What Happens When Someone Else Gets Your Tax Refund

[WildaBeast]

If you usually wait until April to file your taxes, you might want to hurry up — before identity thieves beat you to it. Using stolen names and Social Security numbers, these criminals file fake tax returns with false wage and withholding information. This generates big — and fraudulent — refunds, before the real taxpayer gets around to filing.

http://www.npr.org/2013/02/18/172140...our-tax-refund

[Beachlife!]

My W2s never arrived at my house. I signed up for Lifelock since I am concerned they might have been stolen.

[Cervus]

The first year I lived here I got someone else's W2s in my mailbox. They were for a previous renter who hadn't left a forwarding address, so I'm not sure what the post office did with them (or with the other mail I received for that person) after I sent them back.