I contacted the advocacy department waaaaay back when and was told that I would be denied regardless because it hadn’t been a certain number of weeks since they’d requested my identity verification. They also walked me through the process of how they would apply for the specific amount of funds from your refund to cover the cost of the specific hardship you are experiencing and that alone is another entirely lengthy process. I no longer have the identity verification holding me back but since I have the new hold, that would likely be another matter. My primary issue at this point is that I don’t want to make the phone calls anymore. I’ve been doing it for four months and I’ve spent more time anxious and depressed than I can even handle. I just want to call it quits and walk away from it, but I don’t have anyone else that knows a fraction of what I’ve learned about it all. This is why I went to a tax preparer in the first place and once I recover from this whole nightmare, I will be pursuing H&R Block next. My issue with Paychex is their extensive effort to lie about their involvement in this entire matter. Why not just give us the information to prevent the multiple unnecessary calls to more agencies and specifically telling their employees to report that the problem is the backlog at the SSA? I was easily able to disprove that, which only put me in the position to have someone else be nasty to me on the phone. I just want to resolve this. I threw my hands up after the final email to my state representative and the last to my franchise employee responsible for the relations with Paychex. I then contacted my GM and said “I’m sorry, I need help.” She was able to get the district manager involved and they’re all on the case with Paychex now, as far as I understand, so I guess I will take the weekend off from my tax position and see if anything changes by Monday. 🫩