When called to testify on Capitol Hill, representatives of military associations typically appear voluntarily to urge lawmakers to improve military pay and benefits. Compliments are exchanged and the atmosphere is unfailingly cordial.
Nothing of the sort, however, occurred on 26 July at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Social Security of the House Ways and Means Committee. Representatives of The Retired Enlisted Association (TREA), the ninth-largest U.S. veterans service organization, appeared under subpoena to explain their role in what lawmakers contend has been a systematic effort to bilk senior citizens.
Lawmakers and federal investigators said TREA, through a “special project” group called the TREA Senior Citizens League, uses misleading information to entice elderly Americans to donate cash and add their names to mailing lists that TREA then rents to other organizations.
The pitch TREA employs to persuade persons over age 75 to contribute money and join a Social Security “notch victims registry” is “abhorrent and…highly unethical,” said Representative E. Clay Shaw (R-FL), subcommittee chairman.
Representative Gerald D. Kleczka (D-WI) promised to introduce legislation that would pull TREA’s charter as a tax-exempt veterans’ organization.
“Why are you asking [seniors] for this [registry] information,” Kleczka pressed TREA witnesses. “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!”
Taking the heat were George Smith, board chairman of TREA’s Senior Citizens League, and Michael J. Zabko, who was executive director of the league until his dismissal in February 2001. The Senior Citizens League and its fund-raising methods first attracted the attention of federal investigators in early 2000 after the Social Security Administration (SSA) began fielding complaints from seniors across the nation over a pair of fliers. Written by persons still unknown, they appeared in churches, senior centers, nursing homes, government offices, and ultimately in some newspapers and magazines. Seniors were directed to mail completed fliers to the league’s post office box address.
One flier stated falsely that the government was paying cash under “the Slave Reparation Act” to descendants born before 1927. The other aimed at “notch babies,” Americans born between 1917 and 1921 (or 1926 as the flier incorrectly alleged) who fall under a less generous formula for calculating Social Security benefits. This flier promised recipients a choice of higher benefits over five years of $5,000 in cash paid in installments over four years.
James G. Huse, SSA’s inspector general, said 29,000 seniors mailed the hoax fliers to the Senior Citizens League with personal information. Some even attached copies of Social Security cards, driver licenses, and birth certificates. An investigation failed to uncover the sources of the hoax and the league’s eight-member staff denied involvement.
Indeed, Smith testified that TREA and the Senior Citizens League were victims of the hoax themselves and reacted to it appropriately in several ways. The league launched a public relations campaign to warn seniors. It began its own investigation, ultimately unsuccessful, to find the perpetrators of the hoax. It mailed a denial and clarifying information to hoax victims.
But that follow-up mailing only deepened interest among investigators and lawmakers to take a closer look at the Senior Citizens League’s fund-raising techniques.
“We became concerned,” Huse told the panel, “when we learned that [the Senior Citizens League] had directed its data processing contractor to enter all the victims’ personal information into a database. [They] then sent recipients of the fliers a letter denying responsibility for the hoax that included solicitation for funds to support [the league’s] campaigns.
League officials refused to “discontinue the keying of personal information into its database” when SSA objected, Huse said. The subsequent mailing led to the league collecting money from some of the hoax victims. Smith said the money will be returned if donors request it. The original completed fliers were turned over to SSA. The league promises to destroy the personal data it compiled from the hoax fliers when SSA directs.
TREA itself has approximately 100,000 members, most of them retired enlisted. But the Senior Citizens League, begun by TREA seven years ago, has a donor list of 1.3 million elderly Americans, most of them persons who hope to gain better Social Security benefits through a legislative victory. League brochures suggest victory is near; lawmakers with jurisdiction over the issue say victory is very unlikely.