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Service Family Accommodation. Grab a brew and let me tell you a story about rip-offs and incompetence. A thread. https://twitter.com/sharpe_le/status/1351574874536484866
We stayed in SFA for a few weeks once. We had barely touched the house and did the clean ourselves. On march out we were charged for an oven clean. We hadn't actually used the oven and it was spotless.
The issue was that we hadn't used the local march out cleaners with whom (rumour had it) the official had an 'arrangement'. Hence, I suspect, the charge for a spotless oven.
Unlike with civilian landlords, there's no independent right of redress. They had us over a barrel and they knew it. But all was not lost.
'The MoD is too incompetent to collect the money' I told them. 'You won't see a penny'.
Shorty afterwards, we received an invoice for 'Barrack Damages'. I wrote back asking them to explain what the 'damages' were. A simple and reasonable request.
For the next 11 months we received a monthly invoice for the amount, caveated 'Under Query' and therefore not yet deducted from my pay (yes, unlike other landlords, the MoD actually does that).
On the 12th month I received a closing invoice of £0. They had given up and written it off.
But what annoys me is that I only did this because I was an officer and, even then, a belligerent sod. Most juniors would have done as they were told & paid. The firms involved know this & exploit it. It's wrong & it's about time someone with the power to do so fixed it.
