By The Army Emergency Relief (AER) program is a non-profit that basically funded by donations from soldiers. I contribute money into it every month. The AER program uses the money to offer money to soldiers for emergency reasons. The most often reason in Korea is for money for soldiers to buy a plane ticket to fly back home due to death or illness in the family. AER will then decide whether to give a soldier a loan or an outright grant depending on the income status.
As usual one scumbag has found a way to ruin a good program:
An Army staff sergeant was sentenced to one year of confinement and a bad-conduct discharge Thursday after admitting he helped scam an Army relief program and soldiers under his command out of $6,000.
Staff Sgt. Shane R. Martin, 40, admitted in a general court-martial that since fall of 2005 he had helped three soldiers get money from Army Emergency Relief, an organization dedicated to helping soldiers in need. Then, he asked each of the three soldiers for a cut, he said under oath.
This guy was in cahoots with an AER employee to get soldiers to apply for a loan for reasons such as because a family is suffering from Hurricane Katrina related problems and then the AER official would give out the money and cut it three ways. I have to wonder how long this scam has been going on and how many more people have been getting away with it? There is obviously very little checks and balances in place if such a fraud could so easily take place.
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9:57 am on July 28th, 2007 1
[...] Drop: AER Scam ExposedPosted 4 hours agoThe Army Emergency Relief (AER) program is a non-profit that basically funded by [...]
3:05 am on July 28th, 2007 2
So AER is how guys can spend their whole paycheck on juicy girls, XBox, widescreen LCD HDTV's, etc. and still send money to the States and fly home on midtour leave?
I always wondered how that worked….
8:27 pm on July 28th, 2007 3
[...] [GI Korea] AER Scam Exposed Published: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 19:51:06 +0000 The Army Emergency Relief (AER) program is a non-profit that basically funded by donations from soldiers.?* I contribute money into it every month.?* The AER program uses the money to offer money to soldiers for emergency reasons.?* The most often reason in Korea is for money for soldiers to buy a plane ticket to fly [...] Read More… [...]
6:12 am on July 28th, 2007 4
Some of the accountability on this needs to go to the people signing the AER forms as well. Before I ever approved an AER loan I needed to have the doctor from the hospital call me and email documentation that the person is sick or has passed away. The vast majority of soldiers tell the truth about these things but you have to demand documentation in order to stop scumbags like this from taking advantage of the system.
9:16 am on July 28th, 2007 5
Classic!!
4:11 pm on July 28th, 2007 6
GIK, my point is that there are probably a lot of people signing and/or forging paperwork who are in on it…especially here in Corea, where integrity is bought and sold at ROK-bottom prices….
11:23 pm on July 28th, 2007 7
I am definitely going to think twice next time I'm asked to contribute to AER next time if I don't see any major fixes with this program.
5:34 am on November 10th, 2007 8
[...] have posted before about the fraud issue with the Army Emergency Relief program and, thanks to a reader, it appears [...]
7:33 pm on November 9th, 2007 9
AER is the scam!!
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/faili…
10:37 pm on November 9th, 2007 10
Thanks Bill, that report was really shocking at how little money is going to the troops. I have put up a follow up posting just now:
http://rokdrop.com/2007/11/10/veterans-charities-…