dealing with the VA system; Episode III: Revenge of the Sithstem

[MeatyPortion]

Ok, so the VA education department is late in paying my college tuition under the GI Bill, also my housing allowance hasn't come in yet. Fine. At least I can register for next semester. Ah ah ah! There's a hold on my enrollment since the tuition hasn't been paid. So I call the VA, talk to a case manager, she pulls up my file.

Case manager: ok sir I'm showing that we processed payment for this term.

Me: this year?

CM: yes sir, this year.

Me: 2011?

CM: ... um. (Long pause). Oh two thousand eleven

Me: (silently boiling with rage)

CM: no sir, there hasn't been payment transmitted yet.

The sad thing is that this is not unusual with the VA education department. No one knows anything and no one can fix anything. The system is full of retards. Now, the VA Medical dept actually runs fairly smoothly at this point. Of course it does, or people would ****ing die.

 

[wildwest450]

You expected something different from our government?

_

 

[MeatyPortion]

Like I said: the VA medical center has been great, so the "government bad!" argument is unfair and ignoring the facts.

 

[DirtBagRob]

I'm just finishing up my 5th and final year of school (used the GI bill for 4 of them) and I can't count the number of times things like this happened to me. About 3 years ago I was shorted a payment and I called to complain like I always did and someone who seemed to know what they were talking about told me, "I'm sorry but we have no real authority to do anything and if we take your issues to our boss, we get the same b*****t answer that I'm giving you. I would probably just wait a while and things will take care of themselves." At the time I was pissed, but after that I took his advice, and every time after that, when I got shorted, the money would show up a month or two late (same length of time it took when I called to complain). Its definitely a screwed up system but there really is nothing you can do about it.

 

[Airborneguy]

I am on my 4th year of collecting for school, and way back I collected a year for job training. I never had a single payment late. Maybe its your local processing center. I know there are a few.

 

[dwarven_stout]

I am on my 4th year of collecting for school, and way back I collected a year for job training. I never had a single payment late. Maybe its your local processing center. I know there are a few.

This.

The same thing applies to the VA medical side. It sounds like your local system is bad at one thing and good at the other.

 

[KuntyBrew]

no probs with disability or medical but I got the run around for the GI bill luckily I was able to have the college's vet advisor do most of the leg work

 

[MeatyPortion]

My college veteran liason, or whatever the title is, actually does a great job. I've been working with her since 2005 and she's solid. The issue has been with the actual VA education center. I would like to go down there and punch the administrator in the mouth.

 

[Denny330]

Meaty, I am dealing with the Milwaukee office as well. They are 6 months late on getting my payments to me. My disability claims took over a year to get pushed through. Gotta love it. All we can do is take it, unfortunately.

 

[Chops]

Thanks for the heads up, I planned on starting this fall.

 

[Hybridthreat]

Great to see what I have to look forward to. I get out and start going back to school in 9 months.