Pentagon's Debt Collectors Accused of Ripping Off Soldiers

[RamboLiberal]

Source: ABC News

U.S. soldiers and veterans have been illegally hit up by Pentagon debt collectors for millions of dollars in payments over military credit card debt, according to the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

"It is shocking that a U.S. government agency would illegally take this money from veterans who have served our country well," said Deepak Gupta of Public Citizen.

Public Citizen and consumer lawyers have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Army and Air Force Exchange Services (AAFES), which issues credit cards to U.S. service members to buy goods at military stores. The suit alleges that AAFES improperly took money from military credit card users for expired debt and inflated penalties and fees. Unlike civilian debt collectors who use phone calls and letters to try to collect payment, the military simply deducted the money from service members' government benefits or tax refunds, the suit contends.

"To take away these benefits because of old debt incurred during military service to buy things like uniforms and equipment is outrageous," said Gupta.

Lead plaintiff Julius Briggs, a veteran of Operation Desert Storm, said that AAFES illegally withheld more than $2,300 from his disability payments. According to the suit, Briggs' debt was too old to collect, and AAFES also hit him up with inflated interest rates and penalty fees. Briggs claims the withheld money caused him to miss his housing payments, leaving him temporarily homeless.


Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4591406&page=1

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Way to Support the Troops! :sarcasm:

[sakabatou]

1. Suprise, suprise!

Not. :puke:

[libodem]

2. that's macabre

how predatory and ghoulish, indentured servants. No wonder they are suicidal. Reenlist or go bankrupt. Monsters!

[Karenina]

26. An ongoing scam... This is from 2002

http://www.alternet.org/story/13842/

Ordered Into Debt
Pentagon Brass Force Credit Debt On Soldiers and Sailors

Geoffrey Gray is a writer based in New York City. His work has been published in The New York Times, New York Magazine, and The Village Voice.

The numbers were staggering: $3,400 for a sumo-wrestling outfit, $16,000 for a corporate golf membership, $38,000 in cash advances for lap dances. All were part of a $101 million shopping spree made with "government purchase cards," the U.S. military's version of corporate credit cards -- another made-for-media scandal of reckless Defense Department spending.

But throughout congressional hearings on the topic in July, the real scandal with the military's other piece of plastic, the Government Travel Card (GTC), went ignored by the mainstream press, despite the fact that the card has plunged thousands of ordinary servicemen and servicewomen into debt so deep that the Pentagon is busy garnishing the wages of its own soldiers. And the only military commander known to raise hell about the scheme -- a lone Air Force colonel based in the Midwest -- says that blowing the whistle on the GTC ruined her career.
"The desperate rush to privatization has a million warts."

Lower in the ranks, the damage has been considerable. U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan have found themselves stranded in the desert without a dime because their credit was suddenly cut off, according to a May 29 report in the Military Times, leaving families behind in a nasty catch-22: Swallow the debt, or borrow more money to pay the bills so their credit wouldn't be ruined.

Concocted by Congress in 1998, the GTC was designed to privatize the accounting of federal travel expenses and touted to save taxpayer money. (It also reaps huge fees by the financial conglomerates that issue the cards.) It works like this: Servicepeople are ordered to apply for personal GTCs -- interest-free credit cards issued exclusively by the Bank of America. Instead of requesting vouchers or getting cash to pay for travel expenses, servicepeople pay up front with the their own GTC cards -- essentially floating interest-free loans to the government. As a result, they have to submit expense reports and wait for reimbursements.

But reimbursements often come late, according to a report issued in March of 2002 by the General Accounting Office, which means the GTC bills aren't always paid on time and servicepeople are getting branded as "delinquents." The GAO found "substantial" delays in reimbursements; in one command unit, for example, the California National Guard failed to pay its personnel within a month 61 percent of the time, and of those payments, 42 percent were inaccurate. (more at link)

http://www.alternet.org/story/13842/

[indepat]

3. What jerks, no, what utter fuck heads are such lovely s. o. b.s who would authorize/do such

as this. :mad: :grr:

[Kaleko]

4. Outrage overload.

Our volunteer army just didn't get the memo from the top brass, I suppose.


"Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy."

- Henry Kissinger

[wordpix]

23. ditto here---numbness setting in---another outrage, another day in BushWorld

:grr:

[AnneD]

5. Some one cue up...

Earnie Ford to sing Sixteen Tons

"You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"

[SpiralHawk]

6. Following the orders of Commander AWOL & republicon chickenhawks

just shameful....republicons demonstrate again what they really think about our sons and daughters in uniform...

[DissedByBush]

18. Not the Republicans this time

The AAFES slide into greed got into high gear under Clinton. AAFES owned everything by the time he left office, converted to this credit card scheme during his presidency.

The Republicans have shown us how much they hate our soldiers in different, more deadly, ways.

[SpiralHawk]

20. I disagree. The republicons have held the reins for nearly 8 years

They cannot weasel out of responsibility -- and no way will I accept the lame buck passing of: The Clenis Did it.

If Clinton did start it, then the republicons have continued it for 8 freaking years...

[DissedByBush]

21. It was mostly complete by the end of Clinton's time

I saw it in the early-mid 90s with the takeover of the book store and Class 6, the switch to the credit card, taking over various MWR activities, quality and service doing down, sell, sell, sell no matter what. The Republicans did continue this, but you can't blame the creation of the situation on them.

I remember the AAFES of the 80s as relatively benign. I didn't start hating AAFES until the 90s when it started trying to become Wal-Mart, purely profit-driven. So they give some back to MWR, big deal. They rip off far more than that from the soldier. The Army spends tens of millions giving AAFES facilities too.

[Subdivisions]

7. Why does the Pentagon hate our soldiers? n/t

[GoldenOldie]

10. "They volunteered"

You wouldn't want the Pentagon Contract Officers waste their valuable time going after the billions of dollars lost/stolen by Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, etc., etc. It's much simpler going after the lowly fighting soldier, who is to busy just trying to survive. After all, the fighting soldiers and veterans, the "Volunteers," really have no one that will standup and fight to protect their asses and their wallets.

Thought the VietNam vets were shafted! These war profiteers have taken shafting of our military for fun and profit to levels we have never seen before.

[madrchsod]

8. why am i not surprised?

[Submariner]

9. Heckuva job Bushy

Do the planet a favor and resign you chickenhawk coward.

[Wizard777]

11. Yet KBR bills teh pentagon 600 million for work that wasn't done at a base that doesn't exist.

They were allowed to keep 120 million of that. Now they are billing the Pentagon 45.00 per can of coke.

[jmowreader]

12. Oh God. It's not the Pentagon. It's AAFES.

Or, as I like to call it, AAFE$--the only retailer in America that can make Wal-Mart look good. These people have always been scumbags, and apparently they've gotten worse.

The program they're referring to is Military Star, which used to be called Deferred Payment Plan, or DPP. The fuckheads at AAFE$ bought a congressman many years ago, and got the ability to send bad checks written in the PX directly to Finance for repayment. Which extended into "send late DPP payments to Finance." And now it's "send late Military Star payments to Finance."

[Stalwart]

13. It's a Non-Appropriated Fund Activity

And it has the strangest relationship to the military. A relationship that has grown up over a long period of time and expanded into areas far beyond its beginning scope of providing consumer necessities on base. That has happened because it is a commercial operation that has totally lost sight of its initial mission.

The entire organization, mission and relation to appropriated government funding needs to be examined but I doubt there is anybody that will touch it with a ten foot pole. The Military Star program and using the government to collect opens a can of worms that should rightfully bite somebody bad.

AAFES is not such a good deal anymore. Profits go to welfare and rec but I doubt if the operation would stand up to an audit. Sales are tax free. A simple look at cost of operations and sales always makes me wonder why there are not more profits.

$8.9 billion in sales 2006 from which there was about 5% profit ($427 million) of which $228 million went to military welfare and recreation. Not much out of all those billions but we don't get much for billions anymore. AAFES would say the real payoff is the good deals at AAFES for their customers.

That $228 million is considered an annual "dividend" of $229 to each military member, evidently active duty only counted. Not much as a bottom line for profit. AAFES hypes their great prices. Not that great. There should be more money going into welfare and rec.

Source for sales, profit and "dividend": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_and_Air_Force_Exchange_Service

This wikipedia page really needs some attention to objectively and comprehensively describe AAFES

[DissedByBush]

14. AAFES is strange

As you said, it had a good initial mission, and executed it faithfully. But over the last decade or so it's gotten to be more like big business, and always trying to expand its sales base and influence. It took over Class 6 (liquor store) and the book store, and prices went up and things got worse. It schemes against MWR activities that sell good stuff to soldiers at low prices to take over that competition (Mainz Kastel in Germany comes to mind). What was an internal credit line turned into a fully-reported credit card, with limits that magically keep going up.

Okay, it was really cool that in the Gulf War a 5-ton loaded with stuff pulled up and a guy jumped on the tail gate with a cash register so I could get things while stuck in the middle of the desert (batteries!). So they still do (or at least did) some things right.

[Stalwart]

15. Mission and Service

The satellite exchanges at Camp Pendleton are a good example of fundamental mission and service and maybe all that the any BX should be. Get the fluff stuff off base unless the base is isolated. There used to be a number of commercial services (!!) just outside the main gate. Maybe there should be big box stores there now.

Glad to know that BX mission and service still exists when and where needed!

Does anyone remember when all that good stuff at welfare and rec was free to use?

The $229 annual "dividend" to each service member paid to welfare and rec really looks like less when service member families are also included in the equation. Since it is a dividend to welfare and rec the total dividend should be divided by sevice members plus dependents. Less than a hundred bucks per that way. Not much to show for what is spent.

AAFES views the service member as a profit unit. It satisfies "wants" far beyond needs or retail activity that benefits the performance of official military base mission.

Needs are relatively constant. AAFES would have never grown if that is all they were in business to satisfy.

[jmowreader]

16. The exchanges at Camp Pendleton don't belong to AAFES

They belong to the Marine Corps Exchange. That's an organization that hasn't forgotten what it's there for.

If you'd like to see how I know, google "Marine Corps MOS 4131." Exchange Marine. No shit.

My last post was Fort Drum. Oh God. Fucking AAFE$ owns that place. The Army paid over a billion dollars to build the cantonment area for the 10th Mountain, and one of the things they built was a really nice recreation center. It had all the things an Army rec center should have--pool tables, TVs, a place to read, a piano...everything. And they built a nice bowling alley, a skills development center with a woodshop and all that...

Then in comes AAFES to take over the Morale, Welfare and Recreation operation on post. Next thing you know, the only place you could go to do any of the things you can do on any other installation, for free, is at a bar--because they closed the rec center. They had two of them--one "rock bar" that only played rap, and one "sports bar" that only played rap. (The difference was the sports bar had pictures of athletes on the walls, and the rock bar had fake gold records.)

AAFES did manage to forget to bring in a taxi service to bring GIs home. They convinced the Commanding General that the buses only needed to run between the housing areas and the PX, and they managed to "forget" to build a movie theatre within five miles of the division barracks. They did manage to build three liquor stores, though. When they say there's nothing to do at Fort Drum but drink, They Aren't Kidding.

Anyway, within three months of AAFES taking over all the MWR functions on Fort Drum, Fort Drum had the Army's highest DWI rate. No one could figure out why.

[DissedByBush]

17. Fort Drum = Hell

I've known a lot of soldiers who were stationed there, and I haven't heard even one good word about it. I thankfully never got stationed there.

I'm kind of glad I got out before AAFES got too power hungry. I only got to see the beginning of the madness.

[Heywood J]

22. I think

we've actually got someone on here that drives taxi around Ft. Drum, don't we?

[bluesmail]

19. So?

incomprehensible, the money they put into think tanks to come up with something so bizarre. Blatant evil.

[samsingh]

24. that's disgusting

[Rex]

25. They don't care about the grunts, just a number.

And if they can punish and humiliate vets, then they will. Obviously they can't keep the grass mowed, but can steal from injured soldiers...