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Wilmington News Journal


Scams against military in focus
Events educate service members

1:12 AM, Jan. 21, 2012 |


Holly Petraeus said a military family's situation can bring crisis.
Holly Petraeus said a military family's situation can bring crisis.


Written by
DOUG DENISON
The News Journal


• Filed Under


• Local
• Beau Biden


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Scammers and fraudsters all have their specific marks -- the people they think are most likely to fall for their schemes. A mark is usually someone vulnerable, like a trusting senior citizen or an unwise college student, who can be taken in by the promise of a deal that sounds too good to be true.

Members of the U.S. military are supposed to be anything but vulnerable; they're trained to be strong, show leadership and make smart decisions.

But the lifestyle of an average active service member leaves some openings for scammers to exploit.

At a pair of events in Delaware on Friday, Attorney General Beau Biden teamed up with Holly Petraeus from the newly created federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to talk about some of the financial pitfalls facing military personnel.

Petraeus, wife of CIA director Gen. David Petraeus, runs the Office of Service Member Affairs in the CFPB, a position she was appointed to a year ago.

She said scams and financial exploitation targeting military personnel is a big problem.

At a town hall session with airmen at Dover Air Force Base on Friday, Petraeus and Biden heard Senior Master Sgt. Patrick Piazza describe how a young airman in his unit was lured into a 26 percent loan on a used car by a dealer who said he was a retired Air Force master sergeant.

"He was making payments on his down payment," Piazza said. "These guys know the position we're in, and they're kind of taking advantage."

Biden, a major in the Delaware National Guard who was deployed to Iraq in 2009, said schemers are looking for young service members with paychecks and relatively few expenses, since their room and board are paid for by the military.

"They know some of us returning from overseas come back with cash in our pocket. They think we're an easy mark," he said. "It's kind of a dangerous combination of young people with money coming off a plane from a war."

Petraeus also described how a military family's unique situation can bring about a financial crisis, even when they haven't fallen victim to a scam.

Like many Americans, a lot of military families owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, Petraeus said, but when a service member is transferred across the country, the situation worsens.

"They might be paying a mortgage and making it work, then they get orders [to transfer]," Petraeus said. "And they can't refinance the way someone could who is staying in the home."

Lenders usually offer mortgage modification plans if foreclosure is imminent, but those don't kick in until the borrower is delinquent.

But most military personnel can be stripped of their security credentials if they're delinquent on loans, Petraeus said.

Biden and Petraeus also spoke to Delaware National Guardsmen in New Castle County on Friday.

Petraeus said the visits helped her gather information on the difficulties facing military members and also offer advice.

"My job is to make sure military personnel and their families get the financial education they need," she said.

Contact Doug Denison at 678-4271, on Twitter @DoverDelDenison or at ddenison@delawareonline.com .