WAITING GAMES

Fighting DFAS and the CID is alot like fighting the IRS or and insurance company. They wear you down. They have 30 - 45 days to respond to a congressional inquiry. They wait until the last minute to respond. We get passed around from person to person. We get answers that have nothing to do with the question we asked. If the CID decides that an activated reservist has "falsified" a travel claim, they will take ALL their travel pay.

Here's an example of one case of alleged travel fraud by an activated reservist. The soldier was found NOT guilty of any fraud by JAG. The soldier later finds out that CID determined that he had committed fraud, so they picked out several months of his claims to investigate. They said he had, in fact submitted a fraudulent claim, therefore they said he owed the gov't ALL the money for the time period investigated. Now, here is where it gets murky. Now what does the soldier do? Doesn't he have a right to know what claim was fraudulent? What makes it fraud and not an accident - miscalculation? Doesn't he get to defend himself? Well, to be honest I don't know the answer to these questions because we are still waiting to find out. See, they (CID, DFAS and the GOV'T) gets to start collection while the soldier is trying to find out the answers to those questions. Did the soldier claim 60.00 but didn't have a receipt? If every other claim for 2 years were right, why would they take ALL of his travel pay? Why not charge him the $60.00? How can they take back food allowances - those are standard and automatically in your pay?

I am not saying that all the soldiers that are being investigated are innocent. I am saying that the soldiers that are being investigated are not given any rights to defend themselves. There are double standards everywhere. For example, a different soldier couldn't find a receipt for a class he took. DFAS said he needed the receipt or he owed the money back. He couldn't find the receipt, he let them take the money back from his next check. The Army called that an "error". Why was that an error but the other was fraud?

DFAS INCOMPETENCE

Here is another quick example of DFAS incompetence. In December, a soldier transferred (not sure if that is the military term) from active reservist to active duty. Apparently, these are two different computer programs. The soldier has to fill out a ton of forms and DFAS is supposed to transfer all the information. The Soldier doesn't get paid the first paycheck because 30 days after submission of forms, the transfer is not completed. DFAS explains that it "takes time". In May, soldier again gets a surprise 0.00 amount due paycheck. DFAS explains that when the information was transferred, for some unknown reason the soldiers accumulated leave was not transferred into the system. Therefore, when the soldier took leave, a month prior, the days were taken out of his paycheck. *****Let me just say here....if this would have happened to me when I worked for the bank, I would have went to HR and sat in front of a human being and they would have made the necessary adjustments ON THE SPOT!!! ****The soldier was told by local DFAS that there was nothing that could be done for the current paycheck but they would try to have it fixed by the next paycheck. Oh well, whats another 2 weeks without pay? Mortgages, car payments, credit card companies....they don't mind, do they?

ARMY NOT READY FOR ACTIVATED RESERVIST

http://hamptonroads.com/2009/05/military-reservists-face-tougher-scrutiny-housing-pay#comment-741098

The Military was NOT ready for the thousands of activated reservist. Finance (DFAS) gave FALSE information about reimbursement. It was literally a mad house. For example, in this article they talk about because Murphey did not itemize his expenses and therefore was not entitled to them. Ummmm, I can tell you FOR A FACT that we tried 5 TIMES to submit (thats a month of no reimbursement in civilian time!!) itemized reimbursement. We were told they didn't want it that way (by local DFAS) and they just wanted a full amount and they didn't care if it was written on a napkin but they didn't want copies of bills!!!

More tomorrow.....I have alot to say people!! We have been fighting these aholes for over 6 months and we know others that have been fighing for over a year!! Let me hear from YOU! I know you are out there!!

Calling all ACTIVE RESERVIST with DFAS problems

Not that I'm not interested in ALL DFAS problems but I'm particularly interested in ACTIVE RESERVIST that are being FALSELY accused of BAH fraud. So far, it seems that any active reservist who did not use the "recommended" leasing company is being investigated. There is a HUGE inconsistency in the investigations. Some soldiers do not get any pay deducted, some get it deducted before the investigation is finished.

Please send an email to Senator Jim DeMint's office:

http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home

Attn: Amanda Scott

By the way, I've been told that the Reservist in California do not submit travel pay vouchers. They are issued a per diem and can stay and do whatever they want to. For example, my friend in California, activated reservist, said they are issued a per diem and soldiers are renting double wides and staying together to save money. In Columbia, 4 soldiers shared an apt BUT they issued travel vouchers as if they had individual apartments. So, Yes that was wrong but is it any different than what they are doing in California??? What happened to an Army of one?

We have also been told by a "congressional liaison" that hundreds of these congressionals are being processed on a daily basis. Of course, this was the same congressional liaison that absolutely assured us that all we had to do was go to a certain website to resubmit our remission packet. 15 minutes later we called a SUPERVISOR at DFAS who said that was absolutely not true and gave us a form number to download. He said that website was no longer used and that we absolutely had to use the form he indicated. Then we went to the file we had already submitted numerous times (needing something different) and checked the form we had already submitted and GUESS WHAT....it stated that the form that supervisor JUST told us to use - OBSOLETE!! It's like dealing with a bunch of 5 year olds! It will drive you crazy.

Just getting started

This is my first attempt at a blog, so it will probably suck BUT I'm mad enough to give it a try. My goal is to find out how many soldiers have been experiencing the same problems with DFAS as my husband. It seems to me that DFAS is this huge agency that has absolutely no accountability for anything it's employees say or do. I hope through this blog that soldiers will be able to help each other.

My intentions are to state cases and how they were handled. I hope to be able to give the names of people at DFAS that seem to know what they are doing and maybe more importantly, the names of people that don't. I hope to create some awareness and therefore accountability to their actions.

We were recently told by a Supervisor at DFAS that the employees in his department, to include himself, were contracted with the war. They no longer have a job after the war is ended. Now these are people that are handling pay issues. What do you think their give-a-shit meter is when they know this is a temporary position. Additionally, what were there qualifications in obtaining a job that deals with soldiers private information.

Some of our experiences:
-Different answers to the same question
-Will not call back or return emails
-DFAS Rome blames DFAS Indy who blames local DFAS who starts the circle again
-Superior officers cannot get straight answers
-Inconsistency in actions for different soldiers for the same problem

I look forward to continuing this blog. DFAS has caused my family considerable financial hardship. I seriously hope we can help each other!