Retired vets, probably not too sophisticated or saavy about small things like usury or federal laws that govern their pension benefits have been getting ummm, having difficulties with companies that trade on their immediate financial needs.
Kevin D. Jones, a retired Army veteran, was desperate for money. He wanted to get his wife out of the Philippines quickly after her home had been destroyed in a bombing. But she was being delayed as she waited for immigration papers to come through that would allow her to join him in North Carolina.
His military contacts, cultivated during a 25-year career that included duty in Bosnia and Kosovo, helped speed the paperwork. And a Florida financial services company that he had found through an advertisement in The Army Times helped him raise the money to fly to Manila, resettle his in-laws and return home with his wife.
He was too frantic, he said, to consider the cost of that money. But it was steep. In exchange for $19,980 after fees and insurance, Mr. Jones signed over his $1,000-a-month military pension for the next five years, a total of $60,000. That is the equivalent of paying interest at a rate of 56 percent a year.
Federal law prohibits retired military people from signing over their future pension payments to others. The companies offering these deals say they are arranged to avoid that restriction. But two federal bankruptcy judges ruled this year that deals like Mr. Jones's, in which veterans in need of quick cash give up their future pensions for a small fraction of their value, do in fact violate that law.
But the law has not been enforced or consistently interpreted. Indeed, the Defense Department's payroll centers routinely handle the paperwork that diverts the pension payments, even though veterans are warned "to exercise caution in these arrangements," a Pentagon spokeswoman said.
As a result, a small but persistent band of financial companies using military-sounding names continue to offer these so-called pension advances to retired military people over the Internet and in military newspapers.
Given the 1600 Crew's close ties to the financial industry in general, (Social Security Crisis, anyone?) is it too much to imagine that they won't lift a finger to help these vets, or future vets who are scammed by folks like these? This is sort of one-step above boiler-room operations. Navy Times and all the papers in that family ought to turn aside the advertising from these firms who seek to prey on vets. I am not sure why some of these folks did not seek help from a military-affiliated credit union, like Navy or Pentagon Federal, who both understand military retirees and practice fair, honest and straightforward lending.
I shudder to think how soon some of these vultures descend on medically-retired vets from Iraq...my guess, the ink won't be dry on their DD-214's before they're getting offers for "Lump Sum" settlements to ease their "transition" to civilian life, and some desperate for cash to get back to normal will take the offer.
The 1600 Crew, will of course, side with the companies, who by then will own a congresscriminal or three after losing more litigation, and have a hook or two into the Oval Office, where the blow-jobs will resemble a Man Date. Of some sort.
posted by Jo Fish on 12.28.04 at 09:37 PM
Comments:
Jo, I read that account in the Times this morning and I cringed with disgust—for the second time in the last 48 hours. My first cringe? When it was reported that we (our gub-mint) would be shellling out 15 million dollars to help the tsunami victims—or about what it costs to finance the blowing up of sh*t up and rending asunder a country that didn't attack us...per hour. How dare I link the two things? Easy. The vet featured in the Times article served in Bosnia and Kosovo—not some cushy hook-up pushing the occasional jet around an airstrip in Texas—no...he put his LIFE on the line for us and this government in it's newfound relish in f*cking our veterans out of their pay while active and benefits upon discharge put this poor guy in the position of trading most of his pension (what's he gonna live on later?) for a piecemeal lump-sum, up-front payout...so he could finance bringing his family together. Cut to the Asian tsunami relief funding—where the richest country in the world, all-too-willing to drop 300 pieces of ordinance costing a million dollars each on a section of a country that didn't f*ck with us has to be shamed into coughing up the new total of 35 million dollars to help disaster survivors. The one-day inauguration for our oh-so-concerned brush clearer is gonna cost 5 million more than that. ONE day's "celebration". And ag-ain we go penny-wise and dollar foolish, intentionallly shorting a group of people who could so more in a week to quell Al Qaeda than what we get throwing away billions in Iraq monthly—by the grace of our good will, we could win (and create) friends in a region where terror simmers like a bubbling stew. Win the hearts and minds of the populace with simple charity and you decrease the pool Indonesian and Malayan Al Qaeda organizers can draw from. But do we do that? Nooooo. We bitch about Kerry's stickling for details on a military funding bill of 87 billion (roughly 2500 times the 35 mil we're sending to asia for disaster relief) to fund a war using a military that is still under-armored, under-paid and undeservedly f*cked over.
This poor vet had to sell out his financial future to save his family, the suffering millions in tsunami-ravaged Asia have to shame us into coughing up almost enough to pay for a day's party for brush-boy, but Halliburton can overcharge us 61 million, not pay it back and continue with business as usual?
Brother...can you spare some humanity?
posted by: LowerManhattanite on 12.29.04 at 12:20 PM [permalink]
When interest reaches this level it is called "vigorish".
posted by: Shag from Brookline on 12.29.04 at 02:13 PM [permalink]
We should help even if we get NOTHING out of this. Bush and the neocons will do whatever is in HIS/THEIR political self-interest. (I suspect that they are looking at it as a SIGN of coming rapture.) Take my tax cut (though it's probably not worth much) and send it ASAP to help.
We should help even if the US gets NOTHING out of it. Bush and his neocon lackeys will do whatever is in THEIR political self-interest. (I suspect they see this as a possible sign of the endtimes and rapture.) Send my little tax break ASAP to help!!!!
