In article <fr208e$4l1$2[at]jik3.kamens.brookline.ma.us> ,
Jonathan Kamens <jik[at]kamens.brookline.ma.us> wrote:

- quote -

My experience is that web sites that are stupid enough to reject "+"
in email addresses are likewise stupid enough to do the validation
clientside. The fix is obvious.

Seth

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Harlan Lunsford <hnslunsford[at]bellsouth.net> writes:
- quote -

Yes. I'm not really in any hurry, so I didn't bother to check, but
prompted by your question, I went and tried to use the service to find
out the status of my refund. Here's what happened...

First of all, you can't just give them proof-of-identity information
and get the status of your refund. You have to first register as a
user of their site and choose a username and password. This is
monumentally stupid, since 99% of people who want to use this service
are ONLY going to want to use this service, and nothing else on the
site, and there's no reason to make them choose and remember a username
and password just to find out the status of their refund.

Second, I entered "jik+dor[at]kamens.brookline.ma.us" as my email address,
since I always "tag" email addresses I give out to Web sites so that if
I suddenly start receiving spam on one of those addresses, I know whom
to blame. Alas, the Mass. DOR Web site, like so many other shoddily
programmed Web sites, rejects that address because of the "+" sign in
it, even though "+" is a completely valid character in an email
address. It's incompetence and laziness, and nothing else, which
causes so many Web sites not to get the simple task of validating email
addresses correct.

Third, when I changed my email address to one that the Web site would
accept and tried to register again, I got: "Our back end system is not
available to validate your data. Please try again later." Mind you,
this was at 8:40pm, not exactly the middle of the night when they
might perhaps be justified in taking down their "back end system" for
maintenance. In any case, I've worked for plenty of companies which
managed 99.9% up-time for their production systems, so again, it's
incompetence and laziness, and nothing else, which is to blame for the
fact that the Mass. DOR can't manage to do it.

- quote -

Indeed.

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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

On Mar 9, 6:55 pm, Harlan Lunsford <hnslunsf...[at]bellsouth.net> wrote:
- quote -


https://wfb.dor.state.ma.us/webfile/wsi/

========================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
Please delete all unnecessary parts of the prior post when responding.

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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

Jonathan Kamens wrote:
- quote -

status of refund? Different states vary as to efficiency of course,
and based on previous experience with your state, they're not so efficient.

ChEAr$,
Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA

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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >

FYI, for those of you who keep track of such things, I mailed my
Federal and Massachusetts tax returns on February 8 (regular
first-class mail, not certified or anything -- if the refund doesn't
show up in my bank account, I know they didn't get the return :-). My
Federal refund was deposited into my account on March 7, and I haven't
received the Massachusetts refund yet.


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<< ------------------------------------------------------- > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2007) - All rights reserved. > << ------------------------------------------------------- >