DPS Move

Rules are changing but your home station may not know this. That's what happening to us. What used to be known as TMO (now the Personal Property Office) and now known as PPO will schedule your move. They should load you into DPS (Defense Personal Property System, yes it needs another "p" but they are not big on the "personal" part so maybe that's why it got left out). Before, you had one number for your outbound and inbound TMO office and they took care of everything. Now PPO is supposed to load you into DPS, set up your packing and pickup and then you manage your move from there. It's what a friend of mine likes to call the "Home Depot Air Force, you can do it and we can help." Doesn't sound to pleasant does it? To make matters worse for us, our outbound PPO loaded us using the old system and the inbound TMO has us in DPS. This means, I've had all the disadvantages of DPS with out the ability to use the system for it's advantages. (Which by the way is a web based application for tracking and scheduling your move. Not easy to do if you have no place to live yet or have no access to computer.) The original moving company no longer has my stuff. They shucked it off to a middle man.  I've been communicating with a "middle man," a referral agency for movers. My local PPO can't help. The middle man wouldn't return calls. I finally got a manager on the phone and now am waiting on a truck to come sometime today but still have no number for a local vender to call and check on things or a time that they might show. The only help I got was from JPPSO (jipso), which is the joint personal property office. They did confirm some things and got some grease in the wheels but it's still been all up to me. So why the rant? I want to let you know what happened to us so you can ask your PPO person to take you through the whole process and not leave you hanging. Making sure you have a clear idea of who will have your stuff from the time it leaves to when it arrives. It's all an all new system and there aren't many answers. Currently all the tutorials online reference the old website and are of no help. The picture above accurately represents my usually upbeat feelings. It'll be better soon, but for now it feels like there is no way out.

UPDATE: 5-11-10 Still no household goods. 9 days past due. Things are getting better. JPPSO San Antonio (The joint personal property office) is now communicating on my behalf. It's a mess. It seems with the new DPS systems, carriers are tapped for a move and if they don't accept the bid they get booted from military business for 30 days. So, they accept all moves regardless of their manpower. It seems the long haul driver dropped the load in Dallas and quit. Now they are looking for a driver.

Advise so far: research a good local company that has a good contact on the receiving end of your move. You have the right to ask for that company. Things should go smoother. We just allowed the government to randomly pick one. Find out who will be tracking your shipping and get their toll-free number. Learn how to log on to DPS and track your stuff. If the company doesn't log into DPS call JPPSO or TMO and get them to badger the company until they update your information.

UPDATE: 6-07-10 We received our household goods 12 days late. We are currently filing an claim against the Transportation Service Provider (TSP) for time without our goods. The TSP had not updated DPS at all during or after our shipment.

HUGE! UPDATE: 7-6-10 SUBJECT DPS
I received an email from the Chief, Personal Property Branch at HQ SDDC PP about my blog entry being quoted on http://www.blogdaycos.com/  (read here http://blog.daycos.com/2010/07/01/perfect-storm-of-peak-season-problems-draw-responses/ ). The article, "Perfect Storm" by Brandon Day, quoted a couple of things that I want to clarify. My knowledge of assigning moves to the TSPs is second hand and was collected during multiple converstaions on the phone with multiple agencies. I have no first hand knowlege of how companies take and receive bids. Secondly, I used the word "randomly" when speaking of how the goverment picks your mover if you don't select one. Actually what is done, is there is a selection process based on a number of criteria that involves among other things, customer feedback. Just to be clear, the government is not "randomly" choosing companies but selecting them in an fair manner based on many things. Finally, I mentioned above that the online tutorials references the old website. That is not correct. They reference the DPS site, but I couldn't get through the http://www.move.mil/ site to get to that site until I got to a government computer and then the tutorials were helpful.


I was pleasantly surprised to recieve the email from SDDC and I called the Chief, Personal Property Branch. We had a very constructive converstation, and I feel I have a better understanding as to the intent of DPS and it's mission. I was aslo able to share my concerns with him and we had what I think was a very fruitful converstation. I am thankful for his willingness to go above and beyond in this matter.

Conclusion.
DPS works in-so-far as this:
1. Your TSP has to update the system for it to be of any use to you during your move. Mine didn't. This is not the fault of DSP but it does show what I think is a weakness in the system. However, you will be able to rate the TSP on your satisfaction survey and this is extremely important, becase that effects how tht TSP racks and stacks in the system.
2. DPS cannot be accessed using Safari or to my knowlege a MAC. Also I never was able to complete the survey from home. I had to wait until I got on a government PC. Keep this in mind if you are planning a DPS move.
3. The major fault was with my TSP.  In retrospect, I don't know how much the old system could have "fixed" things, but a flesh and blood person who would hold my hand would have been nice. The above blog entry, however, is an accurate, realtime indication of my emotions and feelings as we went through this move.

Update
Click here for latest update on military transportation

More interesting information about this system
Agents Against DPS

http://reloroundtable.com/blog/moving/dp3-–-a-moving-industry-conundrum/

Update 2011 DPS Move Redeemed
http://usafchaplain.blogspot.com/2011/09/dps-move-redeemed.html