What do I do if a company lied to me about my clearance status?

SECURITY CLEARANCE Q&A
1

I posted almost a month ago asking about what “caging” a clearance meant and falling out of scope, but I’ll start from the beginning to explain my situation. I’ll try not to be too specific in order to not give out to much info.

In January I was contacted by a company that I submitted my resume to through ClearanceJobs. I was contacted by a recruiter first then later started working with one of the program managers. I let her know from the beginning that I know my clearance was still active but that I wasn’t sure when I would need a new PR, she informed me that I wouldn’t need the new PR until next year and sent me my info that their FSO got from JPAS (I had TS/SCI however the job only requires Secret).

***I also told her though that my 24 months of being out of the military would be the end of February. I think I brought it up to her 2-3 times before my time was actually up and after I was approve for the job in February she told me that they “caged” my clearance and that it all was good.

Fast forward to March I was a little concerned because she seemed extremely unorganized and forgetful, I didn’t sign my contract until March(even though I got approved for the job in February), so again I asked her if my clearance was still good, she said yes it was good still they caged it already.

Two weeks ago they FSO sent me an email to do all of my INDOC paperwork. I filled it all out sent it back, then he calls me the next day saying he can’t find my clearance in JPAS and that he can’t do anything. He informed me that it was never caged and that I was out of luck.

I called DSS and spoke with them and they said since the company did not cage my clearance I fell out of scope, my clearance is expired and that I have to have a brand new investigation opened. She did inform me though that if the company worked fast enough that I could still get an interim clearance.

I won’t go into specifics about this job or location but I was literally supposed to be deploying for this job next week!!!

The programer manager at the company pretty much told me that she can’t help me and that they were pulling me from the spot. She said that OPM will take probably over a year just to do a Secret clearance and that they also won’t do interims anymore. (Even though the person I spoke to through DSS said they do).

I’m obviously very upset still about this. I’m thinking about joining the reserves so I can at least get my clearance back. I’m not sure what else I could have done in this situation because I was very upfront with this lady, I followed up many many times and kept being told that my clearance was good to go. Any advice???

2

I don’t think there’s too much you can do at this point besides chalk it up to bitter experience. BTW yes they will do interims, but even those can take several months.

I wouldn’t say they lied to you I’d just say that this program manager did not know what she was doing and probably does not understand personnel security very well.

3

There is also a possibility that the contract does not take interim and requests fully adjudicated cleared personnel to fill the Klined position. This is the case in most all of the positions I have applied for for contracts.

4

I am former military as well and I recently received my interim TS in July. I submitted my package back in March. So whoever said they do not do interims is blowing out smoke.

5

At my contractor job our customer does not accept interim clearances. So even if an interim clearance is granted, we cannot use it.

I’ve said before, some years back an interim could be granted in a week or two. Now it can take months and many folks don’t get an interim.