Jim,
I just found out about you from a fellow vet as with myself. Thank You for your no bull work that you are doing! I have a question for you? I was in some spookish things when I was in service. making a long story short my records are as spookish as my service was. I had to havan National review broad hearing with Ursla Powell in 05. At that hearing ms Powell said that and I QUOTE " Where are the rest of this man's files I read them last night and 2/3rds of them last night" She said to pay this man back to 96. When I received my back check it was only bak 2 years and not what Ms Powells' date. I aked the local service commisions advocates about it and he said to leave it along because they are trying to throw as many of as they can. I am 100% 60/40 and getting worse. Jim what would you do I am service conected. Thank You
Reply:
The dispute over retroactive pay is very common. Generally speaking, the date of the award (the effective date) should be the date that the claim was filed. In many cases, when a claim has to be appealed through other methods like the BVA, there will be some confusion about exactly when the claim was filed.
The veteran who feels like he's not received his full award must appeal...as soon as possible. You're at a disadvantage now if you haven't acted since 2005.
If you feel that you have been shorted years of pay, you should proceed to appeal. You can do this yourself, you don't need any help. Your local advocates have already given you some bad advice.
To appeal you must write a simple letter to your VA Regional Office. In the letter you briefly tell them that you are sure that the VA owes you retroactive pay to the date you think is your effective date.
That's all you need to do. Don't try to get really detailed in explaining things. Keep your letter very short. The letter will require that VA open your file to see if they made a mistake. They will notify you.
Writing a letter is the only way to resolve the issue. I recommend that you do not call or email the VA about this.
For some tips on how to write to VA click here https://www.vawatchdog.org/Letter_Templates.html