Military Update
Retired enlisted group grilled over alleged scam
Military Update focuses on issues affecting pay, benefits and lifestyle of active and retired servicepeople. Its author, Tom Philpott, is a Virginia-based syndicated columnist and freelance writer. He has covered military issues for almost 25 years, including six years as editor of Navy Times. For 17 years he worked as a writer and senior editor for Army Times Publishing Co. Philpott, 49, enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1973 and served as an information officer from 1974-77.
By Tom Philpott
The Retired Enlisted Association, through a "special project" group called the TREA Senior Citizens League, uses misleading information to entice elderly Americans to donate cash, and to add their names to mailing lists that TREA then rents to other organizations, according to lawmakers and federal investigators.
The pitch TREA employs, to get people older than 75 to contribute money and join a Social Security "notch victims' registry," is "abhorrent and highly unethical," concluded Rep. E. Clay Shaw (R-Fla.), chairman of the Social Security subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Rep. Gerald D. Kleczka (D-Wis.) threatened to introduce legislation that would pull TREA's charter as a tax-advantaged military association.
"Why are you asking (seniors) for this information," Kleczka pressed TREA witnesses during a July 26 hearing. "And don't tell me this is for members of Congress. I've been around here a couple three years now. You folks have been in existence, bilking seniors, since 1994 and I ain't never met you!"
On the hot seat were George Smith, board chairman of TREA's Senior Citizens League (TSCL), and Michael J. Zabko, who was executive director of TSCL until his dismissal in February.
TSCL and its fund-raising methods first attracted federal investigators in early 2000 after the Social Security Administration began receiving complaints from seniors across the nation over a pair of fliers. Written by persons unknown, they appeared in churches, senior centers, nursing homes, government offices and ultimately in newspapers and magazines.
Completed fliers were to be mailed to TSCL's post office box address. One flier falsely stated that the government was paying cash under "the Slave Reparation Act" to descendants born before 1927. The other targeted "notch babies," Americans born between 1917 and 1921 who fall under a less generous formula for calculating Social Security benefits.
The flier promised recipients a choice of higher benefits over five years or $5,000 in cash over four. James G. Huse, Social Security Administration inspector general, said 29,000 seniors mailed the hoax fliers to TSCL. Some even attached copies of Social Security cards, drivers licenses and birth certificates.
A Social Security Administration investigation failed to uncover the source of the hoax. TSCL's eight-member staff denied involvement.
Indeed, Smith testified that TREA and its affiliate were victims of the hoax and had reacted to it appropriately, with a public relations campaign that warned the public, its own unsuccessful investigation into the source of the hoax, and by mailing clarifying information to hoax victims.
TSCL sent recipients of the fliers a letter denying responsibility for the hoax that included a solicitation for money to support TSCL's campaigns." TSCL officials refused to "discontinue the keying of personal information into its database" when the Social Security Administration objected, Huse said.
The subsequent mailing led to TSCL collecting money off the hoax victims. Smith said the money will be returned if donors request it. The original completed fliers were given to the Social Security Administration. TSCL promises to destroy the personal data it compiled when the administration directs.
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