If you are a Veteran or Veteran Service Officer/Representative and submitted documents to the Veterans Administration supporting a claim between August 1, 2015 through December 21, 2015 your documents may be among those lost.
Documents submitted between the above dates to the eBenefits and SEP Claim “Status Document” portals are permanently lost with no hope of recovery, even if you received a “successful” upload message at the time.
What should you do now?
Check your records to see if you submitted documents to the VA supporting a claim between August 1, 2015 and December 21, 2015.
Look for a letter in early May of 2016 from the Veterans Administration concerning this problem with instructions telling you what to do.
A few critical items to note:
- If your claim is still pending you have 30 days to respond.
- If your claim is closed you have one year to resubmit the documents. The VA will take no action ie: they will not notify you.
- Be sure to attach the first page of the VA letter when you receive it or write “Reply to VA letter Dated XX/XXXX” on your response.
What else can you do?
- If you are affected by this VA error, contact your Congressman and let him or her know that the Veteran’s Administration failed you.
- If you need help resolving this problem you can find an accredited Attorney, Claims Agent, or Veterans Service Organizations (VSO) Representative here.
- Contact us if you are a Veterans Law Group client or have a VA disability claim on appeal.
- Contact the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Robert Mac Donald at robert.a.mcdonald@va.gov and let him know the Veterans Administration failed you again.
Veteran service Officers were notified of this error Tuesday by NOVA – National Association of Veterans Advocates.
