For everyone having issues with SBTPG:
1. Contact your bank to verify that no deposit attempt has been made. Even if it has, you want this info.
2. File complaints with BOTH the BBB and California Attorney General Office. Be very specific in what you have tried and what the results were.
3. To actually get to a real person at SBTPG you have to select option 3, tax preparer. The phone bank will take you through BS like asking for a ESIN number, just keep hitting *. Eventually it will put you on hold for a representative. They open at 6am Pacific Time. Call as soon as they open. Ask for a supervisor. You will get put on hold for "2 minutes". This is actually 10-20 minutes and they will hang up before anyone answers. Call back immediately. Make sure you have time. I waited 1.5 hours on hold the seond time for one person to pick up. You want to have contacted your bank first so you can call them out when they tell you that your bank rejected the deposit and your bank told you they have no record of any deposit attempt. Then question why they need a photo ID for identity verification when they already have the name and account number. Photo ID is irrelevant. They may then tell you that they are sending you a personal check. That's their "policy" if the bank rejects the direct deposit. Call them out again, because up until now, they have been holding your funds pending identity verification, not sending a paper check. They will not have an answer. Make them verify the address the check is being sent to.
I went through this process starting Wednesday. Yesterday I got the line about them mailing a paper check. This morning, my funds were direct deposited in the account they claim they couldn't because the bank was rejecting it without me sending the photo ID verification they claim they needed. I don't think it was a coincidence that the BBB happened to contact them the same morning that I finally got a real person on the line and called out every line BS they tried to use.
