Hello all in the internet world…This is officially my first blog that I have ever written so forgive the crudeness it may exemplify….My Women’s Studies professor suggested that I start a blog after taking her class…Although, I always have something to say about everything 🙂 I decided to write this about my experiences over the last couple months while dealing with Veterans affairs and the U.S. Treasury…This may be long so bear with me…I am a mother of three and seven months pregnant with our fourth and LAST child..My husband got out of the army in May 2011 because of injuries that would prevent him from deploying again…He applied for disability before he got out of the military but it didn’t start being processed until after he was discharged…We moved from where he was stationed back to our home town….
After months of waiting and SEVERAL phone calls to the V.A. my husband goes to the doctor and is told that he was approved for disability..So he calls the V.A. back and is told that it is still in notification status and that we should be getting something in the mail…After waiting another month we find out that the people that processed his application not only disregarded our bank info to have it direct deposited but they also ignored the address that was provided and sent not only the notification but TWO checks to our former address where he was stationed…We finally get them to change it to direct deposit and receive one disability payment…When we asked about the lump sum payment that we were expecting that covered the back pay we were told that it was sent to our former address and that before they could reissue it that they had to do a skip trace on it…They do the trace on the check that was almost $5,300 dollars and it comes back that it has been cashed…My husband explains that we never got it and that he did NOT cash it…So the V.A. sends us a claim form along with a copy of the front and back of the check which was in no way shape or form my husband’s signature…
On the back of the check with my husband’s forged signature is a man’s name along with a business name of a car lot..I get online and look up this man’s name and business and call him and ask him why my husband’s check is in his account..He proceeds to tell me that my husband bought a car from him a month ago, when I explain to him that we have not even been in that area for 7 months he says that a woman came in claiming to be his mother and said that my husband gave her his disability check to buy a car and that he was in a nursing home in another city and could not come by to show identification..The car lot believes this bogus story and sells her a car for $3,400 and then gives her $1,800 in cash back…I get the name of the person claiming to be my husband mother from them and then call our previous landlord and find out the woman renting our old apt. is indeed the same woman who claimed to be my husband’s mother…She took a U.S. Treasury check and forged his name and convinced some idiot who owns a car lot to cash it for her and run it through his account….
Needless to say after a hundred phone calls,e-mails,and faxes the treasury realizes the check was stolen and takes it back out of the car lots account…Because of all of the investigating by ME the car lot was able to retrieve their vehicle and the police dept. put out two felony warrants on this woman..Now THIS is where it gets stupid..The check was received and forged in TN but she takes it to KY which is roughly 15 miles from where the check was delivered and cashes it there..The KY detectives go to her work in TN and help the car lot get the car back which was reported stolen…She makes a complete fool of herself yelling,screaming,and cussing the cops out and then calls six more people to come down there and help her go off on the cops..The TN cops are called down there by the detectives and they ask them to arrest her for the stolen car so they could finish up getting the felony warrants and they could extradite her the 15 MILES down the road…The TN cops refuse to arrest her and she gets to go home and get away with it…The two felony warrants from KY finally came through but the TN cops still have to arrest her for them..By now she is either long gone or the police will just ignore the warrants like they ignored the stolen vehicle charge…
So I think since the govt. has gotten the money back and it has been proven that the check was stolen they would reimburse us….NOPE!!!!! I call the Treasury dept. and they tell me the case was referred to secret service and it will take up to four months to get the report back from them…They tell me it was sent to secret service two and a half weeks ago…I then call the secret service and was told that it has not even made it to them yet…So I call back to the actual “MAN” handling the claim and he talks to me like something he stepped in to the point of bringing me to tears…He tells me that my husband has to send ANOTHER statement with his name written out like it was on the check even though his signature is a typical male signature and not legiable….You can’t even make out a letter in his signature which should be proof that it was not him..But this person wants him to write out his name letter by letter so a handwriting expert can make sure it was not signed by the same person…
When I ask why he needs to jump through all these hoops when the woman who stole the check and signed his name just has two warrants issued on her for check forgery and theft by deception over this check…I am told that NONE of that matters and that I should stop worrying about putting that woman in jail and do what he TELLS me so they we can get reimbursed for OUR money that is back in the Treasury’s possession!!!!!! I have spent hours,days,and now months gathering information to prove that my husband never got this check and to put the thief in jail…And I am told that nothing I have done matters to them…The criminal gets to go back home and get on Facebook and talk about how much God loves and blesses her, the car lot gets their car back, and we are the only ones left holding the bag and getting treated like we did something wrong because we want what is OWED to my husband who fought for this country!!!!! It amazes me how people that do nothing wrong get treated like criminals and the criminals get off with not even a slap on the wrist!!!!For those of you that hung in there till the end thanks for reading…I truly hope this never happens to anyone else because believe me when I say it will take everything you have to not let them break your spirit…..Welcome to America the only place where the Vets that fight for their country get treated worse than people on death row….
southernwoman77 