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Boyfriend screwed out of several thousand dollars he needs from his GI bill
The_Spaniard
It's never lupinesIrvine, CaliforniaRegistered User regular
It's never lupinesIrvine, CaliforniaRegistered User regular
Now I don't know too much of the specifics because I'm retelling this story second hand, but since he's given up thinking there is nothing that cane be done, I'm hoping that somebody might know something that could help. Several thousand dollars is pretty significant, and when he's living completely off his GI bill, it's pretty crushing when you don't get what you're owed.
Anyway the broad strokes are as follows. Boyfriend is going to college on his GI bill, it pays for everything as long as he's an active student. Recently they have changed how payments are done, and in a 4 week gap between the summer classes you would not be paid because you are not currently attending class. Since a lot of veterans kinda depend on this money to live while they are going to school, they came up with a stopgap solution. If you take an 8 week summer course worth 3 credits, it would be enough to continue getting paid for the gap. My boyfriend looked at the course and none of the classes were of any use to him at all, so he looked into other things and found a 12 week course worth 4 credits that would go towards his major at another local school. He went to the VA help office at his current school and laid out his plans and asked him if it would all work out. They looked at his info, the alternate course, etc, and said that yes he should be covered just fine and still be able to collect payments.
Fast forward a bit, and he gets shorted on the next 2 payments, by half, leaving a shortfall of a few thousand dollars. He calls up the VA help office and they have no idea what's wrong, so they mandate him to call up the VA proper. VA proper tells him that what he did was not eligible and he will not be receiving payment for that alternate course of classes he took. He goes back to the VA help office asking what the hell is going on, and then the guy that originally told him everything would be good, walks up, does some quick calculations on a post-it note and figures, "Oh I guess I was wrong, that wouldn't count, whoops."
That "whoops" cost my boyfriend a couple thousand essential dollars that he needs to live off of. I'm wondering if there is absolutely anything that can be done? I'm not talking about suing or anything, but if there are any safeguards in place to help veterans that have been screwed like this by simple uncaring, indifferent, incompetence. Are there any people here that know about things like this, any military forumers, that might have an idea? Anything would be helpful, as any monetary blows right now are kind of significant since we've just moved and bills are rolling in left and right because of it.
Anyway the broad strokes are as follows. Boyfriend is going to college on his GI bill, it pays for everything as long as he's an active student. Recently they have changed how payments are done, and in a 4 week gap between the summer classes you would not be paid because you are not currently attending class. Since a lot of veterans kinda depend on this money to live while they are going to school, they came up with a stopgap solution. If you take an 8 week summer course worth 3 credits, it would be enough to continue getting paid for the gap. My boyfriend looked at the course and none of the classes were of any use to him at all, so he looked into other things and found a 12 week course worth 4 credits that would go towards his major at another local school. He went to the VA help office at his current school and laid out his plans and asked him if it would all work out. They looked at his info, the alternate course, etc, and said that yes he should be covered just fine and still be able to collect payments.
Fast forward a bit, and he gets shorted on the next 2 payments, by half, leaving a shortfall of a few thousand dollars. He calls up the VA help office and they have no idea what's wrong, so they mandate him to call up the VA proper. VA proper tells him that what he did was not eligible and he will not be receiving payment for that alternate course of classes he took. He goes back to the VA help office asking what the hell is going on, and then the guy that originally told him everything would be good, walks up, does some quick calculations on a post-it note and figures, "Oh I guess I was wrong, that wouldn't count, whoops."
That "whoops" cost my boyfriend a couple thousand essential dollars that he needs to live off of. I'm wondering if there is absolutely anything that can be done? I'm not talking about suing or anything, but if there are any safeguards in place to help veterans that have been screwed like this by simple uncaring, indifferent, incompetence. Are there any people here that know about things like this, any military forumers, that might have an idea? Anything would be helpful, as any monetary blows right now are kind of significant since we've just moved and bills are rolling in left and right because of it.
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I'd advise your boyfriend to contact the VA administration and his schools financial aid office and see if anything can be worked out. But there's no way anyone is just going to "take it back," and have everything work out the way he thought.