WWII vet forgiven by VA for overpayments
Irene Miller, a 95-year-old WWII Navy veteran didn’t bother to tell the VA that they were overpaying her $22/month since her husband’s death in 2004. Last month, the VA cut her off completely from her $1788/month pension to recover the overpayments. According to Fox News, the VA decided to forgive her rather than recover the money;
“Due to privacy issues, VA cannot discuss the veteran’s case. However, we are glad this issue came to our attention as it provided an opportunity to serve our veterans in need,” the VA said in a statement.
“As a result, this particular issue has been resolved and will have no negative financial impact on the veteran,” it said.
Miller said that for the past 12 years, the VA was paying her a small amount of $22 a month from her late husband’s federal benefits.
“When my husband died, they gave his pension to me and it wasn’t very much,” she said. “I really didn’t pay attention.”
I’m not sure what the whole story is here. If it was only a $22 overpayment, she owed about $3700 which would have cost her a little over two benefit checks, but she claims that she was afraid that she’d never get a benefit check again before the VA decided to forgive her.
The takeaway is that, if your situation changes, no matter how small that change is, keep the VA informed and then you won’t have to worry about the agency catching up to you or your descendants.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
Somebody certainly did some lousy retirement planning.
You think you’re all nice and secure? Your life can unravel before the sun sets tonight. And it won’t have the good grace to kill you quickly, it’ll let you suffer. How dare you judge this woman because she doesn’t rise to your financial standard? You might want to climb down off your high horse before you fall off and get hurt.
I might add one thing that happened to a friend of mine.
Before he retired from the Army Reserves, he got divorced. A number of years later, he remarried. He is now collecting retirement pay.
It was only recently that he noticed that his ex-wife was still listed on DEERS as the person to get 55% of his retirement when he dies. Also, the new spouse was not updated for Tri-Care. Somehow he neglected to change his beneficiary when he remarried. He remedied that REAL quick!
Just a friendly warning for all military retires to check your DEERS to make sure everything is up to date.
Now back to your regular programming.
Wait, I’m retired after 25 years and rated at 100 percent. Right now I’m single. But I have adult and two minor children. If I die single are you saying someone still gets some of my retirement and possibly disability? I may have missed a briefing or two in my hurry to leave the Army. Who do I contact if they are eligible for continued payments.
Respectfully..
You might want to check and see what DFAS has on file regarding your SBP election (you almost certainly made one – it’s part of the retirement application paperwork). If you were single and any former spouse didn’t have legal rights to demand you cover her under the SBP, they should have you as not currently enrolled – but it’s worth double-checking.
Should you become married or adopt a child after retirement, you have one year from the date of the event to enroll. It’s not free (your retirement pay is permanently reduced to pay for it), but it does provide a way of providing for your survivors.
These links provide more info:
http://www.dfas.mil/retiredmilitary/provide/sbp.html
http://www.dfas.mil/retiredmilitary/provide/sbp/change.html
Change alert! SBP payments are now limited to 360 payments or 70 years which ever is greater. After that limit/age is reached there are no more payments required. I just reached the seventy yr. mark in October of this year. By the way the payments are taken out of your pay before your taxable pay is determined.
Correct. In many cases it’s likely to be a permanent reduction, but not in all cases.
FWIW: according to DFAS you have to reach both (360 payments AND 70 years of age). See “Paid Up Status” at
http://www.dfas.mil/retiredmilitary/provide/sbp/payment.html
Kinda screws the guy who joins at 18 and retires at 38 (or earlier if due to disability). But that’s what the DFAS web site says is required: both 360 payments AND age 70.
I probably should have covered that anyway, though. Thanks for bringing it up.
Thanks guys,
Just a single retiree…. no sbp…. oh well. godo bless and keep you all.
No problem. Just remember: if you do get “hitched” or adopt, you have a one-year window to apply.
Well, at least they did ONE thing right.
Once is an anomaly, twice is a trend*. I don’t see any trends yet.
*Blind chipmunk allegory.
A – Document EVERY DAMNED THING.
B – Keep it ALL in a single pocket file folder.
C – Keep copies of EVERYTHING.
D – Don’t assume anything.
Word.
What are the odds that if the VA stopped her checks she would go through living hell getting them restarted? I’m thinking she’s dumb like a fox. At least about the VA.
Any number of things could have caused this. My guess would be her husband was receiving a VA pension with 1 dependent, and on his death they never changed to a survivor’s pension w/o dependent. But other scenarios could account for the roughly $180/mo average difference over 12 years.
Glad to see that sanity prevailed here and they’re not making the lady pay back the overage – particularly if she can document she notified the VA of his death. This is a case where I don’t really have a problem with the govt forgiving what appears to be a valid debt.
They did the right thing.
As they continue to pay shitbags, fakes and poser POWS.
Oh, and did I mention, everyone who has caught the “PTSD”?
At least they did the right thing here.
I suspect that the bad publicity that would have otherwise been generated was not something they want to deal with – especially in light of the potential new CiC.