do a one-time Cash Advance at a bank free. Any additional cash advances or inquiries into the balance on the card had fees attached. However, you could use it at merchants for no fees. (Since she is deceased that really isn't an option.)

I guess my frustration is that if I thought it was hard to figure out I can't imagine these elderly people who don't use a computer, can't understand their telephone tag system and don't use ATMs. I really feel for them.

Similar experience here. An elderly couple was at our lobby ATM trying to use it, and were obviously frustrated. They approached me for help. They had the Oklahoma Tax Refund Card and were trying to withdraw their refund. They had never used an ATM before, or even a debit card. They too were trying to WD the entire amount. When I pointed out there was a fee, we adjusted the WD request to be an increment of $10 (smallest bill in our ATM) and less the fee. Pow, the money came gushing out, much to their delight. I then told them they should spend the remaining dollars on the card at our local Sonic for some lunch.

They were delighted and took their cash straight to the teller line where they deposited it into their account!

Here is my frustration with the new cards. People will call the number on the card to get their exact balance so they can do the free 1x CA, I process the CA and it declines.

I have had a ton of them decline and everytime it does it charges the card holder a fee.

Sounds like a UDAAP to me and a violation of the Regulation Z card rules.