Caleb Garner, 18, was getting his paperwork in order as he prepared for his freshman year at Florida State University.
Part of that included looping in the Department of Veterans Affairs. He planned to use 9/11 GI Bill education benefits earned by his mother, Cheryl Icenhour, an Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan and had been stationed at Langley AFB and Joint Forces Command in Norfolk.
She advised him to start the process early, because sometimes the VA moves slowly. Then it took him months just to get into the system.
As of 2025, to sign in to VA websites and apps, veterans and their dependents must create an account on Login.gov or ID.me.
Login.gov, billed as the government’s one stop shop for account services, was introduced by the General Services Administration in 2017. ID.me is a non-governmental digital identity verification platform that contracts with the federal government.
When Garner went to request use of his mother’s VA benefits on July 10, he needed to create a new account in one of the two systems.
What should have taken minutes ended up taking hours. While trying to complete the verification step, where Login.gov checks personally identifiable information against databases to confirm the identity of the person creating the account, the system told him his address and phone number didn’t match the information in the system.
He called his mother, who now lives in Brussels. They spoke on FaceTime, and Icenhour saw the error messages.
“He’s had the same phone number for forever, all throughout high school,” said Icenhour. “Where are you getting this information from, and how do I go to the source that you have to correct it, because I know my own address and phone number.”
It would take Garner another two months to finally get into Login.gov. By then, it was past the point the VA would be able to provide the funds to Florida State for the fall semester.
Icenhour ended up footing the bill: $5,385.07.
As of late 2024, Login.gov is the only way for individuals to access services at fifteen government agencies, including the Department of Education, Department of State and Small Business Administration. The VA, Social Security Administration and three other government agencies allow individuals to sign in via Login.gov or ID.me — but Garner ran into the same address and phone number verification issue on both sites.
An October 2024 Government Accountability Office report cited several issues with the Login.gov rollout ranging from data privacy concerns to technical issues.
The report found that Login.gov wasn’t meeting important federal standards for verifying people’s identities, especially for higher-risk actions such as applying for government benefits. Agencies said users were having trouble setting up accounts, proving who they were and using two-factor authentication. The Small Business Administration reported a 30 to 40% failure rate for account creation.
Other agencies mentioned high failure rates during logins, trouble getting verification codes abroad, no way to see login activity in real time and not enough safeguards to stop fraud. The report also said many users were confused by the different multi-factor authentication options, and that GSA still hadn’t set clear deadlines to fix these problems. The GAO recommended that GSA set firm timelines to address these issues and improve the system’s security and usability.
All of this has left users and agencies frustrated.
Icenhour said after several attempts to create an account, her son called the Login.gov helpline, but never managed to speak with a real person.
He then contacted the VA, only to be told it has no control over Login.gov and couldn’t assist. Still, it was made clear: a Login.gov account was required to apply for GI Bill benefits. There was no other way to submit the application.
Icenhour came across some information online suggesting that certain U.S. Post Offices could assist with identity verification for Login.gov.
Garner discovered the nearest participating post office was more than 2½ hours away. However, there was one listed near his father’s home in Melbourne, Florida. A couple of weeks later, he visited his dad, then that post office only to find that the staff there had no idea they were supposed to assist with Login.gov identity verification.
At that point, Garner’s dad speculated that the issue might be due to the old address on his driver’s license. So he went to the DMV to update his license, which took half a day. After receiving his new license, Garner attempted to create the Login.gov account again. This time, the address was accepted, but the system still rejected his phone number, and he was once again unable to complete the setup.
Because his phone number wasn’t being recognized, he did not have a way to verify his identity using the required multi-factor authentication. As a final resort, he chose to request identity verification by mail. The Login.gov system sent a verification letter to the address on his newly updated license — his dad’s home. By that time, Garner already was on campus for the start of the fall semester. When the letter arrived, his dad took a picture of the code and sent it to him.
On Sep. 7, using the mailed login code, Garner was finally able to get into the system.
But the due date for his tuition was Sep. 9, and Icenhour said the typical processing time for the certificate of eligibility needed to initiate the transfer of funds from the VA to the university is about 30 days.
She wound up paying the $940 for his fall semester tuition, fees and books. Without doing so, Garner would have been disenrolled.
In addition to tuition costs — which were partially offset by a Bright Futures scholarship from the state of Florida — the GI Bill is supposed to defray housing costs. Because Garner wasn’t able to gain access to the benefits in time, Icenhour is on the hook for an additional $889 per month for the five months of the semester for his off-campus housing. According to Icenhour, FSU did not have enough dorms for all incoming freshmen, so Garner had to find accommodations elsewhere.
Though the benefits are still available to Icenhour for future use, there’s no way to reimburse her for her son’s fall semester
For veterans like Icenhour — who said she served an additional four years to transfer her education benefits to her son — losing the opportunity to use the benefits her family is entitled to is a gut punch.
“You almost get the feeling you’re being denied your benefits just through the sheer incompetence of it,” Icenhour said.
She also acknowledged that there are broader implications for veterans and others who may need timely access to benefits.
“How on earth can you have a system like this that’s supposed to be used for so many other things?” Icenhour said. “If you’re a veteran that needs medical access or something that is much more serious than what I’m facing, and you can’t now access (them) because you’re having problems with Login.gov — I mean, oh my goodness.”
The GSA appears to have added an option to use the old account system, DS Logon, until Sep. 30, as an alternative to Login.gov or ID.me. Icenhour says that wasn’t available when Garner began the process in July — she only noticed it on the website after he had utilized the paper verification options.
Three years ago, when her daughter was going through the same process as a college freshman, she used DS Logon without issue.
“It took her maybe 30 minutes, 40 minutes,” Icenhour recalled.
According to the VA’s website, by October, account creation will be exclusively tied to the new account system.
Now that Garner has successfully created his account, Icenhour advised him to request his certificate of eligibility for the spring semester as soon as possible.
“I said, ‘you really need to give a lot of lead time.’”
Emma Rose Brown, 757-805-2256, emma.brown@virginiamedia.com