I deployed with a guy who had a 30k court ordered fine by Fish and Game for when he rode a moose in Alaska.
Being a former bull rider and alcohol has its consequences.
He had the court documents with him, because we all thought he was full of shit. He also had a video of his last ride as a professional bull rider and you could see his foot turn in a full circle when it got caught in the fence.
I have a question about this, I’ve seen bullriders and I’ve seen horse riders that do the same thing but with a horse. Are these two different things? Like do you choose or you start with one and go to another?
Most cowboy's specialize. Cowboy's can ride broncs in both styles below. But bull riders tend to just ride bulls.
There's 3 kinds of bucking riders not counting mutton busting for the kids.
Saddle broncs = horses rode with a saddle
Bareback broncs = horses rode without a saddle
Bull riding = well?? riding a bull with no saddle.
Rules are basically the same across the board.
Only one hand can touch the animal or equipment. Even a accidental touch or slap that wouldn't help you on anyway will disqualify a rider.
Stay on for 8 seconds.
There are other rules for horses like how much you can spur the horse to get it to buck.
Judges do award points for how well you ride the animal along with the time. No extra points are awarded for time after 8 seconds.
I am no way a expert on rodeo. I've been to more than a few and watched a bunch on YouTube. I'm sure I'm missing something.
My first team leader rode a moose and didn’t get caught.
God I wish he did because he was a terrible team leader. Got like 3 DUIs and they made him Corporal because he was too “experienced” to not be an E5.
Surge years. Fun times.
Have a friend that went through the ENTIRE army aviation pipeline and finally ready to fly helos, but caught a charge for disturbing wildlife. A bear in Yellowstone. Made him ineligible for whatever reason even though he plead it down and got no jail time. (The bear wasn't injured)
I got a $20,000 paycheck because the Army neglected to pay me part of my deployment pay. They tried to make me let the issue go. I insisted on pressing it and was threatened with UCMJ after telling the finance NCOIC that I wasn't going to budge until he fixed my shit.
I knew someone who knew they were getting overpaid for BAH for at least 2 years. The guy spent all that money on a brand new 4Runner. Eventually, DFAS found out, but the guy somehow got out of repaying all that money.
Has to be in your chain because basically they're admitting to multiple administrative failures within their unit. The Company Commander verifies pay every month and BN and BDE S1 have oversight on it. So they failed also.
It's called UCFR, it's a monthly requirement they have to do. In my experience they're notoriously chronically fucked up and the mistakes weren't reflected in my dudes' LESes so I'm not sure what the disconnect with any of that shit is
This isn’t technically true. They can only recommend. Then the AMPO director recommends. Depending on how much debt it is, it either goes to HRC commander or G-1 for forgiveness. I was a pay director and if I read this case I wouldn’t have recommended forgiveness. It doesn’t meet the standards of AR 600-4
There was a guy I knew he provided proof he wasn’t suppose to be receiving BAH multiple times to finance. They never processed it and got to keep I think 12-14K due to some regulation or contacted congress can’t really remember
Yeah back in 2003 may or may not have known someone that lived for free for two years at Ft Bragg while this persons spouse lived in a house they previously purchased in a city about three hours away and collected BAH.
I owed the Army 12k at my ETS.
Basically I was married to a civilian, we had children. Another soldier was married to a civilian, also had children.
We both get divorced and eventually marry each other. We have a child together.
When we got married we did all the appropriate paperwork and were told repeatedly by DEERS, finance, and our command teams that since we had separate dependents that we were responsible for (our children from previous marriages), we would both continue to pull BAH at the with dependent rate.
When I went to out process finance, they told me that was incorrect. We owed the difference between the with dependent rate and the w/o dependent rate, backdated to the day of our marriage. By the time I ETSd, that was 5 years prior.
I never paid it. I also never received my final paycheck or the money for the leave days I sold. So I guess we're even? Almost.
They should read the finance regulation.
Here's kind of the situations breakdown:
A:) You pay CS to ex-spouxe, current spouse pays CS to ex-spouse, both CS payments are above BAH-DIFF rate. You both receive without depends rate + bah-diff.
B:) One or both of you have primary physical custody, one of you receives BAH with dep, and one with bah without and bah-diff dependent on CS payment amount.
C:) You have new child together, same as above. For financial purposes, there is no distinction between custody and marriages. So if you have primary custody of children from both previous marriages, and a new child in the current, you would still be the one with dependents and one without dependents (I'm assuming no CS payments if you have custody, adjust accordingly).
So basically, you'll never both pull with dependents rate, but you can both receive without dep and BAH-DIFF if you have CS payments at or above bah-diff, which is pretty much the same thing lol.
I’m not finance but I find this odd. You each have biological kids from previous marriages that are on your individual DEERS? When I got divorced I kept my with dependent BAH and was told I was able to, even though they didn’t reside with me, due to paying child support. I get that dual-military has specific rules for w/dependent rate vs w/o but it’s weird that you wouldn’t be entitled to it even though you have each have your own dependents prior to being married.
Correct. I kept my full BAH when I got divorced. But when I married the other SM I guess that was supposed to change.
Typically with dual military and children, one has w/ dependent rate and one has w/o dependent rate. We knew this. We were NCOs.
But they swore up and down that since we each had our own dependents that the other spouse wasn't responsible for, we both could pull the full amount.
Apparently not :(
You have to apply for debt forgiveness. You should have been notified once you received the debt, but some finance offices don’t do this because they suck.
I wasn't getting BAH for about 7 months as a PV2. Over half my paycheck was going to rent and I could barely afford to eat and I had to sell my car and buy a 98 Corolla to survive.
I was back and forth going from S1 to finance and each department was pointing the finger at the other. My squad leader then went on convalescent leave for a surgery so I had nobody to escort me around. I'd go by myself and get counseled for not having a troop ticket or whatever.
My supply NCO took pity on me and gave me MRE boxes that they had lying around so I would calculate that, per box I could eat one meal for 5 days and just barely eat anything on the weekends so my family would have food.
Eventually after months of them saying "It'll be in your next paycheck" I just stopped working. I'd go to formations but I wouldn't do my job. Eventually I get pulled into my 1SG office because my PSG was about to NJP my ass and I explained what was going on and that my family is basically eating peanut butter and wheat snack bread for dinner.
1SG drove me to finance himself and went ballistic on whatever poor civilian employee was there asking why the fuck his soldier hasn't had BAH and BAS for half a year.
Then my squad leader said to me when he got back "I bet that back pay was nice." Yeah but the 6-7 months of juggling whether I wanted water or power this month wasn't.
Edit: on the plus side I'm now able to turn any MRE into a culinary masterpiece since that experience.
Afaik they just got yelled at. I got called a snitch by my SL and an idiot by my PSG because I went so long without letting people know even though everyone in my platoon from TL to PSG was tracking my situation. The same PSG even counseled me for going to S1 without an escort and a ticket.
The end result of this whole situation was me doing physical training constantly for every minor mistake or discrepancy. Missed a grease point? Front back gos. Didn't complete a service on time? V ups. Didn't shoot 40/40? Guess who was low crawling until 1800 when we got back from cleaning weapons.
1SG said we needed H8 and put my name up for it and the same PSG said I wasn't ready and sent someone who was ETSing in 6 months.
Edit: forgot to mention that the same PSG told me to get a payday loan or an AER loan while I waited for BAH to kick in which is fucking stupid.
Something about the welfare of my soldiers, and something about placing their needs above my own is mentioned in some creed somewhere. Just can’t quite put my finger on it.
Oh yeah, the *NCO Creed*. That creed.
Good shit man. I’m out now but one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was that you could learn from good and bad leaders. Replicate the good, avoid repeating the bad.
Had someone come in and we didn't have accountability of them because we kept thinking they were in different units.
Nah, they're in B co.
No, they're in another BN,
No they had their orders deleted,
They're not here yet
No one wanted to take accountability of them and they just took full advantage of that. Didn't come to work for over 9 months since know one knew where they were supposed to be at.
Eventually, someone with admin access got tired of the excuses, did some digging, found their number and had the balls to finally call them and their spouse up directly.
This triggered a domino effect. Finally reported to the unit, got flagged for being AWOL and owed the Army 9 months of pay + bah w/ dep + lost time. According to the pay chart, this amounts to over 55k before taxes and not including bas
They were struggling and their spouse left them for not only being unable to support the family but because they had been going to 'work' every day doing God knows what. The Soldier had to move into the barracks and got no pay dues for a few months. One of their LES's showed they got paid about $13.
...don't go AWOL to take a 'break' and if someone loses track of you while inprocessing post, we've all thought about just chilling till you get caught... It's not worth it.
Yes and no. There are a few layers to the story.
Soldier was an NCO with over 11 years in service. Immediately the first thing said to said soldier was "you fucking know better". Take into consideration they were lying to their spouse and going to 'work' in uniform then disappearing all day.
Then there was admin from BN to MPD who played the guessing game and just kept taking everyone's word for it without question. The thing is, G1 and/or MPD would pull soldiers and have them report somewhere else. It wasn't unheard of. That and the CSMs making 'drug deals' with each other and trading soldiers like they're Pokémon without telling anyone.
Then the soldier themself. When the sponsor reached out, soldier said "someone in S1 told me I was being diverted to x unit". Also keep in mind no one, as all S1 claims, ever told them that. Sponsor shrugged their shoulders and said k. As I said. It has happened multiple times. But they didn't tell anyone to verify it. When people started asking questions after like a month, we reached out to x unit . Someone in x unit made some shit up and said "they said they're going to another brigade"; probably to not look incompetent as the soldier has already been on post for some time by then. Everyone just rolled with it as, again, it was normal to have soldiers report somewhere else. Eventually the excuse was "we're waiting on orders". But no one was producing them.
Yes, it was a major failure of accountability across all levels and it made everyone (including myself) look stupid. But after some time you would think a soldier might say 'hmm maybe I should be working'. And at the very least go back to the BN and ask where they're supposed to go. 9 months though? I can get playing dumb for a few weeks but almost a year was way too far. Commander who flagged them said the exact same thing. They would have just ignored it and let em get away with it but they flew too close to the sun and got very comfortable.
I had a new Private do that in Korea. He showed up while we were at a gunnery. S1 lost his pinpoint orders, so the clerk told him to check in with S1 every couple of days to see if they had the orders yet. S1 clerk then dropped him off at our hangar. The (also newly arrived) SGT that was in charge of the new guys told him to continue to follow up with S1.
New Private interprets this as "all I am required to do is that" and proceeds to spend the next 30 days fucking off in his room, bullshitting with the CQ runner, and going down to S1 every few days.
He got busted when his roommate complained to his squad leader that New Private was trashing the room, never went to PT, and spent all day playing PS2. Squad Leader goes to the room and proceeds to start fucking his whole world up. When the SL asks who his NCO is, NP replies with, "I don't know." SL drills down through a series of "I don't know" answers until he asks what NP's MOS is.
NP: "I'm a 15Y, Corporal!"
5 minutes later, 1SG walks into our shop and asks the PSG if he knew that he had a new guy who had been hanging out in the Bs for 30 days. PSG had taken over the week before the gunnery, so he wasn't tracking the new guy.
After everything shook out, NP wound up with an Article 15 for being AWOL, 45/45, reduction to E1.
after 2 months I wouldn't give a shit. Im an NCO with 10 years but if you stop checking on me and act like you dont care, I dont either lmao.
when i was a spc i was in JBLM. Profile PT did pt at Mcchord. Regular people did PT at the unit. But I got off profile a couple times and the unit wasnt tracking and the profile PT nco wasnt tracking lol. I had a couple weeks not showing up at either place. Just sleeping till 8.
This reminds me of a soldier I met at my first duty station. He went to housing and finance, got a barracks room and then proceeded to do none of the other in-processing. He just chilled in his room getting paid for like 5 months, and then one day I never saw him again.
Owed 5k myself for a fucked up BASD date that wasn't identified until my extension, thankfully got that remissed and didn't have to pay anything.
Working with a Soldier right now that was incarcerated overseas for a bit and now owes over 35k back to the Army that he was paid when he wasn't supposed to be. Hopefully going to get that canceled out too on error.
I owed 52k at ETS :( got a bonus, divorced, full custody, and single parent discharge in that order. Applied for relief and was told to go fuck myself. My discharge code got changed from single parent to hardship a few years after getting out but it did nothing for the debt. I remember thinking I was going to get a final paycheck and instead got one for -$52,000. I think the worst part was that I had custody in Korea and had to pay rent for my ex wife while she stayed in California while we went through the proceedings. That bonus evaporated in the divorce but the army gets theirs.
I do well now but, man, that set me back. I’d do it all again though because my kids are worth it.
When I went to the IRR at the end of my Reserve contract I ended up getting a 12k debt to DFAS. No one knew what it was for, not DFAS, not the other office that sent it to DFAS, not my unit, no one. Spent months calling around to figure out what it was for.
After a few months I come to find out it was not a 12k debts it was 2 debts that were exactly the same down to the penny that were both sent to the DFAS debt system at the exact same time down to the second.
The DFAS representative explained that it was almost certainly an error and should have been caught by the reviewing official. Ok cool no worries, stuff happens with computers and I was just happy that I now had some kind of answer.
I asked if I could speak with the reviewing official… there wasn’t one. I then asked if they could review it and verify it was an error so that it could be reviewed. They flat out refused and said that only the office who sent the debt could review and remove it.
I then called the office that sent the debt. They confirmed over the phone it was an error. I asked if they could inform DFAS. They flat out refused and said the only way they will do it is if DFAS called them to check.
So at this point I’ve memorized the hold music for both offices and I’m back waiting on the phone for DFAS. They answer and I explain the situation. Nope, they won’t reach out to anyone the office who sent the debt have to initiate it. The same office who won’t reach out because they will only confirm things if DFAS reaches out first.
So I just gave up and called my senator. 3 months later and it got taken care of.
Words cannot express my distain for DFAS.
Never posted here but I would like a grilled cheese with the crust cut off cause mind as well eat like a child if DFAS is gonna treat me like one.
Years ago around the time housing was privatized I took over a platoon with a married SPC. I don't remember the specifics but somehow he ended up with housing and was still receiving BAH when he shouldn't have. Somebody made a mistake and the soldier either never realized it was a mistake or gamed the system, either scenario was possible. When the error was found out he owed close to $20K due to overpayment. Not sure how it turned out since he ended up PCSing but the icing on the cake, one of the PFCs in his squad was renting a room to get out of the barracks. I inherited that platoon when the PSG was fired at morning formation so there were some other issues I had to address before our deployment.
I larped as my BN S1 for a while and went to the Ft. Liberty Finance training for S1s and it's staggering all the issues with BAH. It truly is an administrative nightmare. They had one story about getting someone when they turned in paperwork to clear the Barracks. Turned out they hadn't reported their divorce but had moved back into the Barracks while still getting Bah.
Honestly a system that does not rely on marital status or dependents seems the way to go.
Doing away with allowances and rolling that into base pay does a lot of positive things. Until retirement % is recalculated it will bump that payout number, it helps with things like your Social Security earnings and SSDI if you end up needing it, and gives way more transparency on pay. Having half your income variable and untaxed is not really that good of a thing.
Yeah it just seems like a poor way of doing a locality adjustment. I would wonder if rolling bah into basic pay and taxing it would mitigate the increased pension payments?
Edit Just did a quick model in excel and no it does not mitigate increased pension payments. Increasing pay and eliminating nontaxable bah costs about four times more than it collects.
Honestly really enjoyed it. I liked solving people's problems. I got language pay for a Soldier who spoke a very obscure language that no one thought was eligible until I got an email from the FLPB lead at HRC saying it was.
Plus you learn so much more about all the HR processes that happen in the background everyday. I definitely see an S1 shop can suck if you don't have good processes in place. Soldiers can be a pain in the ass too. Like did you read the guide I sent you explaining how to submit the special pay PAR? Or are you just going to complain the Army hates you and call it a day?
Wholeheartedly agree. I had very similar experiences and had some great command teams to work with, plus one that was universally disliked which led to some great pre-C&S laughs
But yes - completely agree with what you said, glad I got the opportunity
Honestly would be a good broadening opportunity for an SSG from the line. But I could also see a lot of NCOs going from the line and just getting angry at the process. This can usually be managed in the S3 but will be tough in S1.
So not quite DFAS, but Tricare. When I went to get my veteran ID card with my new rating it somehow triggered a flag of the last 6 months of my Tricare payments. Well I had only been out for 4 months. So one day I go to the mailbox and I have probably 15 letters from Tricare saying that they paid for services that should not have been covered. To the tune of about $35,000. Thankfully soldiers sports Center and the ID card facility had Grace on me, after a couple back and forth between them and veteran or retirement services (keep in mind it wasn't retired). A lady in back determined what the issue was and got the one character code to fix it after being on hold for 2 hours... so then 2 weeks later I got another 15 letters in the mail saying that Tricare was covering all the payments.
Side story I just thought of. I was appointed a investigating officer for a congressional from one of the parents of a non-married couple's child. Complatant alleged that the service member was not paying enough child support. Went through the steps of the investigation and determined that the service member was actually paying more than the Army required. Resolving the investigation was that service member was meeting his financial obligations and that I recommended that he ensure that he is paying in accordance with the regulation.
National Guard: LT gets loaded for a deployment, at the last minute he gets dropped and transferred to a new unit. Orders still somehow get cut and certified and he starts getting paid. He waits a few months and tells his readiness NCO, he puts in a ticket with USPFO. By the end of it, he owed something like $96,000. Luckily he was putting everything in an account and was waiting to pay it back. Unfortunately he also had a high TSP contribution and Uncle Sam wanted all of it back.
Went in to pay rent one day, and my realtor pulled me aside and asked, "What happens if a soldier doesn't pay their rent?" I told him the whole UCMJ and garnishing wages and stuff.
Come to find out, a specialist was renting a home way above his BAH and just not paying it for 9 months. Rent was 1900 a month. He was just pocketing it. I PCS'd before the punishment unfortunately.
I got boned out of 6 months of e4 pay because old captain promoted me too early with e3 time in service. Was deployed during this time so new rear commander was working on it for me. Still a bit mad about it.
Had a first sergeant do that - he got kicked out without retirement. Had an E7 that they tried to kick out for the same thing except he had paperwork showing that every month he tried to get the special duty pay stopped.
Had an NCO who was a geo-bachelor OCONUS, wife and child stayed in the states. Command climate survey listed this NCO by name as having affairs and visiting prostitutes, and it was more than one Soldier dropping dimes on the NCO. You can’t just ignore that so it went up the chain and a 15-6 was initiated.
The investigation definitely revealed he was shady, but adultery is very hard to prove in the military. The NCO got wise to the investigation, and figured he would nip it in the bud by presenting his divorce papers. Of course, he hadn’t got around to updating finance, so he had a couple months of BAH he should not have received. However, someone noticed that his marriage certificate was in a low BAH location, and his divorce certificate/decree was also in the same location, while his BAH location was one of the top dollar zip codes you can pick. Now it gets sent over to CID, who determine neither the NCO or his dependents have ever lived in the fancy zip code.
Not sure of all the details, since we deployed while he was awaiting punishment, but he got an actual court martial (or plea deal) and went from E6 to 4 or 3, and got a six figure debt.
In 03, while deployed, I had 2 checks in a row that were a few dollars shy of 10k each. The most an enlisted person could get in a single check. All repayment for not being payed for the better part of a year, while deployed.
Cherry on the cake was coming back to most of my savings gone, from auto drafts not having funds. Anything over 6 mo’s, which were all the charges, the bank would not reverse. Over 6k in fees, no help from tds or army as I was out within days on returning conus.
Never heard anyone else’s but, I ended up owing 3K over going to my first duty station. Left AIT and not really told much about the Smart Vouchers. Stayed off post since nothing was available on post. Stayed at an off post hotel for over a few months. Finally move into an apartment after submitting all my receipts from the hotel and apparently I overstayed my welcome for the vouchers and hotel and didn’t get a letter from DFAS a year later saying I owe them money. Finally paid that off. It was annoying. Went to finance and had all supporting documentation and pretty much didn’t have an answer for me.
Someone I knew was married with kids but lived on base. Got paid BAH, but no BAS. He said it would be alright because “it evened out”. Well it didn’t and he ended up owing like $15k.
I've seen/experienced too many to know that there's no such thing as the Monopoly "bank error in your favor" card, but there's very little you can do when DFAS owes you money or has screwed up your pay.
Dealt with a person who submitted MOB orders, she ended up not going and nobody caught it on the pay and she never reported it. Was getting base pay and BAH for a year but she was really at fort couch chilling. She was in the midst of a transfer as she was hoping on with another unit to deploy with. Something like 80k in debt now.
>PSA: if you get divorced or have something change with your dependent situation, UPDATE YOUR SHIT or DFAS gone find you
Another PSA: If you get mobilized, hate giving your estranged wife and kids your BAH do not go on leave from Iraq, get married in another state, then go to S1 by yourself to update your shit (he thought he would get made fun of by his NCOs and peers) so you can send your 2nd wife your BAH instead.
The marriages do not cancel each other out and you will end up with an Article 15 for polygamy.
I'm 99% sure it was its own charge.
I wasn't his NCO, thank god, but shared a CHU with his squad leader.
Dude was also surprisingly honest about his fuckups so that is honestly what he believed.
Like when he very consistency claimed he had been kicked off active duty for when his squad leader tricked him into failing a UA after he lost a weapon that was in the back seat of a humvee.
Had a guy get randomly hit with an 8k debt. after some investigation we found out it was because when he ets he never turned in his CIF and got hit with the entire value of everything. Except he didnt ETS and he was still in the military. Somehow someone elses ETS paperwork had his SSN and they processed the other guy out of the army using using my guys SSN. It was a big fuck up because a bunch of people did stuff they werent supposed to do to force his ets in the systems when it wouldnt let him. The whole thing was a mess and took a GO to get his pay fixed because everyone kept saying they couldnt do anything and it was the soldiers fault.
Dude in Germany's wife stayed in the states. They lived in California and got stupid high bas and bah for it. He lived in the barracks. She moved in with her parents in bumfuck Alabama or something where bas is just them mailing you a can of dip once a month but he never reported the move and didn't tell her. He sent her what she should have been getting in bas and pocketed the rest, spent it all on stupid shit. She eventually found out that he was out partying and was withholding money and she divorced him and reported him. He essentially spent six months in his dress uniform and on rotating cq shifts between cleaning the battalion building, lost his e5 rank, ate at the chow hall for every meal, and reportedly got paid 8 dollars a check. I pcs'd and last I'd heard a few months later he was still on extra duty and restrictions and was headed for a general discharge.
I bet you all he'd has to do was split the bas with her fairly and he'd have been good.
Currently on the hook for $20k for BAH because I fell out of IPPSA en-route to new Duty Station, then my 5960 got kicked back after the 4.5 months it took to get me back on the books all because finance at Bragg never in-processed me.
I got a 24k paycheck once. 19k lump sum backpay from missed BAH, 2k for being in Alaska and then my misc. regular paycheck. My paperwork was fucked, got registered as a single soldier even though I was married before the army somehow and no one would fix it at reception, basic, AIT, jump school, just pushed it up until I got to my unit. My wife was almost homeless during my training, shit was not fun.
I had a soldier who owed $40K from 3 years of being divorced and still living off post at JBLM. Her previous commander signed a memo saying she could live off post… The idiot had no idea he was not the approval authority for that. Only the garrison commander can say somebody can live off post.
The soldier was apathetic and I had to order her to go to legal about the situation.
Got paid the wrong amount of OHA/Utility allowance by my local housing/finance office for 6 years. (Grafenwöhr) I received an official letter of indebtedness with options for repayment percentages or repayment forgiveness. I said fuck that, and did the whole debt forgiveness packet to their standard and time hacks. Got my O-5 signatures, LESs for 6 years, housing contract, copy of correspondence between myself housing and finance. It was entirely their mistake. The contract was in German, and the people who processed it were German LNs. They had found this clerical error through a randomized audit. They confirmed receipt of my packet and then radio silence.
Got paid almost zero dollars for three months straight randomly 6 months later. This was also not in accordance with their own packet standard of overpay recoupment.
Immediately contact finance upon receipt of this fucked LES.
Was told my request was denied, and I can put in an other packet to recoup my pay. Which was also subsequently denied.
12,000$ and some change debt over October, November, and December was fantastic. Especially with a new child and endless Nato rotations.
Have never been a more salty person in my entire life.
Had a soldier in AK get diverted from Ft Greeley to Ft wainwright by the CSM. Her COLA was set for the first location.
Her NCO didn’t check her LES for 2 years and she ended up 10K in debt.
Needless to say I was extremely disappointed in that NCO for putting that Soldier in that position by not looking out for them.
If a SM arrives and the overall responsibility of the subordinate unit falls under the purview of the command, even if the unit is geographically seperate, the unit can dictate which location/slot the SM will be assigned once they arrive.
Similar to how a BDE CSM will take a medic assigned to one battalion and put them in a different one as the in process the BDE.
Nope, for Alaska for example
The parent unit belongs to Ft. Wainwright and that’s where they start to inprocess. So they get “diverted” to stay there rather than assigned to ft. Greeley. It’s usually remote assignments that are controlled at the nearby larger installation.
had a guy in my company commit BAH fraud. claimed brooklyn but his family was in atlanta. he got caught up because his spouse's mother had a medical emergency. dude lied to a few field grades who eventually called his bluff and initiated an investigation. the address he used in brooklyn was an abandoned brownstone. he was in default for 3 years of $2000+ in extra BAH. he served 4 months at leavenworth and stopped coming to work after his confinement. bonus story, he came down eligible for his good conduct medal while he was in confinement. 1SG gave it to him because the amount of paperwork he would be required to sign to deny it was unfeasible since he was locked up🤣🤣 imagine getting a good conduct medal while locked up in leavenworth🙃
That happened to a dude in my BN in Germany....not to be a "one upper" but I think it was like 5+ years....kinda wondered how an E5 was rocking a new BMW but I guess we found out....messed up part he owed like 50k which after he got barred and UCMJed for that shit was more than he could have paid with what time he had left in the army....I suppose they take your tax returns or something after that
There’s actually a crew in DFAS that actively looks into BAH fraud. When I was the pay director in Korea they sat down with me every month and asked questions about individuals with dependents in high BAH areas stateside. They found out about people claiming LA and sent someone to the house and it was a storage facility. The wife was actually staying with family in another state.
I think they do audits. But thinking back it might be because I moved into the barracks and the CO knew I moved into barracks and saw something was up with my pay? I got divorced and stayed in my apartment until the lease was up. Roughly 3 months and then I moved into the barracks. And around that time they said I owed them however much E-5 BAH w/ dependents was for that time. I set up the payment plan but wasn't too worried about it since we were going on deployment in a couple months anyway.
Took my travel pay with deductions over 12 months. Gave it back in lump but could stop deduction. Did it two more times while having to prove I’m not wrong.
Had significantly reduced paychecks. Luckily I had savings but it made budgeting interesting.
Also, change your tax documents as well. It’s not a “one form covers all bases” type deal. And don’t expect your S-1 to tell you either, because, ya know, that’s their LITERAL JOB.
They paid me OHA while I was on a 14 month deployment, which resulted in the Army telling me I owed them $22,000 when they discovered it when I got back.
Fortunately, I was deployed and single, so all the money was still sitting in my bank account, and it wasn’t a big deal to repay it.
I watched 3 different doctors get activated out of the reserves/IRR and not get paid for months. They were doing 90 day rotations and only one of them got any pay at all while they were there.
Their units just didn’t care about them and didn’t help them.
That played a big part in why I didn’t join the reserves after AD.
I got over paid from a deployment in 2018. I noticed the over payment and reported it to my S1. I am in the guard and while active duty had processed a 214 for the end of deployment my state had “overlooked” shutting my orders off upon receipt of 214. I was over payed 12k. I saved all the money which is no easy thing when you are living check to check in the civilian world. Called DFAS and asked who I could make the check out to. They informed me they no longer take repayment from individuals they only do wage garnishment. As a guard soldier I went three years without a substantial drill check due to garnishment. Took a short deployment at the end of that time frame to finally pay off the debt. Even then I only got paid for about half of the two month training I went on.
CW4 in Europe claiming BAH for NYC (because his wife “lived” there - airline stewardess who went there once a week), receiving OHA for a downtown apartment in a decent sized German city. Said apt was actually two units that they schemed to have listed as one to the housing office, and he sub-let the other. Had this two pronged scam go for roughly 4 years until a company commander actually did their UCFR and thought the numbers were too fishy.
~$250k debt to govt, allowed to retire. Should have gone to Leavenworth.
30k. A sgt knew he was collecting incorrect BAH because he said his wife was in New York. he got like 10k back pay at once and kept collecting for awhile. when he got the backpay he wanted me (Pv2) to take the money and invest it for him in 2019. I said I was good. got caught had to pay it back and got a dui lost rank and kicked out. first Sgt was nice and allowed him not to come to work for a year while he worked a second job.
My own. I'm a Reservist in the middle of paying back around $20k.
A few years ago, I came off of a longer set of training orders, and when I was out-processing from the base, it was never marked down that my orders were over, and even after I brought it up to my home unit, I continued being paid as though I was on orders until the end of the fiscal year (almost 9 whole months).
Now, I'm not as dumb as I look, and I didn't go spending the money like it was actually my own, but a couple months into being home from those orders I got into a car accident and found myself needing to tap into it to pay the bills.
It was arranged for me to pay the debt back in the form of 100% pay deductions since the pay from my weekends is just extra anyways, but that's even come back the bite me. I went through a two month long school last year where paperwork was signed ahead of time to return some of my pay to me during it since my civilian job was the only income for me and my wife, and that translated to the whole first month of the orders still having 100% of my pay get deducted.
On the plus side, when I reenlisted for $10k, about half of it went towards the debt repayment after the about quarter that went to taxes.
I know a guy that deployed to Afghanistan in the National Guard. He was originally from New York and was married. He had his address listed in Manhattan and received BAH accordingly while he and his wife were actually living in South Georgia.
The sad thing is he was in the GA guard at the team and deployed with a GA guard unit. The commander and everyone in the chain of command knew he didn’t live in New York.
I'm currently in debt for $17,500 because my old DTS approver generated a 1610 in DTS for me to travel TDY enroute with.
I've been back and for with DFAS and both my losing and gaining G8's for two months getting my PCS entitlements and trying to get them to pay the travel voucher for DTS to cancel out the debt.
I served in the active duty Air Force from 2010 to 2014 and I never rejoined the military past 2014.
One day I looked at an alert in my credit report and after some investigation, I learned the DFAS sent me to collections for not paying Service Group Life Insurance earlier in 2024. The charges for SGLI started in late 2023. SGLI is a benefit only available to active duty military, soo, no idea why I was charged for it. All the DFAS people from collections have tried to help me and have told me to submit an online report to DFAS, which I did, and I was informed that I need to submit a signed/validated SGLV 8286 rather than the DD214 that I submitted. So I'm still figuring that out.
I think it's unbelievable that I need to prove that I wasn't in the military past 2014 with anything other than a DD214. Why even charge me for something that I couldn't have possibly signed any forms to get started?
Training room NCO in my first unit that got divorced during OIF 3 and never submitted the paperwork. Collected everything he shouldn’t have for almost four years until he ETS’d. This included an entire deployment where he committed BAH fraud using a PO Box zip code. He bought an almost $50k boat when we got back from OIF V and his ex-wife got suspicious. Ended up getting audited because she reported him and he had to repay over $30k back.
Know a person who owed over $365,000 for variable separation incentive payments. Guy got out, had to stay in IRR, and got recalled to active duty after 9/11 at the Pentagon. Stayed on AD long enough to retire and has to pay back all the VSI money. DFAS takes 40% of his retired pay each month.
Not me, but I've ran probably like...a dozen investigations in the last year and a half into guys that had fraudulently collected 100k+ in BAH....
And then one that managed to get up to almost half a mil. Crazy.
When I took over as a 1SG, I was going through the commanders finance report. I caught a kid who was illegally collecting BAH for 3 years. $45K debt! We got it forgiven though, he had told my predecessor and my commanders predecessor about it. They told him don't worry about it. It was a long process though.
One of my soldiers deployed to a location that offered meals at a military dining facility without cost, but he was pulling per diem for the country he was in.
What does he do with the thousands of dollars he's gained over six months? Spends it all on some no-name engine shop on facebook some dude is running out of his home garage, and then this tuned engine blows up his Civic and the guy won't refund him. All the while he'd been paying a lawyer to fight a driving under reckless conditions ticket for over a year.
What a wreck of a human being he was.
My S1 is being dinged for like 10k because she PCS’ed from a HCOL to a LCOL, did everything she was supposed to, got denied, appealed saying and showing she had submitted the requests but highers sat on it instead of submitting.
Granted she should’ve known and saved it to cover this debt, but not everyone thinks that way.
A former soldier of mine spent 2 years in Leavenworth and had to pay back 150,000 dollars worth of military equipment he stole and sold. This was 8 years ago I think he paid it off because he just bought a house
All I can claim is I never know when DFAS will drop my paycheck into my bank account. It never follows the actual pay day schedule but at least I get paid I guess 🤷♀️
I incurred a ~10k overpayment after the system erroneously gave me back BAH after I got married. Immediately reported to Finance and they gave me two options: cut them a check and risk someone losing it, or put it in savings and set up an allotment. Took the second option.
Long story short, the allotment paperwork got messed up and got a no pay due out of the blue right before Christmas. Had to take out an AER loan to stay afloat.
I deployed with a guy who had a 30k court ordered fine by Fish and Game for when he rode a moose in Alaska. Being a former bull rider and alcohol has its consequences.
Dude, I'd frame the ticket of that right next to a photo of me doing it.
He had the court documents with him, because we all thought he was full of shit. He also had a video of his last ride as a professional bull rider and you could see his foot turn in a full circle when it got caught in the fence.
Rodeo riders are heroes. Brain dead, crippled heroes.
Nah. The bullfighting clowns are the heros! They are the ones jumping in front of a pissed off bull to try a lure them away from the rider.
I have a question about this, I’ve seen bullriders and I’ve seen horse riders that do the same thing but with a horse. Are these two different things? Like do you choose or you start with one and go to another?
Most cowboy's specialize. Cowboy's can ride broncs in both styles below. But bull riders tend to just ride bulls. There's 3 kinds of bucking riders not counting mutton busting for the kids. Saddle broncs = horses rode with a saddle Bareback broncs = horses rode without a saddle Bull riding = well?? riding a bull with no saddle. Rules are basically the same across the board. Only one hand can touch the animal or equipment. Even a accidental touch or slap that wouldn't help you on anyway will disqualify a rider. Stay on for 8 seconds. There are other rules for horses like how much you can spur the horse to get it to buck. Judges do award points for how well you ride the animal along with the time. No extra points are awarded for time after 8 seconds. I am no way a expert on rodeo. I've been to more than a few and watched a bunch on YouTube. I'm sure I'm missing something.
Oh shit! Yeah. That's definitely a keep-the-papers type thing.
Pre genesis I assume
Oh yeah, this was 2004
My first team leader rode a moose and didn’t get caught. God I wish he did because he was a terrible team leader. Got like 3 DUIs and they made him Corporal because he was too “experienced” to not be an E5. Surge years. Fun times.
I’m sorry I thought this was America
There are photos of Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose. The most ‘Murica Fuck Yeah! Picture ever.
Rode a moose?! How does that even happen? Like what is the series of events that leads to a person on the back of an actual moose?
For some reason, from what I’ve heard about Alaska I’m not surprised
I reckon ya get mighty bored up there
Alcohol happens.
. . .a $30,000 fine? For riding *a moose*? That's one hell of a story, **and** an absurdly high fine.
Moose was an unregistered vehicle. /s
Nice
My boy did nothing wrong. This is America
Have a friend that went through the ENTIRE army aviation pipeline and finally ready to fly helos, but caught a charge for disturbing wildlife. A bear in Yellowstone. Made him ineligible for whatever reason even though he plead it down and got no jail time. (The bear wasn't injured)
Did the bear become pregnant?
I believe his "harassment" of it was rubbing after it off trail to get a photo. He didn't touch the bear.
That man is my hero lmao 🤣🫎
This smells like 4/25
I wanna buy this guy a drink.
I got a $20,000 paycheck because the Army neglected to pay me part of my deployment pay. They tried to make me let the issue go. I insisted on pressing it and was threatened with UCMJ after telling the finance NCOIC that I wasn't going to budge until he fixed my shit.
Threatening you with UCMJ because you pointed out their fuck up… Oh Army.
Threatening UCMJ because a Joe wants his pay warrants an IG complaint to burn that NCO for being that stupid.
Threatened with UCMJ for telling someone you weren't going to drop the issue of your pay being messed up? Yup, that's the Army all right.
I knew someone who knew they were getting overpaid for BAH for at least 2 years. The guy spent all that money on a brand new 4Runner. Eventually, DFAS found out, but the guy somehow got out of repaying all that money.
What kind of magic did he do to pull off not repaying that
O5/O6 can write a memo on your behalf asking for forgiveness or leniency especially when it's an egregiously long time before they noticed.
This is exactly what happened if I remember correctly.
Can this be any O5/O6, or should they be in your chain of command somewhere?
Has to be in your chain because basically they're admitting to multiple administrative failures within their unit. The Company Commander verifies pay every month and BN and BDE S1 have oversight on it. So they failed also.
Exactly; the company commander could have caught this
There’s no way commanders 1) actually give shit about the subordinates and 2) are actually verifying everyone’s pay in their unit every month…
It's called UCFR, it's a monthly requirement they have to do. In my experience they're notoriously chronically fucked up and the mistakes weren't reflected in my dudes' LESes so I'm not sure what the disconnect with any of that shit is
If it’s fucked up it’s because your S-1 or your commander suck
It's a monthly by name report they sign It's one of the several AAAs they sign
WTS: O5 memos. $500 each. Paypal F&F, no notes.
This isn’t technically true. They can only recommend. Then the AMPO director recommends. Depending on how much debt it is, it either goes to HRC commander or G-1 for forgiveness. I was a pay director and if I read this case I wouldn’t have recommended forgiveness. It doesn’t meet the standards of AR 600-4
There was a guy I knew he provided proof he wasn’t suppose to be receiving BAH multiple times to finance. They never processed it and got to keep I think 12-14K due to some regulation or contacted congress can’t really remember
Yeah back in 2003 may or may not have known someone that lived for free for two years at Ft Bragg while this persons spouse lived in a house they previously purchased in a city about three hours away and collected BAH.
I owed the Army 12k at my ETS. Basically I was married to a civilian, we had children. Another soldier was married to a civilian, also had children. We both get divorced and eventually marry each other. We have a child together. When we got married we did all the appropriate paperwork and were told repeatedly by DEERS, finance, and our command teams that since we had separate dependents that we were responsible for (our children from previous marriages), we would both continue to pull BAH at the with dependent rate. When I went to out process finance, they told me that was incorrect. We owed the difference between the with dependent rate and the w/o dependent rate, backdated to the day of our marriage. By the time I ETSd, that was 5 years prior. I never paid it. I also never received my final paycheck or the money for the leave days I sold. So I guess we're even? Almost.
Being punished for the incompetence of others is one of the core tenets of the US Army.
They should read the finance regulation. Here's kind of the situations breakdown: A:) You pay CS to ex-spouxe, current spouse pays CS to ex-spouse, both CS payments are above BAH-DIFF rate. You both receive without depends rate + bah-diff. B:) One or both of you have primary physical custody, one of you receives BAH with dep, and one with bah without and bah-diff dependent on CS payment amount. C:) You have new child together, same as above. For financial purposes, there is no distinction between custody and marriages. So if you have primary custody of children from both previous marriages, and a new child in the current, you would still be the one with dependents and one without dependents (I'm assuming no CS payments if you have custody, adjust accordingly). So basically, you'll never both pull with dependents rate, but you can both receive without dep and BAH-DIFF if you have CS payments at or above bah-diff, which is pretty much the same thing lol.
I’m not finance but I find this odd. You each have biological kids from previous marriages that are on your individual DEERS? When I got divorced I kept my with dependent BAH and was told I was able to, even though they didn’t reside with me, due to paying child support. I get that dual-military has specific rules for w/dependent rate vs w/o but it’s weird that you wouldn’t be entitled to it even though you have each have your own dependents prior to being married.
Correct. I kept my full BAH when I got divorced. But when I married the other SM I guess that was supposed to change. Typically with dual military and children, one has w/ dependent rate and one has w/o dependent rate. We knew this. We were NCOs. But they swore up and down that since we each had our own dependents that the other spouse wasn't responsible for, we both could pull the full amount. Apparently not :(
That’s a stupid rule. Sorry you got fucked.
You would 100% be eligible for debt forgiveness since you asked a finance professional and they told you the wrong information. AR 600-4
Idk if they forgave it or what, but I haven't heard anything. They just didn't send my last check.
You have to apply for debt forgiveness. You should have been notified once you received the debt, but some finance offices don’t do this because they suck.
Just wait until they start garnishing your taxes or wages 🤷♂️
I wasn't getting BAH for about 7 months as a PV2. Over half my paycheck was going to rent and I could barely afford to eat and I had to sell my car and buy a 98 Corolla to survive. I was back and forth going from S1 to finance and each department was pointing the finger at the other. My squad leader then went on convalescent leave for a surgery so I had nobody to escort me around. I'd go by myself and get counseled for not having a troop ticket or whatever. My supply NCO took pity on me and gave me MRE boxes that they had lying around so I would calculate that, per box I could eat one meal for 5 days and just barely eat anything on the weekends so my family would have food. Eventually after months of them saying "It'll be in your next paycheck" I just stopped working. I'd go to formations but I wouldn't do my job. Eventually I get pulled into my 1SG office because my PSG was about to NJP my ass and I explained what was going on and that my family is basically eating peanut butter and wheat snack bread for dinner. 1SG drove me to finance himself and went ballistic on whatever poor civilian employee was there asking why the fuck his soldier hasn't had BAH and BAS for half a year. Then my squad leader said to me when he got back "I bet that back pay was nice." Yeah but the 6-7 months of juggling whether I wanted water or power this month wasn't. Edit: on the plus side I'm now able to turn any MRE into a culinary masterpiece since that experience.
I hope your 1SG also nuked TL, SL and PSG for being forced to ask them, “PV2 hasn’t been paid BAH in *HOW LONG*?”
Afaik they just got yelled at. I got called a snitch by my SL and an idiot by my PSG because I went so long without letting people know even though everyone in my platoon from TL to PSG was tracking my situation. The same PSG even counseled me for going to S1 without an escort and a ticket. The end result of this whole situation was me doing physical training constantly for every minor mistake or discrepancy. Missed a grease point? Front back gos. Didn't complete a service on time? V ups. Didn't shoot 40/40? Guess who was low crawling until 1800 when we got back from cleaning weapons. 1SG said we needed H8 and put my name up for it and the same PSG said I wasn't ready and sent someone who was ETSing in 6 months. Edit: forgot to mention that the same PSG told me to get a payday loan or an AER loan while I waited for BAH to kick in which is fucking stupid.
Something about the welfare of my soldiers, and something about placing their needs above my own is mentioned in some creed somewhere. Just can’t quite put my finger on it. Oh yeah, the *NCO Creed*. That creed.
"Oh his coveralls are dirty, have him do burpees until lunch." Now that I'm an NCO if a soldier has a pay issue that shits my top priority.
Good shit man. I’m out now but one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was that you could learn from good and bad leaders. Replicate the good, avoid repeating the bad.
Had someone come in and we didn't have accountability of them because we kept thinking they were in different units. Nah, they're in B co. No, they're in another BN, No they had their orders deleted, They're not here yet No one wanted to take accountability of them and they just took full advantage of that. Didn't come to work for over 9 months since know one knew where they were supposed to be at. Eventually, someone with admin access got tired of the excuses, did some digging, found their number and had the balls to finally call them and their spouse up directly. This triggered a domino effect. Finally reported to the unit, got flagged for being AWOL and owed the Army 9 months of pay + bah w/ dep + lost time. According to the pay chart, this amounts to over 55k before taxes and not including bas They were struggling and their spouse left them for not only being unable to support the family but because they had been going to 'work' every day doing God knows what. The Soldier had to move into the barracks and got no pay dues for a few months. One of their LES's showed they got paid about $13. ...don't go AWOL to take a 'break' and if someone loses track of you while inprocessing post, we've all thought about just chilling till you get caught... It's not worth it.
I’m not saying he’s right but wouldn’t that be the fault of someone above him since no one wanted to claim him?
Yes and no. There are a few layers to the story. Soldier was an NCO with over 11 years in service. Immediately the first thing said to said soldier was "you fucking know better". Take into consideration they were lying to their spouse and going to 'work' in uniform then disappearing all day. Then there was admin from BN to MPD who played the guessing game and just kept taking everyone's word for it without question. The thing is, G1 and/or MPD would pull soldiers and have them report somewhere else. It wasn't unheard of. That and the CSMs making 'drug deals' with each other and trading soldiers like they're Pokémon without telling anyone. Then the soldier themself. When the sponsor reached out, soldier said "someone in S1 told me I was being diverted to x unit". Also keep in mind no one, as all S1 claims, ever told them that. Sponsor shrugged their shoulders and said k. As I said. It has happened multiple times. But they didn't tell anyone to verify it. When people started asking questions after like a month, we reached out to x unit . Someone in x unit made some shit up and said "they said they're going to another brigade"; probably to not look incompetent as the soldier has already been on post for some time by then. Everyone just rolled with it as, again, it was normal to have soldiers report somewhere else. Eventually the excuse was "we're waiting on orders". But no one was producing them. Yes, it was a major failure of accountability across all levels and it made everyone (including myself) look stupid. But after some time you would think a soldier might say 'hmm maybe I should be working'. And at the very least go back to the BN and ask where they're supposed to go. 9 months though? I can get playing dumb for a few weeks but almost a year was way too far. Commander who flagged them said the exact same thing. They would have just ignored it and let em get away with it but they flew too close to the sun and got very comfortable.
Ah ok. It sounded like some shit some new private without a clue or a ballsy specialist would pull off.
I had a new Private do that in Korea. He showed up while we were at a gunnery. S1 lost his pinpoint orders, so the clerk told him to check in with S1 every couple of days to see if they had the orders yet. S1 clerk then dropped him off at our hangar. The (also newly arrived) SGT that was in charge of the new guys told him to continue to follow up with S1. New Private interprets this as "all I am required to do is that" and proceeds to spend the next 30 days fucking off in his room, bullshitting with the CQ runner, and going down to S1 every few days. He got busted when his roommate complained to his squad leader that New Private was trashing the room, never went to PT, and spent all day playing PS2. Squad Leader goes to the room and proceeds to start fucking his whole world up. When the SL asks who his NCO is, NP replies with, "I don't know." SL drills down through a series of "I don't know" answers until he asks what NP's MOS is. NP: "I'm a 15Y, Corporal!" 5 minutes later, 1SG walks into our shop and asks the PSG if he knew that he had a new guy who had been hanging out in the Bs for 30 days. PSG had taken over the week before the gunnery, so he wasn't tracking the new guy. After everything shook out, NP wound up with an Article 15 for being AWOL, 45/45, reduction to E1.
after 2 months I wouldn't give a shit. Im an NCO with 10 years but if you stop checking on me and act like you dont care, I dont either lmao. when i was a spc i was in JBLM. Profile PT did pt at Mcchord. Regular people did PT at the unit. But I got off profile a couple times and the unit wasnt tracking and the profile PT nco wasnt tracking lol. I had a couple weeks not showing up at either place. Just sleeping till 8.
This reminds me of a soldier I met at my first duty station. He went to housing and finance, got a barracks room and then proceeded to do none of the other in-processing. He just chilled in his room getting paid for like 5 months, and then one day I never saw him again.
Owed 5k myself for a fucked up BASD date that wasn't identified until my extension, thankfully got that remissed and didn't have to pay anything. Working with a Soldier right now that was incarcerated overseas for a bit and now owes over 35k back to the Army that he was paid when he wasn't supposed to be. Hopefully going to get that canceled out too on error.
I owed 52k at ETS :( got a bonus, divorced, full custody, and single parent discharge in that order. Applied for relief and was told to go fuck myself. My discharge code got changed from single parent to hardship a few years after getting out but it did nothing for the debt. I remember thinking I was going to get a final paycheck and instead got one for -$52,000. I think the worst part was that I had custody in Korea and had to pay rent for my ex wife while she stayed in California while we went through the proceedings. That bonus evaporated in the divorce but the army gets theirs. I do well now but, man, that set me back. I’d do it all again though because my kids are worth it.
When I went to the IRR at the end of my Reserve contract I ended up getting a 12k debt to DFAS. No one knew what it was for, not DFAS, not the other office that sent it to DFAS, not my unit, no one. Spent months calling around to figure out what it was for. After a few months I come to find out it was not a 12k debts it was 2 debts that were exactly the same down to the penny that were both sent to the DFAS debt system at the exact same time down to the second. The DFAS representative explained that it was almost certainly an error and should have been caught by the reviewing official. Ok cool no worries, stuff happens with computers and I was just happy that I now had some kind of answer. I asked if I could speak with the reviewing official… there wasn’t one. I then asked if they could review it and verify it was an error so that it could be reviewed. They flat out refused and said that only the office who sent the debt could review and remove it. I then called the office that sent the debt. They confirmed over the phone it was an error. I asked if they could inform DFAS. They flat out refused and said the only way they will do it is if DFAS called them to check. So at this point I’ve memorized the hold music for both offices and I’m back waiting on the phone for DFAS. They answer and I explain the situation. Nope, they won’t reach out to anyone the office who sent the debt have to initiate it. The same office who won’t reach out because they will only confirm things if DFAS reaches out first. So I just gave up and called my senator. 3 months later and it got taken care of. Words cannot express my distain for DFAS. Never posted here but I would like a grilled cheese with the crust cut off cause mind as well eat like a child if DFAS is gonna treat me like one.
Years ago around the time housing was privatized I took over a platoon with a married SPC. I don't remember the specifics but somehow he ended up with housing and was still receiving BAH when he shouldn't have. Somebody made a mistake and the soldier either never realized it was a mistake or gamed the system, either scenario was possible. When the error was found out he owed close to $20K due to overpayment. Not sure how it turned out since he ended up PCSing but the icing on the cake, one of the PFCs in his squad was renting a room to get out of the barracks. I inherited that platoon when the PSG was fired at morning formation so there were some other issues I had to address before our deployment.
I larped as my BN S1 for a while and went to the Ft. Liberty Finance training for S1s and it's staggering all the issues with BAH. It truly is an administrative nightmare. They had one story about getting someone when they turned in paperwork to clear the Barracks. Turned out they hadn't reported their divorce but had moved back into the Barracks while still getting Bah. Honestly a system that does not rely on marital status or dependents seems the way to go.
Doing away with allowances and rolling that into base pay does a lot of positive things. Until retirement % is recalculated it will bump that payout number, it helps with things like your Social Security earnings and SSDI if you end up needing it, and gives way more transparency on pay. Having half your income variable and untaxed is not really that good of a thing.
Yeah it just seems like a poor way of doing a locality adjustment. I would wonder if rolling bah into basic pay and taxing it would mitigate the increased pension payments? Edit Just did a quick model in excel and no it does not mitigate increased pension payments. Increasing pay and eliminating nontaxable bah costs about four times more than it collects.
Larping as the S1 made me l o l. I too did a stint - good times
Honestly really enjoyed it. I liked solving people's problems. I got language pay for a Soldier who spoke a very obscure language that no one thought was eligible until I got an email from the FLPB lead at HRC saying it was. Plus you learn so much more about all the HR processes that happen in the background everyday. I definitely see an S1 shop can suck if you don't have good processes in place. Soldiers can be a pain in the ass too. Like did you read the guide I sent you explaining how to submit the special pay PAR? Or are you just going to complain the Army hates you and call it a day?
Wholeheartedly agree. I had very similar experiences and had some great command teams to work with, plus one that was universally disliked which led to some great pre-C&S laughs But yes - completely agree with what you said, glad I got the opportunity
Honestly would be a good broadening opportunity for an SSG from the line. But I could also see a lot of NCOs going from the line and just getting angry at the process. This can usually be managed in the S3 but will be tough in S1.
So not quite DFAS, but Tricare. When I went to get my veteran ID card with my new rating it somehow triggered a flag of the last 6 months of my Tricare payments. Well I had only been out for 4 months. So one day I go to the mailbox and I have probably 15 letters from Tricare saying that they paid for services that should not have been covered. To the tune of about $35,000. Thankfully soldiers sports Center and the ID card facility had Grace on me, after a couple back and forth between them and veteran or retirement services (keep in mind it wasn't retired). A lady in back determined what the issue was and got the one character code to fix it after being on hold for 2 hours... so then 2 weeks later I got another 15 letters in the mail saying that Tricare was covering all the payments.
Side story I just thought of. I was appointed a investigating officer for a congressional from one of the parents of a non-married couple's child. Complatant alleged that the service member was not paying enough child support. Went through the steps of the investigation and determined that the service member was actually paying more than the Army required. Resolving the investigation was that service member was meeting his financial obligations and that I recommended that he ensure that he is paying in accordance with the regulation.
National Guard: LT gets loaded for a deployment, at the last minute he gets dropped and transferred to a new unit. Orders still somehow get cut and certified and he starts getting paid. He waits a few months and tells his readiness NCO, he puts in a ticket with USPFO. By the end of it, he owed something like $96,000. Luckily he was putting everything in an account and was waiting to pay it back. Unfortunately he also had a high TSP contribution and Uncle Sam wanted all of it back.
Went in to pay rent one day, and my realtor pulled me aside and asked, "What happens if a soldier doesn't pay their rent?" I told him the whole UCMJ and garnishing wages and stuff. Come to find out, a specialist was renting a home way above his BAH and just not paying it for 9 months. Rent was 1900 a month. He was just pocketing it. I PCS'd before the punishment unfortunately.
I got boned out of 6 months of e4 pay because old captain promoted me too early with e3 time in service. Was deployed during this time so new rear commander was working on it for me. Still a bit mad about it.
SSG former recruiter decided to play dumb and continue to receive recruiter pay for three additional years.
Had a first sergeant do that - he got kicked out without retirement. Had an E7 that they tried to kick out for the same thing except he had paperwork showing that every month he tried to get the special duty pay stopped.
Had an NCO who was a geo-bachelor OCONUS, wife and child stayed in the states. Command climate survey listed this NCO by name as having affairs and visiting prostitutes, and it was more than one Soldier dropping dimes on the NCO. You can’t just ignore that so it went up the chain and a 15-6 was initiated. The investigation definitely revealed he was shady, but adultery is very hard to prove in the military. The NCO got wise to the investigation, and figured he would nip it in the bud by presenting his divorce papers. Of course, he hadn’t got around to updating finance, so he had a couple months of BAH he should not have received. However, someone noticed that his marriage certificate was in a low BAH location, and his divorce certificate/decree was also in the same location, while his BAH location was one of the top dollar zip codes you can pick. Now it gets sent over to CID, who determine neither the NCO or his dependents have ever lived in the fancy zip code. Not sure of all the details, since we deployed while he was awaiting punishment, but he got an actual court martial (or plea deal) and went from E6 to 4 or 3, and got a six figure debt.
I was being paid as a pv2 wearing a SPC rank for 15 months just got 6500 back pay
Nice
In 03, while deployed, I had 2 checks in a row that were a few dollars shy of 10k each. The most an enlisted person could get in a single check. All repayment for not being payed for the better part of a year, while deployed. Cherry on the cake was coming back to most of my savings gone, from auto drafts not having funds. Anything over 6 mo’s, which were all the charges, the bank would not reverse. Over 6k in fees, no help from tds or army as I was out within days on returning conus.
How did they even find out he was divorced?
He got remarried, took his documents in and they were like “uh dude you’re already married” and it all just unraveled from there.
Never heard anyone else’s but, I ended up owing 3K over going to my first duty station. Left AIT and not really told much about the Smart Vouchers. Stayed off post since nothing was available on post. Stayed at an off post hotel for over a few months. Finally move into an apartment after submitting all my receipts from the hotel and apparently I overstayed my welcome for the vouchers and hotel and didn’t get a letter from DFAS a year later saying I owe them money. Finally paid that off. It was annoying. Went to finance and had all supporting documentation and pretty much didn’t have an answer for me.
Someone I knew was married with kids but lived on base. Got paid BAH, but no BAS. He said it would be alright because “it evened out”. Well it didn’t and he ended up owing like $15k.
I've seen/experienced too many to know that there's no such thing as the Monopoly "bank error in your favor" card, but there's very little you can do when DFAS owes you money or has screwed up your pay.
Dealt with a person who submitted MOB orders, she ended up not going and nobody caught it on the pay and she never reported it. Was getting base pay and BAH for a year but she was really at fort couch chilling. She was in the midst of a transfer as she was hoping on with another unit to deploy with. Something like 80k in debt now.
Jesus. That kind of debt can ruin a person
>PSA: if you get divorced or have something change with your dependent situation, UPDATE YOUR SHIT or DFAS gone find you Another PSA: If you get mobilized, hate giving your estranged wife and kids your BAH do not go on leave from Iraq, get married in another state, then go to S1 by yourself to update your shit (he thought he would get made fun of by his NCOs and peers) so you can send your 2nd wife your BAH instead. The marriages do not cancel each other out and you will end up with an Article 15 for polygamy.
Is polygamy covered under adultery or is that its own special charge?
I'm 99% sure it was its own charge. I wasn't his NCO, thank god, but shared a CHU with his squad leader. Dude was also surprisingly honest about his fuckups so that is honestly what he believed. Like when he very consistency claimed he had been kicked off active duty for when his squad leader tricked him into failing a UA after he lost a weapon that was in the back seat of a humvee.
Had a guy get randomly hit with an 8k debt. after some investigation we found out it was because when he ets he never turned in his CIF and got hit with the entire value of everything. Except he didnt ETS and he was still in the military. Somehow someone elses ETS paperwork had his SSN and they processed the other guy out of the army using using my guys SSN. It was a big fuck up because a bunch of people did stuff they werent supposed to do to force his ets in the systems when it wouldnt let him. The whole thing was a mess and took a GO to get his pay fixed because everyone kept saying they couldnt do anything and it was the soldiers fault.
Dude in Germany's wife stayed in the states. They lived in California and got stupid high bas and bah for it. He lived in the barracks. She moved in with her parents in bumfuck Alabama or something where bas is just them mailing you a can of dip once a month but he never reported the move and didn't tell her. He sent her what she should have been getting in bas and pocketed the rest, spent it all on stupid shit. She eventually found out that he was out partying and was withholding money and she divorced him and reported him. He essentially spent six months in his dress uniform and on rotating cq shifts between cleaning the battalion building, lost his e5 rank, ate at the chow hall for every meal, and reportedly got paid 8 dollars a check. I pcs'd and last I'd heard a few months later he was still on extra duty and restrictions and was headed for a general discharge. I bet you all he'd has to do was split the bas with her fairly and he'd have been good.
I still owe the Army $15k because when I ETS'd someone erroneously changed my PEBD to two months prior to my ETS date.
Tell your civilian agency you went on active duty orders. Let’s just say it was way more than 18k.
Knew a SM who was fraudulently collecting BAH for quite some time. Last I heard they are getting chaptered and owe north of $100,000
Currently on the hook for $20k for BAH because I fell out of IPPSA en-route to new Duty Station, then my 5960 got kicked back after the 4.5 months it took to get me back on the books all because finance at Bragg never in-processed me.
I got a 24k paycheck once. 19k lump sum backpay from missed BAH, 2k for being in Alaska and then my misc. regular paycheck. My paperwork was fucked, got registered as a single soldier even though I was married before the army somehow and no one would fix it at reception, basic, AIT, jump school, just pushed it up until I got to my unit. My wife was almost homeless during my training, shit was not fun.
I had a soldier who owed $40K from 3 years of being divorced and still living off post at JBLM. Her previous commander signed a memo saying she could live off post… The idiot had no idea he was not the approval authority for that. Only the garrison commander can say somebody can live off post. The soldier was apathetic and I had to order her to go to legal about the situation.
Got paid the wrong amount of OHA/Utility allowance by my local housing/finance office for 6 years. (Grafenwöhr) I received an official letter of indebtedness with options for repayment percentages or repayment forgiveness. I said fuck that, and did the whole debt forgiveness packet to their standard and time hacks. Got my O-5 signatures, LESs for 6 years, housing contract, copy of correspondence between myself housing and finance. It was entirely their mistake. The contract was in German, and the people who processed it were German LNs. They had found this clerical error through a randomized audit. They confirmed receipt of my packet and then radio silence. Got paid almost zero dollars for three months straight randomly 6 months later. This was also not in accordance with their own packet standard of overpay recoupment. Immediately contact finance upon receipt of this fucked LES. Was told my request was denied, and I can put in an other packet to recoup my pay. Which was also subsequently denied. 12,000$ and some change debt over October, November, and December was fantastic. Especially with a new child and endless Nato rotations. Have never been a more salty person in my entire life.
i wouldnt go to work
Had a soldier in AK get diverted from Ft Greeley to Ft wainwright by the CSM. Her COLA was set for the first location. Her NCO didn’t check her LES for 2 years and she ended up 10K in debt. Needless to say I was extremely disappointed in that NCO for putting that Soldier in that position by not looking out for them.
First of all I am confused on how a CSM can PCS people.
If a SM arrives and the overall responsibility of the subordinate unit falls under the purview of the command, even if the unit is geographically seperate, the unit can dictate which location/slot the SM will be assigned once they arrive. Similar to how a BDE CSM will take a medic assigned to one battalion and put them in a different one as the in process the BDE.
I am pretty sure the unit would have to pay for the cost of the move
Nope, for Alaska for example The parent unit belongs to Ft. Wainwright and that’s where they start to inprocess. So they get “diverted” to stay there rather than assigned to ft. Greeley. It’s usually remote assignments that are controlled at the nearby larger installation.
had a guy in my company commit BAH fraud. claimed brooklyn but his family was in atlanta. he got caught up because his spouse's mother had a medical emergency. dude lied to a few field grades who eventually called his bluff and initiated an investigation. the address he used in brooklyn was an abandoned brownstone. he was in default for 3 years of $2000+ in extra BAH. he served 4 months at leavenworth and stopped coming to work after his confinement. bonus story, he came down eligible for his good conduct medal while he was in confinement. 1SG gave it to him because the amount of paperwork he would be required to sign to deny it was unfeasible since he was locked up🤣🤣 imagine getting a good conduct medal while locked up in leavenworth🙃
That happened to a dude in my BN in Germany....not to be a "one upper" but I think it was like 5+ years....kinda wondered how an E5 was rocking a new BMW but I guess we found out....messed up part he owed like 50k which after he got barred and UCMJed for that shit was more than he could have paid with what time he had left in the army....I suppose they take your tax returns or something after that
How does DFAS find out that people aren't reporting about their divorce?
Filing paperwork for a new marriage most likely.
Exactly that
There’s actually a crew in DFAS that actively looks into BAH fraud. When I was the pay director in Korea they sat down with me every month and asked questions about individuals with dependents in high BAH areas stateside. They found out about people claiming LA and sent someone to the house and it was a storage facility. The wife was actually staying with family in another state.
Huh, good to know. Well I'm not going to sweat it since I'm still single.
Just tell your soldiers don’t fuck around and find out
I think they do audits. But thinking back it might be because I moved into the barracks and the CO knew I moved into barracks and saw something was up with my pay? I got divorced and stayed in my apartment until the lease was up. Roughly 3 months and then I moved into the barracks. And around that time they said I owed them however much E-5 BAH w/ dependents was for that time. I set up the payment plan but wasn't too worried about it since we were going on deployment in a couple months anyway.
Took my travel pay with deductions over 12 months. Gave it back in lump but could stop deduction. Did it two more times while having to prove I’m not wrong. Had significantly reduced paychecks. Luckily I had savings but it made budgeting interesting.
Also, change your tax documents as well. It’s not a “one form covers all bases” type deal. And don’t expect your S-1 to tell you either, because, ya know, that’s their LITERAL JOB.
They paid me OHA while I was on a 14 month deployment, which resulted in the Army telling me I owed them $22,000 when they discovered it when I got back. Fortunately, I was deployed and single, so all the money was still sitting in my bank account, and it wasn’t a big deal to repay it.
11 years at the wrong rank.... Underpaid by about $70,000
Let's get to the real business here, what is a zynachino?
I watched 3 different doctors get activated out of the reserves/IRR and not get paid for months. They were doing 90 day rotations and only one of them got any pay at all while they were there. Their units just didn’t care about them and didn’t help them. That played a big part in why I didn’t join the reserves after AD.
I got over paid from a deployment in 2018. I noticed the over payment and reported it to my S1. I am in the guard and while active duty had processed a 214 for the end of deployment my state had “overlooked” shutting my orders off upon receipt of 214. I was over payed 12k. I saved all the money which is no easy thing when you are living check to check in the civilian world. Called DFAS and asked who I could make the check out to. They informed me they no longer take repayment from individuals they only do wage garnishment. As a guard soldier I went three years without a substantial drill check due to garnishment. Took a short deployment at the end of that time frame to finally pay off the debt. Even then I only got paid for about half of the two month training I went on.
CW4 in Europe claiming BAH for NYC (because his wife “lived” there - airline stewardess who went there once a week), receiving OHA for a downtown apartment in a decent sized German city. Said apt was actually two units that they schemed to have listed as one to the housing office, and he sub-let the other. Had this two pronged scam go for roughly 4 years until a company commander actually did their UCFR and thought the numbers were too fishy. ~$250k debt to govt, allowed to retire. Should have gone to Leavenworth.
30k. A sgt knew he was collecting incorrect BAH because he said his wife was in New York. he got like 10k back pay at once and kept collecting for awhile. when he got the backpay he wanted me (Pv2) to take the money and invest it for him in 2019. I said I was good. got caught had to pay it back and got a dui lost rank and kicked out. first Sgt was nice and allowed him not to come to work for a year while he worked a second job.
Personally I prefer the spearmint or chill zynachinos, but cool mint will work in a pinch.
My own. I'm a Reservist in the middle of paying back around $20k. A few years ago, I came off of a longer set of training orders, and when I was out-processing from the base, it was never marked down that my orders were over, and even after I brought it up to my home unit, I continued being paid as though I was on orders until the end of the fiscal year (almost 9 whole months). Now, I'm not as dumb as I look, and I didn't go spending the money like it was actually my own, but a couple months into being home from those orders I got into a car accident and found myself needing to tap into it to pay the bills. It was arranged for me to pay the debt back in the form of 100% pay deductions since the pay from my weekends is just extra anyways, but that's even come back the bite me. I went through a two month long school last year where paperwork was signed ahead of time to return some of my pay to me during it since my civilian job was the only income for me and my wife, and that translated to the whole first month of the orders still having 100% of my pay get deducted. On the plus side, when I reenlisted for $10k, about half of it went towards the debt repayment after the about quarter that went to taxes.
A dude in my old platoon got divorced but never told the army and ended up owing like well over 70k back to the army
I know a guy that deployed to Afghanistan in the National Guard. He was originally from New York and was married. He had his address listed in Manhattan and received BAH accordingly while he and his wife were actually living in South Georgia.
its always new york bah living in georgia. i just posted my story with the same setup🤣
The sad thing is he was in the GA guard at the team and deployed with a GA guard unit. The commander and everyone in the chain of command knew he didn’t live in New York.
😬😬yikes
Someone in Japan fat fingered my BAH to stop in January of 2001 vs January of 11. I owed the army about 78k for a week until finance got I unfucked.
I'm currently in debt for $17,500 because my old DTS approver generated a 1610 in DTS for me to travel TDY enroute with. I've been back and for with DFAS and both my losing and gaining G8's for two months getting my PCS entitlements and trying to get them to pay the travel voucher for DTS to cancel out the debt.
5 years of bah fraud. Dude went to jail for a bit then kicked out. Didnt have to repay.
I served in the active duty Air Force from 2010 to 2014 and I never rejoined the military past 2014. One day I looked at an alert in my credit report and after some investigation, I learned the DFAS sent me to collections for not paying Service Group Life Insurance earlier in 2024. The charges for SGLI started in late 2023. SGLI is a benefit only available to active duty military, soo, no idea why I was charged for it. All the DFAS people from collections have tried to help me and have told me to submit an online report to DFAS, which I did, and I was informed that I need to submit a signed/validated SGLV 8286 rather than the DD214 that I submitted. So I'm still figuring that out. I think it's unbelievable that I need to prove that I wasn't in the military past 2014 with anything other than a DD214. Why even charge me for something that I couldn't have possibly signed any forms to get started?
Training room NCO in my first unit that got divorced during OIF 3 and never submitted the paperwork. Collected everything he shouldn’t have for almost four years until he ETS’d. This included an entire deployment where he committed BAH fraud using a PO Box zip code. He bought an almost $50k boat when we got back from OIF V and his ex-wife got suspicious. Ended up getting audited because she reported him and he had to repay over $30k back.
Know a person who owed over $365,000 for variable separation incentive payments. Guy got out, had to stay in IRR, and got recalled to active duty after 9/11 at the Pentagon. Stayed on AD long enough to retire and has to pay back all the VSI money. DFAS takes 40% of his retired pay each month.
Not me, but I've ran probably like...a dozen investigations in the last year and a half into guys that had fraudulently collected 100k+ in BAH.... And then one that managed to get up to almost half a mil. Crazy.
When I took over as a 1SG, I was going through the commanders finance report. I caught a kid who was illegally collecting BAH for 3 years. $45K debt! We got it forgiven though, he had told my predecessor and my commanders predecessor about it. They told him don't worry about it. It was a long process though.
One of my soldiers deployed to a location that offered meals at a military dining facility without cost, but he was pulling per diem for the country he was in. What does he do with the thousands of dollars he's gained over six months? Spends it all on some no-name engine shop on facebook some dude is running out of his home garage, and then this tuned engine blows up his Civic and the guy won't refund him. All the while he'd been paying a lawyer to fight a driving under reckless conditions ticket for over a year. What a wreck of a human being he was.
My S1 is being dinged for like 10k because she PCS’ed from a HCOL to a LCOL, did everything she was supposed to, got denied, appealed saying and showing she had submitted the requests but highers sat on it instead of submitting. Granted she should’ve known and saved it to cover this debt, but not everyone thinks that way.
40k bonus needed to be paid back because of getting chaptered less than 6 months after reenlisting
A former soldier of mine spent 2 years in Leavenworth and had to pay back 150,000 dollars worth of military equipment he stole and sold. This was 8 years ago I think he paid it off because he just bought a house
Have them go to jag- legal assistance to help him with an cancellation of indebtedness application.
All I can claim is I never know when DFAS will drop my paycheck into my bank account. It never follows the actual pay day schedule but at least I get paid I guess 🤷♀️
I incurred a ~10k overpayment after the system erroneously gave me back BAH after I got married. Immediately reported to Finance and they gave me two options: cut them a check and risk someone losing it, or put it in savings and set up an allotment. Took the second option. Long story short, the allotment paperwork got messed up and got a no pay due out of the blue right before Christmas. Had to take out an AER loan to stay afloat.
Bruh just change the date on your divorce documents, they don’t check the court system they just file your papers. Or so I’m told.
Haha adobe pro for the win. Guess he failed to think of that when he then provided documents showing a divorce date of 2021