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A lot of text, so I'll post a link. This seems pretty bogus, taking money back wholesale because of conditions in some cases not being met.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/23/499065155/u-s-soldiers-told-to-repay-thousands-in-signing-bonuses-from-height-of-war-effor

A lot of what I've been reading on this, yes the military screwed up, but as I've told my troops on multiple occasions (and they never seem to listen...) You know how much the military owes you. If they overpay you, don't spend the frakkin money. They will come back for it. They always come back for it.

 djones520 wrote:
A lot of what I've been reading on this, yes the military screwed up, but as I've told my troops on multiple occasions (and they never seem to listen...) You know how much the military owes you. If they overpay you, don't spend the frakkin money. They will come back for it. They always come back for it.

According to this, though, the ones who have honored the contract the army gave them are also being forced to pay back the money they were promised.

Relapse wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
A lot of what I've been reading on this, yes the military screwed up, but as I've told my troops on multiple occasions (and they never seem to listen...) You know how much the military owes you. If they overpay you, don't spend the frakkin money. They will come back for it. They always come back for it.

According to this, though, the ones who have honored the contract the army gave them are also being forced to pay back the money they were promised.

That's just what this story focused on. Others are how Soldier's got paid more then their contracts stated, and things like that.

 djones520 wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
A lot of what I've been reading on this, yes the military screwed up, but as I've told my troops on multiple occasions (and they never seem to listen...) You know how much the military owes you. If they overpay you, don't spend the frakkin money. They will come back for it. They always come back for it.

According to this, though, the ones who have honored the contract the army gave them are also being forced to pay back the money they were promised.

That's just what this story focused on. Others are how Soldier's got paid more then their contracts stated, and things like that.

I'll change the thread title to reflect that the ones who honored their contracts are getting screwed.

I'm sort of the opinion that if they over-payed the soldiers through incompetence, it;s the military's fault. They should have just not over-payed then in the first place.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm sort of the opinion that if they over-payed the soldiers through incompetence, it;s the military's fault. They should have just not over-payed then in the first place.

This.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm sort of the opinion that if they over-payed the soldiers through incompetence, it;s the military's fault. They should have just not over-payed then in the first place.

Yeah, but that's not how the system works. The people bitch about the government wasting money as it is.

 djones520 wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm sort of the opinion that if they over-payed the soldiers through incompetence, it;s the military's fault. They should have just not over-payed then in the first place.

Yeah, but that's not how the system works. The people bitch about the government wasting money as it is.

Now that the gap has been identified, it should be addressed going forward, not further erode morale by stealing money from those who honored the terms put down by the army.

People don’t have a right to money that they’ve been overpaid. There’s a basic point of justice here, that two people doing the same job should be paid the same, one shouldn’t be $10k richer because there was a bureaucratic screw up. Playing up the sympathy of veterans doesn’t change that reality.

That said, the army to my (limited) understanding appears to be doing two things that are pretty dodge. The first is that they appear to be garnishing wages without discssuing it with the soldiers first – people are reporting a garnish on their cheque as the first they’ve heard of this. That’s terrible, any plan to get overpayments recovered should involve a sit down with the employee and a mutually agreed repayment schedule.

The second issue seems to be that the army is making no distinction between people who were paid too much in a bureaucratic error, and people who were offered excessively generous terms. The former is recoverable, the latter should be worn by the army.

Interesting this didn’t come up while congress was still in session, it seems a debt recovery bill would have been easy to get through congress while the pressure of an election around the corner.

 sebster wrote:

Interesting this didn’t come up while congress was still in session, it seems a debt recovery bill would have been easy to get through congress while the pressure of an election around the corner.

A debt recovery bill that would involve taking money away from veterans?

I can hear incumbents screaming in terror from here

Seems to be a bit of a consensus here, which is nice. If someone promises you more than they should have in a contract, and you hold up your end of the contract, you shouldn't be the one who gets in trouble down the road.

The government paid me too much on two pay checks, on the next one they took it back. It was their mistake and they fixed it.

That's how it works.

 sebster wrote:
People don’t have a right to money that they’ve been overpaid. There’s a basic point of justice here, that two people doing the same job should be paid the same, one shouldn’t be $10k richer because there was a bureaucratic screw up. Playing up the sympathy of veterans doesn’t change that reality.

That said, the army to my (limited) understanding appears to be doing two things that are pretty dodge. The first is that they appear to be garnishing wages without discssuing it with the soldiers first – people are reporting a garnish on their cheque as the first they’ve heard of this. That’s terrible, any plan to get overpayments recovered should involve a sit down with the employee and a mutually agreed repayment schedule.

The second issue seems to be that the army is making no distinction between people who were paid too much in a bureaucratic error, and people who were offered excessively generous terms. The former is recoverable, the latter should be worn by the army.

Interesting this didn’t come up while congress was still in session, it seems a debt recovery bill would have been easy to get through congress while the pressure of an election around the corner.

Both of your points are exactly on the mark. The one that really burns me though, is the fact that the ones who honored their contract in good faith and fulfilled the stipulated terms as set by the army are having unfair hardship placed upon them.

I think the Pentagon should eat it. There's a big difference between finding a few hundred extra bucks on their paycheck, and knowing full well it was an overpayment, which is taken back 2 weeks later, and someone signing a contract they have every reason to believe is lawfully binding for $20k and then the government comes after them a decade later, adding on recovery costs, penalties, and interest.


Yes, I think the Pentagon wastes a lot of money, but in this case it was already wasted. Assuming all 11k soldiers got overpaid $20k, we're taking $220 million - I'm sure the US defense budget can eat a .03% loss this year.

 Ouze wrote:
I think the Pentagon should eat it. There's a big difference between finding a few hundred extra bucks on their paycheck, and knowing full well it was an overpayment, which is taken back 2 weeks later, and someone signing a contract they have every reason to believe is lawfully binding for $20k and then the government comes after them a decade later, adding on recovery costs, penalties, and interest.

This, that's a permanently life altering situation that does far more social harm than the good of recovering those funds would do. If they can't afford that they may very well end up costing the government even more in other ways. Coming after someone for that much money, which they received through a good faith contract on their end, so long after the event, isboth asinine and unreasonable.

Regardless if these people are veterans or not, I don't think it's a reasonable expectation to recover from them at this point.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm sort of the opinion that if they over-payed the soldiers through incompetence, it;s the military's fault. They should have just not over-payed then in the first place.

So you get by accident paid 10,000,000 you get to keep it? Nice thought but doesn't work that way(and no I didn't take that number out of thin air. While not military that sort of mistransaction happened here).

tneva82 wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm sort of the opinion that if they over-payed the soldiers through incompetence, it;s the military's fault. They should have just not over-payed then in the first place.

So you get by accident paid 10,000,000 you get to keep it? Nice thought but doesn't work that way(and no I didn't take that number out of thin air. While not military that sort of mistransaction happened here).

If they don't correct it proptly, yes. It's their fault for overpaying. Now if it is that far over, to the point whers you notice it you should probebly alert them, but otherwise they can get stuffed, IMO. Especially when it's years after the fact.

tneva82 wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm sort of the opinion that if they over-payed the soldiers through incompetence, it;s the military's fault. They should have just not over-payed then in the first place.

So you get by accident paid 10,000,000 you get to keep it? Nice thought but doesn't work that way(and no I didn't take that number out of thin air. While not military that sort of mistransaction happened here).

Context is important. If that 10,000,000 came from a contract you signed 100 years ago.

It's not like the money just randomly appeared in these peoples' accounts. It was an agreed to amount and then the oversight wasn't fixed for 10 years. It makes more sense to me that the government should bear the brunt of such a mistake and find somewhere else to take it out of defence spending instead of trying to recoup money.

You don't get to say "Here's a $20k bonus for re-enlisting to fight overseas" then 10 years later come back and say "oops, sorry, we weren't allowed to give you that incentive bonus, pay it back now". If that was a private business instead of the government they'd be up gak creek without a paddle.

Yeah, I think there's a huge, enormous difference between "You know your paycheck should be $2,000 as you've gotten for years, and suddenly you get an unexplained paycheck for $4,000" - in which case it's obvious there was an error, and the remedy is swift.

What's happening here is these guys were told their bonuses would be x dollars in signed contracts, and now, 10 years after the fact, they are being told those contracts should not have been offered, our bad.

Not only is the duration extreme, it also was not reasonable to expect the contracts they were signing weren't in good faith.

Additionally, a 10 million dollar bonus is an obvious error, but my understanding is a $20k bonus, at the time, was well within the normal re-enlisting bonus window.

If someone committed fraud, they should be prosecuted, but otherwise I definitely think the Pentagon should eat it on this one. Just pretend the dollar figure was 10x larger for some vehicle they wound up cancelling anyway if it helps them sleep at night.

 Ouze wrote:
Additionally, a 10 million dollar bonus is an obvious error, but my understanding is a $20k bonus, at the time, was well within the normal re-enlisting bonus window.

That seems to be the question here: the bonuses shouldn't have been given, but did the people receiving them know that they were being given excessive bonuses and think "lol, good thing these people are so gullible" as they took the money, or did they believe the bonuses were appropriate ones that they should have been entitled to? If it's the first situation then it doesn't matter that it wasn't caught until later, it's still dishonestly taking money that you know is a mistake. If it's the second then the military should just write off the loss and punish the people responsible for issuing the improper bonuses, it's way too late to be coming after someone to demand a refund of money they had good-faith reasons to believe was a legitimate contract.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm sort of the opinion that if they over-payed the soldiers through incompetence, it;s the military's fault. They should have just not over-payed then in the first place.

So you get by accident paid 10,000,000 you get to keep it? Nice thought but doesn't work that way(and no I didn't take that number out of thin air. While not military that sort of mistransaction happened here).

Context is important. If that 10,000,000 came from a contract you signed 100 years ago.

It's not like the money just randomly appeared in these peoples' accounts. It was an agreed to amount and then the oversight wasn't fixed for 10 years. It makes more sense to me that the government should bear the brunt of such a mistake and find somewhere else to take it out of defence spending instead of trying to recoup money.

You don't get to say "Here's a $20k bonus for re-enlisting to fight overseas" then 10 years later come back and say "oops, sorry, we weren't allowed to give you that incentive bonus, pay it back now". If that was a private business instead of the government they'd be up gak creek without a paddle.

Sure if it's agreed before that's different. But if agreement is for X$ and you get X+Y$ why you should be allowed to keep the Y?

tneva82 wrote:
Sure if it's agreed before that's different. But if agreement is for X$ and you get X+Y$ why you should be allowed to keep the Y?

That's not what happened. The soldiers were issued a contract saying "we will pay you X+Y$", and paid X+Y$ according to the terms of the contract. The problem is not that they were paid above what their contract specified, it's that the contract was for more money than it should have been.

 Spinner wrote:
A debt recovery bill that would involve taking money away from veterans?

I can hear incumbents screaming in terror from here

Seems to be a bit of a consensus here, which is nice. If someone promises you more than they should have in a contract, and you hold up your end of the contract, you shouldn't be the one who gets in trouble down the road.

Whoops, I meant debt 'forgiveness' bill. Good pick up


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
The government paid me too much on two pay checks, on the next one they took it back. It was their mistake and they fixed it.

That's how it works.

There's a difference between getting paid more than you agreed through a payroll screw up, and being offered more than government intended through a contract by an authorised government agent. The former can be recovered by any organisation, private or public, the latter is a contract signed in good faith that should be honoured.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
This, that's a permanently life altering situation that does far more social harm than the good of recovering those funds would do. If they can't afford that they may very well end up costing the government even more in other ways. Coming after someone for that much money, which they received through a good faith contract on their end, so long after the event, isboth asinine and unreasonable.

Regardless if these people are veterans or not, I don't think it's a reasonable expectation to recover from them at this point.

Yeah, there's a basic justice element - these people signed on in good faith that they would be paid that money. On top of that there's also an issue of government keeping good faith, what happens next time you've got in to a war or two in the middle east and recruiters start offering money to get people to sign up - people won't value the signing bonuses because they won't believe they will end up getting to keep the money.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
So you get by accident paid 10,000,000 you get to keep it? Nice thought but doesn't work that way(and no I didn't take that number out of thin air. While not military that sort of mistransaction happened here).

If some idiot in payroll puts in your weekly hours as 3750 instead of 37.50 then they can recover the money. Nothing wrong with that. It's very different to telling someone they are entitled to a signing bonus, having both sides sign a contract with the belief that the bonus would be paid, and then later on saying 'sorry, the recruiter screwed up you shouldn't have gotten that money we paid you five years ago'.

tneva82 wrote:
Sure if it's agreed before that's different. But if agreement is for X$ and you get X+Y$ why you should be allowed to keep the Y?

No but that's not what happened. The agreement was for $X re-enlistment bonus, they got paid $X and now 10 years later they're being told they shouldn't have been offered $X in the first place so they have to pay it back.

If it were a private business that'd be considered fraudulent, telling someone they'll get $X for doing something and then later on telling them they have to pay it back because you made a mistake on the contract.

 sebster wrote:
There's a difference between getting paid more than you agreed through a payroll screw up, and being offered more than government intended through a contract by an authorised government agent. The former can be recovered by any organisation, private or public, the latter is a contract signed in good faith that should be honoured.

That last part is the key assumption though. If it's a situation where people know that excessive contracts are being handed out and are saying "{recruiter} is overpaying, get in quick before they figure it out" then it's no longer a contract signed in good faith.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Sure if it's agreed before that's different. But if agreement is for X$ and you get X+Y$ why you should be allowed to keep the Y?

No but that's not what happened. The agreement was for $X re-enlistment bonus, they got paid $X and now 10 years later they're being told they shouldn't have been offered $X in the first place so they have to pay it back.

If it were a private business that'd be considered fraudulent, telling someone they'll get $X for doing something and then later on telling them they have to pay it back because you made a mistake on the contract.

And if that's what happened then yeah they should keep it.

Since I haven't read their contracts can't provide further comment.

Probably going to need Djones or Jihadin or someone like that to speak to what typical re-enlistment bonuses are. Googling indicates that can be quite high though, if you count other-than-direct-cash such as student loans (which are an element in all the stories I read about this as something they are recouping), as well as modifiers for passing OCS, signing up for a longer term is, the fact this was happening when the military was so short they were stop-lossing people - and so on.

It doesn't seem like $20k is an abnormal amount - one that a reasonable layperson would assume is questionable - but again I would have to defer to someone who knows firsthand.

I can't speak for the Army's system, but in the AF, I've seen bonuses reach 60K.

We have a system where you are broken down into number of years you have served (A-E). For example, when I reenlisted at 9.8 years, I was in Zone B (6-10 years). My career field had a bonus multiplier of 1. This came out to about a $9,000 bonus for a 4 year contract.

The bigger contracts are typically for those who are in SpecOps, Cryptolinguists, etc. Their multipliers go up to 6. When I first joined, my career field (weather) was giving a 4.5. Folks were making around 40k to reup.

In a nutshell though, the more junior you are, the better chances of getting a bonus. The longer you sign for, the more you get. The more critically needed your career field is, the more likely you are to get a bonus.

Thanks for that.

Some service members are still eligible for reenlistment bonuses, and some of the bonuses are over 20k. A handful are over 50k.

A 20k reenlistment bonus during the height of combat operations was not unreasonable and likely would not have been suspicious by any means.