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Which idiot st the VA thought it was appropriate to have a premium level to be able to anything in the portal?
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Nov 10, 2018 06:52
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Performance evaluations in the VA look awfully similar to OERs and NCOERs. Take from that what you will.
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Nov 10, 2018 07:05
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Moved from post 911 to voc rehab since GI Bill was nearly gone, got a whole box of expensive office poo poo and a new laptop man. Crazy. Hopefully they dont gently caress it up at school and everything stays on schedule like the GI Bill was. Remember, for those of you who may ever try to go to Voc Rehab when the GI Bill is gone and can qualify do NOT exhaust every month of your GI Bill. Leave atleast a day (i believe, I had 2 months left) so you will get BAH as well. Got lucky, was so worried for so long about school and housing and the family. But im 80% so that helped my case to be approved for Voc Rehab.
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Nov 19, 2018 15:04
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Congrats on the switch, 80% buddy
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Nov 19, 2018 15:08
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After spending ~2 years cajoling my father (radio officer vietnam vet, spent years homeless after getting out) into actually speaking with the VA for more than just an annual checkup he's finally got a rating (50%) and is now getting a monthly pension. Life changing stuff folks
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Nov 19, 2018 16:00
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all apologies posted:Moved from post 911 to voc rehab since GI Bill was nearly gone, got a whole box of expensive office poo poo and a new laptop man. Crazy. Hopefully they dont gently caress it up at school and everything stays on schedule like the GI Bill was. Wait a minute, so you can take the post-911 getting BAH until the last month or two, then switch to Voc Rehab and they'll still pay BAH? For how much longer?
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Nov 19, 2018 18:24
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As long as you're in Voc Rehab.
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Nov 20, 2018 06:17
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So I just received a bill from DFAS for $3,000 for the Survivor's Benefit Plan. They've been charging me (with interest!) for three years and seven months and I am only just now being notified of this, but I'm expected to pay this by 28 November. My email address and APO address have remained the same the entire time. The only thing that changed was my local German address, and my previous landlord never mentioned me getting any mail there, and we kept in touch with them for a year afterward. You would think that if someone hasn't been paying their bill for over three years that someone would get in touch with that person, right? I called their hotline today (there is no menu option for questions about billing,) and after waiting for 45 minutes was simply told that there is nothing they can do for me. She said the only thing I can do is write DFAS and ask them to discontinue the SBP, because I told her that I had no knowledge of signing up for it and in fact remember telling the dude that I didn't want it. But even stopping it now won't do anything about the $3,000 that I suddenly now know I owe them. When I asked why it wasn't coming out of my VA payments like it apparently does for most people, she didn't have an answer. Has anyone had any experience with this and know what my options would be in this case? Edit: she did ask who I do my banking with...are they just going to try and get the money that way?
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Nov 21, 2018 19:16
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These motherfuckers. Apparently I owe them some money as well, but they take some amount out of my disability fun bucks now, but didn't until recently, despite sending this form into them multiple times. Now I don't even get a monthly statement, and when I went calling to find a balance or to get a statement so I can just pay the bitch off, they said they couldn't find any details except for the allotment that comes out. They are some seriously hosed up messes over there, I'm assuming I get a letter like that sooner or later.
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Nov 21, 2018 19:21
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Looking into it further, I apparently can't even decide I don't want to be in it anymore, since it has been longer than 3 years. So, I guess I'm stuck paying for this for the rest of my life? I medically retired at 28 years old, why the gently caress would I have signed up for this. I also only recently looked at my credit report and it was excellent, with no mention of this apparently 3 years old debt against me. Everything about this is fishy as gently caress. The DFAS website specifically says it reports you to credit agencies monthly for delinquent payments. GoGoGadget fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Nov 21, 2018 |
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Nov 21, 2018 19:26
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There's a period of time that you pay into the spb and then you've got it for life. I think it's like 10 years.
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Nov 21, 2018 19:41
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They will. I just got dinged by collections on a debt I didnt know about from DFAS.
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Nov 21, 2018 19:41
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Soulex posted:They will. I just got dinged by collections on a debt I didnt know about from DFAS. My debt is supposedly 3 years old...hasn't shown up on collections yet.
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Nov 21, 2018 19:44
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GoGoGadget posted:When I asked why it wasn't coming out of my VA payments like it apparently does for most people, she didn't have an answer. That's not how it works. SBP comes out of VA only if VA and SBP are giving YOU money, not the other way around. It's a fun circumstance, let me tell you. Are you married? If you're not then this is absolutely a fuckup because why would you sign up for SBP if you don't have an S for the BP to go to?
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Nov 21, 2018 19:53
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McNally posted:That's not how it works. SBP comes out of VA only if VA and SBP are giving YOU money, not the other way around. I am. So I guess so long as I die way before my wife it could be a net positive, but I much rather would have paid the monthly fee instead of having to pay $3,000 all at once within 7 days of being notified. And I have no idea how much interest they've charged me. not caring here posted:There's a period of time that you pay into the spb and then you've got it for life. I think it's like 10 years. It's 30 years, and only if you're 70 after those 30 years. Which I will not be. So this almost certainly is an extremely raw deal for me. GoGoGadget fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Nov 21, 2018 |
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Nov 21, 2018 20:25
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Answer: it's DFAS and they loving suck. You can try sending them a letter to formally dispute their claim, but most likely they'll "lose" it or outright ignore you and find a way to take your money, anyway. This is internet lawyer advice; don't get your hopes up. FWIW, I've tried this twice now for two separate issues and DFAS has dicked me both times, regardless.
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Nov 21, 2018 22:22
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I imagine you can use the Vocational Rehabilitation for certifications such as the CompTIA Security+ cert, right? Does anyone know who I would need to get into contact with to start this process? I am in Germany still, but when I outprocessed from Ramstein 3 years ago they kind of rushed everything to the point where I never actually outprocessed at many places (I still have my chem gear, for example) and was never really given any good information. Also, going through all of my military paperwork for the DFAS issue, I discovered that I was tricked into signing up for the Montgomery GI Bill when I went through basic in 2011. That $1,200 is just lost to the wind at this point, right? There's no reason to use that over the Post 9/11? I really seem to have an issue with signing up for things I don't fully understand and losing thousands of dollars over it. Enlisted.txt On that note, I also DID sign up for SBP, but as I am 70% VA disabled my wife will be receiving the Dependency and Indemnity Compensation when I croak anyway, so it literally makes zero financial sense for me to have done that. In fact, I'm pretty sure what I thought I was doing was just electing THAT money to go to her.
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Nov 23, 2018 11:59
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Dammit, I forgot my appointment today with my county's veterans office to put together my VA disability package. Next available appointment, April. At least the claim notice was filed in August.
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Dec 8, 2018 05:37
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GoGoGadget posted:I imagine you can use the Vocational Rehabilitation for certifications such as the CompTIA Security+ cert, right? Does anyone know who I would need to get into contact with to start this process? I am in Germany still, but when I outprocessed from Ramstein 3 years ago they kind of rushed everything to the point where I never actually outprocessed at many places (I still have my chem gear, for example) and was never really given any good information. I'm pretty sure you get that booster money back if you use all of your post 9/11 benefits.
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Dec 8, 2018 06:18
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Hey guys! Hoping someone has some good advice on how to handle this one. I'll run you through the key facts: -Back in August 2017, I signed up with a flight school to do flight training (Instrument Rating). I paid for it with my Post-9/11 GI Bill. -I paid this flight school $2000 of my own cash as a deposit before I started training. -I completed said training (successfully) in August of 2018. I still had about 12 months of GI Bill benefits remaining when I finished. -After finishing the course, I asked the flight school to pay back my deposit. They said they'd pay it back once they had gotten paid for the remaining balance by the VA. (They had previously received several successful payments from the VA). -Just today, the flight school sent me an email reading as follows: "Thank you for your patience in awaiting a response from us. It has taken us a considerable amount of time to offer you a response on your account balance as we were dependent on additional information from the VA. I am forwarding a series of correspondences with the VA regarding your payment in a separate email for your purview. Currently, you have a negative account balance of -$823.20. This amount is negative after applying all payments from the VA, along with your initial deposit of $2,000. Despite us raising further queries with the VA regarding further payment, we have not had a positive response. Please make this payment as soon as possible. " -Well that's not what I expected, obviously. However, the only email they forwarded (between them and an Illinois Dept of Veterans Affairs rep, not the VA proper) had this exchange: Flight School: "kathmandu has completed his Instrument Rating Course with XXXX Flight School on 8/27/2018. We submitted payment request by fax for the months of April 2018, May 2018, and August 2018 for a total amount of $4,760.00. We received a check from the VA in the amount of $204.00. Could you please clarify that this is the limit on the payment for kathmandu. Will the VA be issuing any more checks for the additional amount or is the remaining payment now the responsibility of kathmandu?" IL VA Rep: "Have you received these payments yet?" [nonsequitir] Flight School: "We only received a check for $204.00. I just wanted to clarify if there are any further VA payments coming in for the remaining balance for kathmandu's flight training." IL VA Rep: "I can’t think of any reason why not. The VA is way behind on payments this fall. It was recently in the national news. " ...that's it, that email exchange was supposedly their justification for claiming my deposit and charging me $800 to boot. I thought it was pretty clear that the VA payments were heavily delayed, but still forthcoming, and I don't see a justification for the Flight School charging me the balance. Right? Am I missing something? In sum, I think there's still money coming for the Flight School from the VA, I don't think I'm on the hook for the balance, and I don't trust them anyways as they were a bunch of morons. The way I look at it, these are my options: -Assume good faith on the part of the flight school, send them a polite inquiry. Maybe they misunderstood the VA Rep? -Contact the IL VA Rep in question (I'd spoken to him in the past) -Contact the US Dept of Veterans Affairs and get their take -Hire an attorney What do y'all think?
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Dec 21, 2018 02:57
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Not an exact situation, but I had a lot of issues with my school and payments that seemed to be on both parties not cooperating Long story short, school said I owed a bunch of money—which I knew I didn’t—, and I even got money in the end. I believe I had to fill out a form online and send it in (I know, the worst poo poo ever to do) Long story short, I had to request an audit for the period I was in school. Which believe me, doesn’t make sense, as you’d think it’s ongoing, but it was for them to set someone aside to really crunch all the numbers and cross all the t’s and dot the i’s. Not something you could do with a simple phone call and have someone give it a cursory glance. It was a pain in the dick, but after months of getting dicked around, this was the only way I got it sorted.
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Dec 21, 2018 03:28
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I would start with the first three. #4 depends on the results (or lack thereof).
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Dec 21, 2018 03:29
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Nostalgia4Dogges posted:Not an exact situation, but I had a lot of issues with my school and payments that seemed to be on both parties not cooperating Good to know, that could potentially be helpful. And yeah, hopefully I can just resolve this through normal channels, I tend to assume the worst in people and my first thought was to lawyer up... we're probably not there yet, though.
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Dec 21, 2018 19:04
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Same thing happened to me the semester after post 9/11 started, I had to take a semester off to get that cleared up
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Dec 21, 2018 19:08
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I really meant to post this sooner but got caught up with the holidays but right before I drove home for Christmas I got a letter in the mail for a VRE appointment the morning of the 3rd (tomorrow morning). What should I expect from this and what are some tips to make this meeting productive?
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Jan 3, 2019 05:29
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Cenen posted:I really meant to post this sooner but got caught up with the holidays but right before I drove home for Christmas I got a letter in the mail for a VRE appointment the morning of the 3rd (tomorrow morning). It has been a couple years since I did mine, but from what I remember you should just be meeting with your counselor. They might give you an aptitude test to take there or I think I remember doing mine online. I actually did it twice in two different states(MN and KS). Take it seriously and do your best, it's mostly to see if you actually have a chance of being able to do whatever it is you want to do. If you want to be a brain surgeon but the test determines you're a moron they might not OK your plan. I did pretty decent so getting them to OK my engineering degree was pretty easy. I assume you want to do school or some sort of training, I do not know much about getting them to do much else. I have heard internet tales of VRE basically setting up a small business for a person but I don't know about that personally. There is supposed to be a website that shows what has been approved in the past. The purpose of the site is to use it as evidence that something has been done for another veteran that you want done for you I believe. They might ask you about what your disability is and how it affects your employment capabilities as well. It helps to have a plan, like I knew I needed to go to school and get a degree in something useful. I was not sure what in my first meeting, so my counselor gave me some homework to find job statistics for like 3 or 4 different degree plans. I brought those to my second meeting and we settled on one degree plan and then I had more homework for my third meeting: to find some job listings that would be acceptable career choices. I will say if you want to do graduate school try to get them to OK it now. I am fighting to get them to add on graduate school for me so I can get a PhD, and my counselor isn't against it but she says it's not up to her. The guy that OKs it may just say that my undergrad mechanical engineering degree is good enough for suitable employment and that's it. Of course being 36 with a bachelors is a bit behind the power curve, but that's a different story. Good luck!
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Jan 3, 2019 06:32
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GoGoGadget posted:So I just received a bill from DFAS for $3,000 for the Survivor's Benefit Plan. They've been charging me (with interest!) for three years and seven months and I am only just now being notified of this, but I'm expected to pay this by 28 November. My email address and APO address have remained the same the entire time. The only thing that changed was my local German address, and my previous landlord never mentioned me getting any mail there, and we kept in touch with them for a year afterward. You would think that if someone hasn't been paying their bill for over three years that someone would get in touch with that person, right? I called their hotline today (there is no menu option for questions about billing,) and after waiting for 45 minutes was simply told that there is nothing they can do for me. She said the only thing I can do is write DFAS and ask them to discontinue the SBP, because I told her that I had no knowledge of signing up for it and in fact remember telling the dude that I didn't want it. But even stopping it now won't do anything about the $3,000 that I suddenly now know I owe them. When I asked why it wasn't coming out of my VA payments like it apparently does for most people, she didn't have an answer. Has anyone had any experience with this and know what my options would be in this case? As an update to this, I ended up contacting my Congressman about it, and a month and a few emails back and forth between me and the dude that deals with claims against a governmental agency later, I received a passive aggressive letter from DFAS giving me the paperwork to cancel the SBP. Thanks Rep. Chris Collins! I still hope you go to prison for your insider trading!
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Jan 5, 2019 20:14
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Is there any way to find your VA Claim Number besides from letters from the VA? I have looked all over VA.gov and the ebenefits pages and neither seem to be working or they just apparently have absolutely no information on me. They don't even show payment history for my disability compensation.
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Jan 7, 2019 15:41
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Two questions. First, I got out in July so this will be my first time in a while filing my taxes. I'm guessing that I get a W2 off of mypay like usual, is there any other forms I need from my GI Bill? Second question: I filed my disability claim shortly after I got home and did it through my state's Veteran Services office. I got a phone call from some medical facility with appointment information, but told them I couldn't make the appointments because they were scheduled at a hospital in another country. Ia few weeks later I got a letter saying my claim was denied because I was a no show for those appointments. Called up my VSO and he's doing the appeal. That was all in November. Any idea how long that could take to get handled? They don't really have VA hospitals here, but they said they'd try and get one scheduled at a place relatively close.
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Jan 15, 2019 00:08
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A Bad Poster posted:Two questions. First, I got out in July so this will be my first time in a while filing my taxes. I'm guessing that I get a W2 off of mypay like usual, is there any other forms I need from my GI Bill? Can't help you but this isn't the first time I've heard of this although it being in another country is a new wrinkle. I have my important mail like this sent to my parent's place and they tried to pull this poo poo on me. My parents got the letter and opened it for me and saw I had an appointment like the day after the letter arrived for a place an hour and a half away. Luckily I was actually living only a few minutes away on my regular day off so I was able to make it but I looked online later and saw other people were falling prey to this and being denied to the point people were beginning to wonder if this was intentional. Normally I wouldn't put much stock in conspiracy theories but it almost happened to me.
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Jan 15, 2019 16:45
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Blackchamber posted:Can't help you but this isn't the first time I've heard of this although it being in another country is a new wrinkle. I have my important mail like this sent to my parent's place and they tried to pull this poo poo on me. My parents got the letter and opened it for me and saw I had an appointment like the day after the letter arrived for a place an hour and a half away. Luckily I was actually living only a few minutes away on my regular day off so I was able to make it but I looked online later and saw other people were falling prey to this and being denied to the point people were beginning to wonder if this was intentional. Normally I wouldn't put much stock in conspiracy theories but it almost happened to me. McNally_Dead_Veterans_Don't_Use_Benefits_Cell_Phone_Background dot gif
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Jan 15, 2019 17:14
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A Bad Poster posted:Second question: I filed my disability claim shortly after I got home and did it through my state's Veteran Services office. I got a phone call from some medical facility with appointment information, but told them I couldn't make the appointments because they were scheduled at a hospital in another country. Ia few weeks later I got a letter saying my claim was denied because I was a no show for those appointments. Called up my VSO and he's doing the appeal. That was all in November. Any idea how long that could take to get handled? They don't really have VA hospitals here, but they said they'd try and get one scheduled at a place relatively close. VA appeals take, on average, two to three years.
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Jan 15, 2019 17:21
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McNally posted:VA appeals take, on average, two to three years. Jesus christ, what? And my VSO said that this kind of thing apparently happens really often, so the VA can just clear out its ledger. Would I get back paid once it's sorted out?
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Jan 15, 2019 19:23
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A Bad Poster posted:Jesus christ, what? Yes, VA claims are paid to when you filed it initially, not when they make the decision. But yeah, appeals take loving literal years.
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Jan 15, 2019 19:28
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A Bad Poster posted:Jesus christ, what? Thats when they are processed. My appeal took 6 months to actually go from filing it to them starting the appeal process. And thats after I hired a lawyer. You get some back pay yes. I drove 4 hours each way for appointments in Germany and stuff. Sometimes you dont get a choice.
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Jan 15, 2019 21:31
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Soulex posted:Thats when they are processed. My appeal took 6 months to actually go from filing it to them starting the appeal process. And thats after I hired a lawyer. I would have gone to the initial appointment, but it would have been $500 in airfare, or a 20 hour drive each way, and it was on a Wednesday in the middle of the school year.
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Jan 16, 2019 03:22
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A Bad Poster posted:I would have gone to the initial appointment, but it would have been $500 in airfare, or a 20 hour drive each way, and it was on a Wednesday in the middle of the school year. Yeah thats unreasonable.
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Jan 16, 2019 05:38
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That was just a screw up in the scheduling system and someone too lazy to fix it when they spoke with you. You’ll get a new appointment soon if your VSO is worth a damb. Your appeal for an appointment won’t take years. It’s post decision appeals that take forever.
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Jan 16, 2019 13:45
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When I first applied for VRE in Las Vegas the appointment was months out and I told them I wouldn’t be in the area and that I would need to reschedule and they said they would...they didn’t and I got a denial letter to my new address. I hit the re-apply button on E-benefits and a few weeks later I got a letter with an appointment a week out but fortunetly it was during winter break. I got a big envelope from them today that had a single piece of paper I guess they didn’t want to fold that said I was approved and that I would need to go back to make a plan...and nothing more. I guess I’m just supposed to email the guy and set up another appointment?
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Jan 17, 2019 07:08
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A Bad Poster posted:Two questions. First, I got out in July so this will be my first time in a while filing my taxes. I'm guessing that I get a W2 off of mypay like usual, is there any other forms I need from my GI Bill? Yeah, getting exams done in foreign countries are a nightmare. Some countries might only have one specific doctor who does the exams. They can sometimes get them through the embassy, but it's always a crap shoot. If they do schedule you far away, you would get reimbursed for mileage at least. I know when I was working in Japan, a lot of the exams would be in Tokyo, even if the vet lived in Sasebo, which is about 600 miles south. Since you're living overseas, it's probably best to do all the leg work yourself. You can get the exam forms online (just search for "Disability Benefits Questionnaires") and have them filled out by a private physician. If you have access, you can try to get a military clinic to do it, but they generally won't. VA really doesn't have a lot of resources overseas, but most bases have a VA rep of come sort that should be able to provide further information.
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Jan 18, 2019 17:31
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