Dude, where's my rebate?

Have you gotten your economic stimulus check today?

We haven't! And we didn't get it yesterday, or the day before, or the day before, either. Or the day before THAT. You get the point.

I was getting quite concerned, actually. I read all of the intial press releases and news articles, and got all excited: we e-filed way back in February and received our refund as a direct deposit, and Dragon's SSN put us in Group 1 of the direct-deposit-rebate receivers. I did the online rebate calculator thingie, and it looked like we were available for the maximum. More excitement abounded. Surely, I thought, we would have our rebate by May 2! The day after, at the latest!

Only (as mentioned above) we didn't, and I suddenly realized that we had never actually gotten The Notice explaining that we would be getting one. I visited the eligibility calculator several thousand more times, checked the Reasons Why You Might Not Be Eligible, and got a bit worried, especially when an informal survey revealed that several acquaintances had received notices.

So I finally broke down and called Them. You know, those people. Who are, as it turns out, required to immediately identify themselves by name and employee number upon answering the official Rebate Hotline. I guess they must get, oh, I don't know, a lot of complaints, or something?

Anyway. Mr. Rebate Answer Person was quite nice, considering that he's probably had to answer variations of my post title eight hours a day for the past month, and said, "Oh, I think I understand now. Did you have your taxes done through a preparer?" Why yes, we had. "And you had them take the cost of tax preparation out of your refund?" Indeed. "In that case, the direct deposit was routed through THEIR bank first, and then they wired the refund to your account." Oh. "In those cases, we issue a paper check; yours should be on the way in a couple of weeks." But we are getting one? "Oh yes, I don't see why not. All of your SSNs are valid, and you're certainly within the income guidelines." Duh; if the income was higher, I wouldn't be so darn concered about this here rebate thing.

So that's settled. Weeping and obsessive online balance-checking may endure for a week, but joy (and a tax rebate) cometh by Memorial Day weekend. At least according to Mr. Rebate Answer Person. Let's hope he's correct!