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http://8bitnintendo.livejournal.com/164719.html
My dad's story about being declared dead by the Department of Veteran's Affairs got published in the Navy Times.
Death by paperwork
In late May, I was notified by a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs that they had extended their condolences about my reported demise and asked my estate to reimburse them for two months of overpayment of disability benefits.
I called VA and talked to a nice gentleman who said he could fix it. He also said this kind of thing happens periodically.
“It’s as easy as something like a widow calling to give us a name and a Social Security number, and either the widow gives us the wrong number or we input it incorrectly,” he said.
He told me it could take a few weeks to bring me back to life.
So, I had my death all fixed, right? Wrong.
A letter came from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service addressed to my wife, informing her about procedures for collecting death benefits. This immediately made me suspicious that my death had been reported to DFAS and that my retired pay had stopped.
When I called DFAS, I was indeed dead. VA apparently had notified the DFAS of my untimely demise. I convinced a nice lady at the DFAS that I was indeed alive, and she restarted my retired pay.
A few days later, I received a phone call from Navy Federal Credit Union, telling me they had heard from DFAS that I was dead. DFAS was apparently reclaiming two months of retired pay I had collected while I was supposedly dead.
The bank thought my death was unusual, as there had been significant activity in my account during the two months I was dead. I got DFAS and Navy Federal on the phone at the same time so we could all establish the fact that my heart is still beating.
Then, on June 1, no retired pay from the DFAS. I called to find that when I was brought to life again, the paperwork to get me paid for June was not done. So another nice lady helped me with that.
And for one last insult added to injury, all my DFAS allotments stopped. I had to call DFAS to restart them and work with Delta Dental to restart my dental insurance.
While I hope you all can see some humor in this, I’d like all my fellow retirees and career military members to be aware of this potential snakebite out there. I have written VA to ask how a veteran can be killed with a phone call without any additional verification, but to date I have received no response.
I’m now waiting to see if my death notice shows up in the U.S. Marine Corps retiree newsletter.
Marine Col. Dirk Ahle (ret.)
Alexandria, Va.
Published by :8bitnintendo 2007-07-10 20:47:32.0
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