Needing Cash, Veterans Sign Over Pensions (read it and retch)

[Bozita]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/business/29vets.html

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December 29, 2004

Needing Cash, Veterans Sign Over Pensions
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES

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.

more...

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[NewYorkerfromMass]

5. we don't need no stink'in govt. regulations

that's the moral of this story. This is further proof of what unregulated predatory businesses can do.

[oscar111]

8. but, you see, he was desperate. So "amount too small to warrant.." does

does not apply. Frazzled folks dont think clearly nor shop around.

PS not so sure there are other details... such ripoffs common. Like , loans on houses just to sieze them for defaulting.
Like, state siezes ur farm if you cant pay 100 in tax.

Many ridiculous things happen daily.

Oh, also.. eviction cops daily toss out elderly folks too sick to keep their job and pay the rent.
Where is the MSM camera crew following the eviction squad for a day and showing it at 6 pm?

Or following medical bill collectors around as they knock on doors and harass the sick?

Or leaving hospitals with newborns and their homeless moms... to see how newborns live as homeless?

[haele]

2. Bonus Army, here we come!

Wonder if they'll manage to get the DC police and/or national guard to fire on the veterans that are going to set up their "Bushville condos" on the Mall again this time.

I thought these places were banned from either advertising in military publications or setting up near bases or base housing.
Military publications (especially publications like Stars and Stripes and "FITB" Times that are sold exclusively on bases) are - or were, when I was in - supposed to screen service ads to make sure that scam artists don't sneak in. I know they started allowing the payday lenders to advertise, but I thought it was only the ones that had established themselves to comply with regulations concerning non-mortgage lending.

I despise profiteers, especially any of those who prey on the desperate. And I equally despise those who would turn a blind eye and allow profiteers to continue their illegal (as well as unethical) practices for their own profit.

Haele

[Mika]

3. "a Florida financial services company"

What a suprise.

[Catchawave]

4. So that's what Loan Sharks are calling themselves these days!

"Financial Services Companies" will be handling our future Social Security accounts too:smoke:

[juliagoolia]

12. this company

http://cfpnotes.com/index.html

[mitchum]

14. The Sunshine State is a longtime refuge for grifters and mountebanks

not surprising at all, is it?

[ikojo]

6. Since most of the non officers in the military come from the

lower middle and working classes they may have no one in their family from whom to ask for help. This is yet another way that banks bilk and prey on the most financially vulnerable in our society.

As Michael Moore says in F 9/11...those who have the least in our society are asked to sacrifice the most.

Grrrr......

[oscar111]

7. Vets, many, homeless. Voters dont rally against it. "where is the outrage"

someone asked.

[Robbien]

9. Everyone is on an outrage overload

Every day there is more than a dozen things happening to be outraged about.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

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[seaglass]

20. I think you're confused about who is obsessed. n/t

[seaglass]

21. dupe n/t

[MsMagnificent]

22. It's not a problem of "SUPPORTING TROOPS"?

it's not deliberately cutting tons of funding while our people are at war, all the while paying lip service to *Supporting Said Troops*

it's because of the tenets of FREEDOM for EVERY American citizen that Democrats stand for?!

C'mon... you're slipping! Didn't Clinton do it? LMAO

Fucking typical BUSHit.

Sounds like SOMEONE is sure obsessing over sex! You're a real fucking closet case, aren't you!

So it's your duty, or the governments duty to legislate what goes on in the privacy of a bedroom?! Fuck you -- and I mean that in the absolute worst way.

Buddy -- I don't do sodomy, don't do fornication, FAR from hating all men, but nope, I sure do not like you!

Fuck off asshole!

I vote boot his skank azz just on bigotry alone.

[Name removed]

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[InvisibleBallots]

10. disgusting

These people should be in prison.

[jdj]

24. Does "support our troops" mean force them onto welfare?

[Stinky The Clown]

11. This is a PRIME example of how the "troops" are DISrespected

Fifty fucking six percent interest????????

Motherfucking SHYLOCKS

So, so many of my fellow veterans get shit on like this. It starts with the "strip" that exists outside every fucking military base in the world and extends to the streets of the "Heartland". Those who say they "Support the Troops" only support the fucking images of WAR. NONE of them support the "troop" as a man. And when they retire, ahhhhh fuck 'em.

From WWII, from Korea, from Vietnam ....... homeless. Pushed out of the VA hospitals they were promised. Agent Orange was a myth, they say. PTSD is a myth, they say. Move along, sailor. Thanks for your service, soldier, but now you're on your own.

Where is the outrage at this? Take the cost of those fucking yellow ribbons and give the money to agencies that actually RESPECT the troops.

They are just so much spent cannon fodder.

[mitchum]

13. Fucking parasites...

this is so wrong

[pinerow]

15. Tough doo-doo for those who voted their "moral values"

nt

[Dhalgren]

16. This is America.

This is how the new PNAC regime works, top to bottom. Get used to it. Wait for the hoards of elder Americans sleeping on the streets and committing suicide so as not to end their days in misery. The poor are to be ground down and the rich are to be exalted, that's the America that was voted into power this past November. No one should be surprised or upset. This is America - get used to it...

[NorthernSpy]

17. What do usurers deserve?

I long to see people who pull crap like this get their just comeuppance. They're destroying this country.

[NYC]

18. Unfettered greed.

What do the usurers deserve? Hard to say in public.

[Name removed]

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[silverpatronus]

26. i'm as pissed off as anyone about this, but...

i'm more pissed off about the fact that his military pension is only $1000 a month! how the h-e-double-hockey-sticks is he supposed to live on that?

[Robb]

27. Carefully, I suppose.

I pull it off at $200 less, but I'm not at the age where I'm staring into medical bills every day.

Doesn't seem enough; but then again, for me when it comes to vets, I'm not sure it ever would.

[Lena]

30. Pension

It depends on what the veteran's disability is. Decided by the VA who rates the disability.

If he gets rated 100% disabled, he's also deemed 100% disabled by Social Security.

Monthly rate for permanently disabled is a livable wage.

[oneighty]

28. Recently

an idea was floated in Congress to "Buy out" all disabled veterans. Plan would offer the disabled veteran a lump sum buy out of all benefits including health care.

Source VFW Magazine a couple of years ago.

180

[Lena]

29. Please read more.

Federal law prohibits retired military people from signing over their future pension payments to others.
**
Veterans are not dumb!!!!

There is much more to the story than what is written here!!!

[kc.ink]

31. WHEN IS ENOUGH GOING TO BE ENOUGH and we the people stand up

and quit letting this damned government to continue screwing us??

Blatant disregard for human life, the American poor who are homeless and jobless, the non-white of 3rd world countries, the aids annihilation in Africa, the pharmaceutical companies greed, oil countries greed, continued corruption of government and elections, the political games. . . . . . .. if we don't come together in a united fierce machine and take this democracy back THIS year, we can all kiss the Constitution goodbye and bury it with our memories of what once was.