Checking on old FBAR filings

I am filing some back taxes (yay!) and needed to check to see if I filed FBARs for 2011 and 2012, because I can't recall off the top of my head. My account called the IRS and asked them - they don't have FBAR records, apparently. So he called FINCEN, who said they don't have a database they can check.

So apparently, there is no simple way I can check and see if I filed. 

This is amazing, as I can see what I ordered from bloody Amazon.com in 2000.

ANYWAY. The only way to get an answer to this question would require involving the tax payer advocate or getting a lawyer to file a freedom of information request. Either of these routes would take months and possibly lots of money.

I am utterly gobsmacked. Has anyone else had this problem? Did you find a solution that wasn't long, drawn out and expensive? I can't believe I can't just check this. 

Since they can't check and know if you filed then I would assume that you did file the reports. After all, you are sure that you did send in reports from 2013 onwards. It's not like you owe back taxes or anything.

Timely FBARs for those years would have been paper filed using (the now obsolete) Form TD F90-22.1. You would have proof of posting in your own records. If you do not have this, you should assume you did not file.

Thanks, Swami! Was it not possible to file electronically during those years?

Essentially. No. The first TDF 90-22.1 was published in 1972 and the last in 2013. Until the Autumn of 2013 FBARs were (almost) all filed on paper. 

In the last year or two of their life, a very limited number might have been e-filed by a tax professional; but this was rare.