Surprise, surprise, surprise....

water

Flaccid Member
Oct 29, 2004
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This absolutely floors me.

This is money you all worked hard to earn going right into these people's pockets.


http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/14/fema.audit/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A $200 bottle of champagne from Hooters and $300 worth of "Girls Gone Wild" videos were among items bought with debit cards handed out by FEMA to help hurricane victims, auditors probing $1 billion in potential waste and fraud have found.
The cards -- given to people displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- also bought diamond jewelry and a vacation in the Dominican Republic, according to the Government Accountability Office audit.
The GAO uncovered records showing that $1,000 from a FEMA debit card went to a Houston divorce lawyer; $600 was spent in a strip club and $400 was spent on "adult erotica products," all of which auditors concluded were "not necessary to satisfy legitimate disaster needs."
The GAO found that at least $1 billion in disaster relief payments by the Federal Emergency Management Agency were improper and potentially fraudulent because the recipients provided incomplete or incorrect information when they registered for assistance.
The GAO said the scope of the problem may be even larger, because it only looked at the validity of registration information and not at other forms of potential fraud.
FEMA acknowledged its shortcomings late Tuesday.
Spokesman Aaron Walker said FEMA has "revamped the registration process" and has a contract with a company that will verify immediately the identity and address of anyone for assistance.
"We are confident in the system we have in place at this point," Walker said. "We are prepared for the upcoming season."
The GAO also found that FEMA provided housing assistance to people who were not displaced, including at least 1,000 prison inmates, and also provided rental assistance to people who were simultaneously living in free hotel rooms.
Results of the GAO's audit will be presented Wednesday to an investigative panel of the House Homeland Security Committee. FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
The GAO also found that FEMA lost track of 750 debit cards, worth a total of $1.5 million.
After inquiries from the GAO, FEMA recovered about half of that money, which had not been distributed by JPMorgan Chase, the bank hired to run the program. But the agency still cannot account for 381 cards, worth about $760,000 total, which JPMorgan Chase says it distributed, according to the GAO.
GAO investigators estimated that 16 percent of FEMA's disaster relief payments were made to people who submitted invalid registrations, to the tune of about $1 billion. Because the figures were calculated using a statistical sample, however, the agency said the amount could range from $600 million to as much as $1.4 billion.
Among other problems found with the registrations, according to the GAO study:

People signed up for assistance using Social Security numbers that didn't exist or belonged to other people.

Aid applications contained bogus addresses for damaged property, or gave addresses for damaged property where the applicants did not live when the hurricanes struck. In one case, FEMA paid nearly $2,360 to a man whose allegedly damaged property was in a cemetery.

Payments were made to people who listed post office boxes as their damaged residences.

People submitted duplicate registrations, which FEMA did not detect.

More than 1,000 registrations used the names and Social Security numbers of prison inmates. According to the GAO, in one instance, FEMA paid $20,000 to a Louisiana prisoner who listed a post office box as his damaged property.
As part of its audit, the GAO used an undercover registrant who submitted a vacant lot as a damaged address.
FEMA paid the registrant $6,000 and even made payments after being notified by one its own inspectors, as well as an inspector for the Small Business Administration, that the damaged property could not be found, the GAO investigators found.
The GAO concluded that the potentially fraudulent payments were made because FEMA did not validate registrants' identities and the locations and ownership of purportedly damaged property.
While conceding that FEMA acted out of the need to provide assistance quickly, GAO investigators said the agency's own policies required additional verification before continuing payments.
The GAO study also found FEMA improperly provided rental assistance to people who were staying in hotels paid for by FEMA because the agency did not require hotels to collect Social Security numbers and FEMA registration information.
Without that information, FEMA could not verify if people were staying in hotels when they applied for rental assistance.
And because that information doesn't exist, GAO auditors said they could not determine how many people might have double-dipped -- or how much it cost the government.
Copyright 2006 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
 
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So wait, let me see if I got this straight.

FEMA hands out cash equivalent cards.
Cards are received by the unwashed masses.
The unwashed masses used these cash equivalent cards to buy things other than milk and toilet paper?

*boggle*

People taking advantage of the government's charity? How is this possible? This sort of thing has never once happened before in the current welfare system.

/sarcasm
 
Im sure that the pople that abused these cards are the same ones on the news here in houston pissing and moaning because fema is cutting off the free rent theve been getting for the last year. Heaven forbid they should get a fucking job and take care of themselves.
 
Drool-Boy said:
But are they going to do anything about it?

The answer is, of course, "no".


so what COULD they do? i'm sitting here, trying to figure out how the system could be upgraded. it's so difficult to come up with something that would work. what are y'all's ideas?
 
It was as amazing an idea as the $100 for everyone who drives to help them with this so called "gas crises".

It was obviously doomed from the start and a waste of the tax payers money, but then again, what isn't?
 
Thorn Bird said:
so what COULD they do? i'm sitting here, trying to figure out how the system could be upgraded. it's so difficult to come up with something that would work. what are y'all's ideas?
I think the idiots that came up with that stellar plan should have to cover the 'fraudulent' expenditures out of their own pocket, that way maybe they would actually go after the people that abused it.
 
ChikkenNoodul said:
I think the idiots that came up with that stellar plan should have to cover the 'fraudulent' expenditures out of their own pocket, that way maybe they would actually go after the people that abused it.

i think going after the people that abused it is great in theory, but think of the number of people that weren't honest or accurate with their information. i'd almost think it would be nearly impossible to track down a high percentage of real abusers. it seems hopeless.
 
Drool-Boy said:
But are they going to do anything about it?

The answer is, of course, "no".

For those parasites that are content to suckle from the teat of the government, I think we should cut off the abuser's access to an equal amount of welfare or disbility payments until the debt is paid back WITH INTEREST.

For those that are just scammers and not on welfare, if they can be identified, they should be arrested and put in jail and have their assets seized and auctioned off to repay the debt.

Brutal? Maybe.
Fair? Definately.
Tolerant? Who me?
 
Thorn Bird said:
i think going after the people that abused it is great in theory, but think of the number of people that weren't honest or accurate with their information. i'd almost think it would be nearly impossible to track down a high percentage of real abusers. it seems hopeless.
Exactly my point, but if you make it personal for the super smart people that come up with these harebrained ideas - then they'd take their own time to go after 'em

I honestly have more disdain for the people in government that arrange this kind of crap than the people that take advantage of it. :fly:
 
I look at the opposite spectrum of this...

"Oh shit we spent a billion dollars of the tax payers money at a strip club Bill"

"Thats ok George we will just blame it on Monica, oh wait Katrina was the one that blew New Orleans"
 
Thorn Bird said:
so what COULD they do? i'm sitting here, trying to figure out how the system could be upgraded. it's so difficult to come up with something that would work. what are y'all's ideas?

Um, I guess the "refugees" could've gone out and gotten jobs or something. I know that's a crazy and totally unbelievable idea, but it may have worked.

Or the government could've hired them as part of the cleanup effort and paid them a competitive wage for their part in it.
 
KNYTE said:
Um, I guess the "refugees" could've gone out and gotten jobs or something. I know that's a crazy and totally unbelievable idea, but it may have worked.

Or the government could've hired them as part of the cleanup effort and paid them a competitive wage for their part in it.



*gasp* How dare you suggest that the poor,poor, delicate refugees work for something! By golly its their god given right to demand government handouts!
 
Fat Burger said:
No shit. "No work, no food"

Where's John Smith when we need him?
johns2.jpg


Ing-er-lund
 
Drool-Boy said:
*gasp* How dare you suggest that the poor,poor, delicate refugees work for something! By golly its their god given right to demand government handouts!
Incentives are good, handouts are not.