Just out of curiosity (maybe you answered this already) did you look on milconnect in the DPRIS and see if your orders posted their? Still have not received my orders via mail either, but they were posted on DPRIS.
I finally received my packet yesterday. You know they told me that the papers were mailed out on the 6th of Sept. Welll the post mark says Oct 4th so i wounder whos mail room did it sit in for almost a month.
 
I finally received my packet yesterday. You know they told me that the papers were mailed out on the 6th of Sept. Welll the post mark says Oct 4th so i wounder whos mail room did it sit in for almost a month.

Still nothing here via USPS. Mine were "mailed" on Aug. 28th (orders) and Sep 4th (DD214). I sent an email back to the board with their emails stating these dates and that I have received nothing. I suggested to them, they might want to tell the Air Force PDBR individuals that the info is found on DPRIS well before they receive it in the mail. We'll see what kind of response I get back.
 
Ok so an update on DFAS. After sending my dd2656 the second time. They received it August 18. Contacted DFAS on 30aug they said they had all paperwork and to wait 30 days. The lady also said to contact the V.A. about requesting a severance recoupment balance document. So I called V.A. benefits and got my recoup balance 800$ and requested they send DFAS and me a copy of the balance. I received my balance sept 30th. Oct 1 got my first partial V.A. Disability check. Called DFAS and they showed I still didn’t have an account built/started. I was told to call back in a week. Just got off phone with DFAS. They said my account was created on 1 oct and should receive my first pay disbursement on November 1st. They also said they have not received my V.A. balance yet. I was told that I could fax them a copy of the letter from the VA I received but to contact the V.A. to resend the balance document. Ok, so I called immediately to The VA and was told my original letter I request last month had been sent to DFAS KY and that it was returned (wrong address). I requested a new balance for my recoupment be sent again. So will check back in a week. Feel like I’m playing wack a mole. This whole process is flawed.
 
I faxed the VA Form requested stating to send my recoupment letter to DFAS on Oct 1st. Contacted the VA today as well to find out about my recoupment letter and all they could tell me is, "Yes they see the faxed info, but it has not been pushed to the main file yet". I asked them what that meant and they said probably another two weeks. Ridiculous! 24 days to get a recoupment letter faxed to DFAS.
 
It shouldn't take anywhere near that long for the VA. I had a great experience with them.

I had an administrator by the name of Monica at the VA. She was in the next level of support and I should have gotten her last name. She was AWESOME. She took the time to knock out my recoupment letter issue in a week. She contacted me personally and was just on the ball. She was the kind of person where you actually knew she wasn't BS'ing. She also recommended that I request an audit of my VA payments (I had to request it, she wasn't allowed to just do it on her own).

"Thank you, Monica... I'd like to request an audit.". She replied "Sure...", which she sent downrange for prep and also knocked out. So, all of that was already complete on the VA side before DFAS even realized that they'd have to investigate back pay.

Long story short... She faxed DFAS, then wisely mailed a signed recoupment letter directly to me with instructions to fax it DFAS when they say they never received a fax from her. She also gave me the fax receipt info from when the DFAS fax acknowledged receiving a completed fax.

Sure enough, a week later I called DFAS... they claimed they never received a fax from the VA. So, I fax them myself. Whatever DFAS...

A week later I call again, and DFAS acknowledged my recoupment info. Next was the discussion of back pay which they said they couldn't discuss until they had recoupment and audit info from the VA. It took them 11 working days to acknowledge that they had the VA data and my recoupment letter and could then officially begin the process of investigating if I get back pay.

This all started in late July. Every week I call DFAS and everything is being "worked on". As a matter of fact, today is my "call" day but I may wait until tomorrow which will be the 100th day since they initiated my payments.
 
So I have a question about this... Did you complete 20 years of active duty service, or less? I was under the impression that you can only get concurrent pay if you completed 20 years or if you were injured in direct combat?


Under these rules, you may be entitled to CRDP if…

  • you are a regular retiree with a VA disability rating of 50 percent or greater.
  • you are a reserve retiree with 20 qualifying years of service, who has a VA disability rating of 50 percent or greater and who has reached retirement age. (In most cases the retirement age for reservists is 60, but certain reserve retirees may be eligible before they turn 60. If you are a member of the Ready Reserve, your retirement age can be reduced below age 60 by three months for each 90 days of active service you have performed during a fiscal year.)
  • you are retired under Temporary Early Retirement Act (TERA) and have a VA disability rating of 50 percent or greater.
  • you are a disability retiree who earned entitlement to retired pay under any provision of law other than solely by disability, and you have a VA disability rating of 50 percent or greater. You might become eligible for CRDP at the time you would have become eligible for retired pay.
 
Under these rules, you may be entitled to CRDP if…

  • you are a regular retiree with a VA disability rating of 50 percent or greater.
  • you are a reserve retiree with 20 qualifying years of service, who has a VA disability rating of 50 percent or greater and who has reached retirement age. (In most cases the retirement age for reservists is 60, but certain reserve retirees may be eligible before they turn 60. If you are a member of the Ready Reserve, your retirement age can be reduced below age 60 by three months for each 90 days of active service you have performed during a fiscal year.)
  • you are retired under Temporary Early Retirement Act (TERA) and have a VA disability rating of 50 percent or greater.
  • you are a disability retiree who earned entitlement to retired pay under any provision of law other than solely by disability, and you have a VA disability rating of 50 percent or greater. You might become eligible for CRDP at the time you would have become eligible for retired pay.

Yeah that is what I found online too which is why I was asking if you had 20 years in the service. I was hoping you had a different answer LOL. So having completed 20 years in the service is the key to concurrent pay.

I was excited when I saw the same page until I really payed attention to this part" ....who earned entitlement to retired pay under any provision of law other than solely by disability..."
 
All I can say is ...Wow.

DFAS... Those guys.

I just spoke to a great employee who emailed the decision DFAS came to. They're saying that after computing the pay they never gave me for the past 14 years they're saying they owe exactly ZERO. They retroactively took SBP (even though if I had died my no one would have known I was supposed to be getting retirement pay until this summer) and said that the VA didn't recoup enough severance. She said that the document was marked September 11th and that it should have been mailed.

She's reading through the documents and repeating, "I can't believe no one told you or sent any of this. You aren't the only one I've seen like this this month." She sounded pissed and overworked flat out saying, "I'm troubled having to read this to you and to know that we're not serving you properly. The only way to change things over here is to make sure someone who can act hears about this.". She started a request to find my "worksheet" and annotated that there was no explanation for the balance and that I haven't received proper correspondence.

She used her own email to email the letter I should have gotten. She could tell that it hadn't been mailed because it mentioned an attached "worksheet" [to show their math] but it was missing from the documents. Also, the case file is still listed as "open" so she said that it may still be in the process of being reviewed.

They're full of it...

To give you an idea. The initial differential between my Army medical retirement (that I never received) and my VA payment was initially $700 per month, and I'm not counting the $450 the VA was recouping for severance. That went on for 4-5 years. Then over the remaining 10 years the differential had dwindles to what it is now, about $250 .

So their conclusion (with no worksheet provided) was that the VA didn't recoup the full severance and fell $8k short. Luckily the calculate amount of back pay was the exact same amount necessary to complete recoupment... to the penny! Whew! Close huh!!

...So according to their calculations (that they don't show) the balance I'm owed in back pay came to an amazingly sleek and efficient $0.00.

!!!

The thing is, the amount they owe me is not a small amount of money. So I'm going to wait for their "work sheet" then I'm going to lawyer up for sure. Even if I have to give 30% to a lawyer it's still dozens of thousands of dollars for me.
 
All I can say is ...Wow.

DFAS... Those guys.

I just spoke to a great employee who emailed the decision DFAS came to. They're saying that after computing the pay they never gave me for the past 14 years they're saying they owe exactly ZERO. They retroactively took SBP (even though if I had died my no one would have known I was supposed to be getting retirement pay until this summer) and said that the VA didn't recoup enough severance. She said that the document was marked September 11th and that it should have been mailed.

She's reading through the documents and repeating, "I can't believe no one told you or sent any of this. You aren't the only one I've seen like this this month." She sounded pissed and overworked flat out saying, "I'm troubled having to read this to you and to know that we're not serving you properly. The only way to change things over here is to make sure someone who can act hears about this.". She started a request to find my "worksheet" and annotated that there was no explanation for the balance and that I haven't received proper correspondence.

She used her own email to email the letter I should have gotten. She could tell that it hadn't been mailed because it mentioned an attached "worksheet" [to show their math] but it was missing from the documents. Also, the case file is still listed as "open" so she said that it may still be in the process of being reviewed.

They're full of it...

To give you an idea. The initial differential between my Army medical retirement (that I never received) and my VA payment was initially $700 per month, and I'm not counting the $450 the VA was recouping for severance. That went on for 4-5 years. Then over the remaining 10 years the differential had dwindles to what it is now, about $250 .

So their conclusion (with no worksheet provided) was that the VA didn't recoup the full severance and fell $8k short. Luckily the calculate amount of back pay was the exact same amount necessary to complete recoupment... to the penny! Whew! Close huh!!

...So according to their calculations (that they don't show) the balance I'm owed in back pay came to an amazingly sleek and efficient $0.00.

!!!

The thing is, the amount they owe me is not a small amount of money. So I'm going to wait for their "work sheet" then I'm going to lawyer up for sure. Even if I have to give 30% to a lawyer it's still dozens of thousands of dollars for me.
okay folks this crap is getting real.....Now remember when we spoke to the V.A. last week they told us they calculated my husband's severance recoup incorrectly as well. BY THOUSANDS. my husband has kept every paper and his math is very very good. According to the VA.s numbers and the Army, Doug is owed after repayment over 186000.00 and some change....Now the V.A. is finding all sorts of stuff "owed" to them...However, they can tell us no more. The V.A. said they saw a request for paperwork from DFAS from back in JULY! But as of last week they've not mailed anything to them, according to the V.A. Also, the V.A. is also taking more money as of this month for recoupment. None of this is making any sense.

When Doug spoke to Mr. Al (ARMY) he said "Sir, you are owed back pay and a lot of it, most of you are) not that we are banking on it, but seriously. They Army screwed up, and now it seems like they are never going to fix this mess they created.
 
forgot to also say. Our email is going out first thing in the morning. We have an appointment with our Congresswoman next week as well. She's being CC'D on his email.
 
This is crazy.

I got a letter in the mail today stating that my account has been created as of 3 Oct 2018 and I should be receiving my first payment on the 1 Nov 2018. Shocked as hell because I tried to log on yesterday and it said I didn't have an account and to check back in 30-45 days. So I called. Spoke a lady that seem very confused on how and why I got a letter when my account is still open. She proceeds to tell me that they are still working on my retro pay worksheet and that the letter that was sent to me could change in the next 30 days. I asked what did she mean by that. She stated that after they complete my account, I will be sent another retirement account statement with a new amount. I asked her, is it going to go up or down? She said she didn't know and didn't want to give me any wrong information.

I am just lost at this point, I being told one thing, being sent something else. It's just soo confusing.
Am I getting money?
Am I losing money?
What is taking soo long to finish an account that is open, but is closed?
 
I also called DFAS back today. I was told that there aren't any notes in my account since September 19th. I called today since it was the 61st day since they received my packet. They confirmed that they received everything on August 11th. The first rep I spoke with today stated that they have 30-60 days to complete account creation, but he did not have any response when I told him that today was day 61 since they received my packet. Actually no response. Just didn't say a word.

After reading everyone else's experiences, and seeing it for myself, I believe that they are delaying and lying on purpose. To what end? I do not have the smallest clue, but it is VERY clear DFAS is being intentionally slow and extremely dishonest.

Some others that seem to be more in the know have stated that the DFAS personnel do not seem to care if a Senator or similar inquires. Would contacting the DoD IG be more effective?

I found these instructions to file a complaint:
https://www.dfas.mil/DFAS-Hotline.aspx

I know that those of us that post here are a small sample size, but it appears that all of us are having similar experiences with DFAS.

Also, I have seen posted here that DFAS has 30 days to complete accounts per the PDBR regulations. I can't seem to find this info anywhere online, and I would love to see the rules written if anyone has a link!
 
Please disregard my prior message. I have been corrected.
If you are speaking of our recent conversation, I merely pointed out that I had been misquoted. I made a remark that an inquiry by a senator does not scare anyone . I did not say the recipient does not care. In fact, the inquiry is given prompt attention (without being scared). I answered many during my 25 year army career. Personally, I think I would contact a senator if I had the same situation.

I wish all the retirees who are having problems with DFAS good luck; your organizing, the targeting of key recipients for complaints, and working toward a common goal are impressive.

Ron
 
I also called DFAS back today. I was told that there aren't any notes in my account since September 19th. I called today since it was the 61st day since they received my packet. They confirmed that they received everything on August 11th. The first rep I spoke with today stated that they have 30-60 days to complete account creation, but he did not have any response when I told him that today was day 61 since they received my packet. Actually no response. Just didn't say a word.

After reading everyone else's experiences, and seeing it for myself, I believe that they are delaying and lying on purpose. To what end? I do not have the smallest clue, but it is VERY clear DFAS is being intentionally slow and extremely dishonest.

Some others that seem to be more in the know have stated that the DFAS personnel do not seem to care if a Senator or similar inquires. Would contacting the DoD IG be more effective?

I found these instructions to file a complaint:
https://www.dfas.mil/DFAS-Hotline.aspx

I know that those of us that post here are a small sample size, but it appears that all of us are having similar experiences with DFAS.

Also, I have seen posted here that DFAS has 30 days to complete accounts per the PDBR regulations. I can't seem to find this info anywhere online, and I would love to see the rules written if anyone has a link!

Here is what I see on the DFAS site:

“Your First Retirement Payment
Normal processing time for establishing a Retirement Pay Account is 30 days after the receipt of ALL necessary documentation. If DFAS receives a complete DD 2656 and all necessary documentation by your date of retirement, you will be paid 30 days after that date.”

Link: https://www.dfas.mil/retiredmilitary/apply/how-to-apply.html
 
This is crazy.

I got a letter in the mail today stating that my account has been created as of 3 Oct 2018 and I should be receiving my first payment on the 1 Nov 2018. Shocked as hell because I tried to log on yesterday and it said I didn't have an account and to check back in 30-45 days. So I called. Spoke a lady that seem very confused on how and why I got a letter when my account is still open. She proceeds to tell me that they are still working on my retro pay worksheet and that the letter that was sent to me could change in the next 30 days. I asked what did she mean by that. She stated that after they complete my account, I will be sent another retirement account statement with a new amount. I asked her, is it going to go up or down? She said she didn't know and didn't want to give me any wrong information.

I am just lost at this point, I being told one thing, being sent something else. It's just soo confusing.
Am I getting money?
Am I losing money?
What is taking soo long to finish an account that is open, but is closed?

When I talk to DFAS on Wednesday. The tier 2 service rep said after the account is active it take 1-2 pay cycles for the website to show. When I asked how to access she said after the first payment. I should receive info on how to obtain password and activate account. I am on the same timeline as you so I am not sure. I will tell you after hearing how tinker is getting the run round on the back pay. I’m worried they will screw all of us. Hell they owe me 11 1/2 years of back pay. So hopefully we get our first payment November 1st.
 
@TDWilliams on another note. Wednesday when I talked to the first DFAS person. To inquire as to my account status. She told me it was open being created. After I asked a few questions. She transferred me to tier 2 who told me the account was created (open) as of 1 Oct and that I expect my first pay disbursement on Nov 1. She even gave me my retirement pay amount (gross) showing the allotments for dental, SBP and mentioned a recoupment amount. Further checking showed they still hadn’t received the VA recoupment letter I had requested a month ago. Either way it is frustrating. When I asked about the back pay she said once the account is active and paying they do the audit for back pay and it “should” be done with it 30-45 days. Yeah I’ll hold my breath. Either way it’s somewhat forward progress I think. I’ll let you all know if anything changes.
 
Not sure if anyone's tried yet, but I read the hotline page that Ka7811b posted there is a number. Not sure if anyone's called this # 1-888-332-7411.


DoD members, military retirees and annuitants, other Federal agency employees, and DoD contractors paid by DFAS, may also use the DFAS Hotline Website or phone line for pay and allowance matters unable to be resolved through normal channels, i.e., contacting the local pay or finance office and/or the DFAS Customer Call Center (CCC). If you have tried your local pay or finance office without resolution, but have not yet contacted the DFAS CCC, please call the CCC toll free at (888) 332-7411 to resolve your pay and allowance matter. If the matter is still not resolved, you may contact the DFAS Hotline.
 
Does anyone have or found anything that shows what the regulations or rules regarding the steps/timelines for the PDBR process once we receive the white envelope?

It shouldn't be so hard, none of us here should be sitting in the dark trying to guess what is going to happen next. This is yet another slap in our faces.

Everyone single person SOLDIER/VETERAN here on the PDBR was failed when their initial rating came back less than 30%...Now after more than 10 years for most we are told things are going to be made "right" and this is what everyone is getting...MORE RUN AROUND, VAGUE ANSWERS, LIES. Again every single person here knows better.
 
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