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Active Duty Military Verification and Batch Processing: What to Know

In the United States an act known as the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act is place in order to protect the rights of current active military members. The Act restricts certain actions against servicemen and servicewomen such as entering legal judgments, evictions, and repossessions, and also limits the interest rate on certain loans to servicemembers.

Almost universally, courts in the United States will require a certification that a defendant is not in the military before the court authorizes action to be taken against that individual. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Centralized Verification Service (SCRACVS) was established to provide a secure website that enables verifications and facilitates batch processing under the provisions of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

The new batch processing service, introduced in 2011, was an important addition to larger scale users.

With this military affidavit batch processing addition it is easy for large volume users to verify active military status, provided that the social security number is presented. If no social security number is presented, the batch processing feature is not available and the verification has to be ordered through the retail site at www.ServicemembersCivilReliefAct.com. That retail site is usually able to provide the verification with alternate identifying data such as address, relatives, and phone numbers. The military affidavit batch processing feature was rolled out for lenders, landlords, services and other institutions who may need this information and would like to integrate the results into their own databases. Each batch verification includes a .pdf of the status report supplied by the DMDC of the Department of Defense.

The new military active duty batch processing feature available through the SCRACVS meets the court-imposed requirements for due diligence. Users may either use the SCRACVS reply as a basis for their own affidavits, or the SCRACVS can supply an affidavit. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Centralized Verification Service is not a credit reporting agency. It only offers a verification of whether an individual is or was in active military duty on a given date (the "Active Duty Status Date").

Recent changes in the Department of Defense Manpower Data Center ("DMDC") site affect verification requests. Call-ups to duty are now reported. Start and end-dates of active service are now reported, although, for a short while, such information was not available.

For information: Support at ServicemembersCivilReliefAct.com or call (202) 462-0600