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Has anybody ever been able to contact Defense Finance and Accounting Service, specifically the MyPay section, via phone? I’m willing to lay odds the answer is no.

I admit it, I fat-fingered my new password/identification combo and got locked out of the new MyPay — it’s definitely secure now. Problem is, when I go to have my new password e-mailed to me, the system does not recognize my e-mail addresses I verified before all this started. So how does one go about resetting the password?

The service’s trusted agents can only reset the old personal ID numbers. When one finally weeds through the MyPay Web site and finds a number to call, it turns out to be a commercial number. (Any idea how hard it is to do that from a war zone?) How come the only DSN phone number to MyPay is for retirees and not the active force, which has the DSN lines?

After getting through, one is put into the call tree recording that does one of two things: Either it says they are closed (when they aren’t) or it says there are too many calls and terminates the call.

So, I tried an end-run. I figured why not call the one number they are sure to pick up on — the section you contact to pay back a debt. Bingo — got a live person in two rings! After explaining my problem they patched me through to MyPay — yep, you guessed it, call tree again.

Bottom line is, DFAS has effectively blocked out anyone from contacting it. Their service (especially to the warfighter at the front) is absolutely the pits.

Shame on me for dorking up my password change, but shame on them for being unreachable.

Oh yeah, if anyone from DFAS is reading this — I still need my password/login ID reset.

Senior Master Sgt. Robert ReganBaghdad

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