HOUSTON – Thousands of people have signed a petition demanding answers from the Internal Revenue Service about the status of their stimulus payment.
Cindy McGinnis Slockett, of Houston, is one of them.
"It's kind of a paycheck to paycheck thing right now and it's becoming more stressful," she said.
Chronic pain left her unable to work before coronavirus, then the pandemic took away her other source of income.
“I haven’t been able to work my normal jobs and of course my pet sitting jobs aren’t coming through right now because no one’s traveling,” she said.
On April 15, the IRS rolled out an online payment tool called “Get My Payment.” The took was designed for people who had not previously used direct deposit with the agency to upload their bank account information and get their stimulus money sooner.
Cindy signed up that day and the site told her she would have a payment date 11 days later.
“Here I sit May 11 and nothing’s been updated and we’re afraid we’re just going to get overlooked,” she said.
The IRS did not return KPRC 2′s request for comment but has previously acknowledged glitches in the new system.
“What’s clear is that something happened. The information was lost, it wasn’t filed, it went to the end of the line. These people were the guinea pigs and they fell through the cracks,” said Mark Jones, of Rice University’s Baker Center.
With IRS call centers down and no help from the website, Anthony Mailloux, a Houston native now living in Dallas started a petition on Change.org called “The Forgotten 15thers”, a reference to the April 15 date when most people uploaded their bank information.
"We just want the IRS to hear us," Mailloux said.
So far, nearly 6,000 people have signed and Mailloux has now started at Forgotten 15thers Facebook page.
“All of our friends and family around us are getting their money and we almost feel as if, are we even going to get money and if we are when?” he said.
On Friday, the IRS issued a deadline of May 13 at noon to upload bank account information for direct deposit of stimulus money.
After that date all stimulus money will be paid with a check sent by mail.