New Scam Targeting Military Spouses

[Jedburgh]

New Scam Targeting Military Spouses

...The caller (young-sounding, American accent) calls a military spouse and identifies herself as a representative from the Red Cross. The caller states that the spouse's husband (not identified by name) was hurt while on duty in Iraq and was med-evacuated to a hospital in Germany. The caller stated they couldn't start treatment until paperwork was accomplished, and that in order to start the paperwork they needed the spouse to verify her husband's social security number and date of birth.....

[goesh]

A man goes through life and after so many years of living, he thinks he has maybe seen the worst of the worse, until this comes along. I can only hope that if caught and convicted, these scum can be donated to the nearest zoo for lion food.

[Uboat509]

My wife is prior service herself. She would not fall for this but over the years I have met many a young spouse who would not know any better. The really sad thing about this is that I knew a number of guys who intentionally kept their spouses ignorant of anything military, even refusing to let them to go to FRG meetings or talk to other military wives. I never understood that. Those guys are only setting their wives and themselves up for failure. Scams like this are predicated on the ignorance of the victim about the way it really works.

SFC W

[Stan]

SFC W put it well, find a loophole and you'll find a sufficiently ignorant person on the other end.

The Military member should be keeping his/her significant other in the loop, but that's a family issue.

The military services pay little attention to spouses left behind in CONUS. As far back as 84, I remember DIA almost forcing spouses to participate in training scenarios and programs. What good is it getting the military member 'smart' and leave the spouse hangin' out to dry?

Yes, we could argue, "those were the days, when spies were spies'. Actually, I think they’re not only back, but also better equipped and more ruthless than ever before.

[Sargent]

The even more vulnerable target are the families of unmarried military members -- given the demographics of the military, this is a large and disparate audience, and they are mostly ignorant of many military processes and policies. I have had to deal with this unfortunate situation a lot during my husband's deployment.

As the KV (the only military wife-ly role I've ever volunteered for) for my husband's MTT, I included non-spouse family members in the contact group. I did this, in contravention of the rules, because I never did any of the training. I'm glad I did, because it would have been a lonely, sad group of 4 otherwise. And, as it turned out, when the "worst" happened, all the casualties were single. Had I not already established a relationship with these people I never would have been able to assist them. Now I am working to get the KV for the inbound team to follow suit.

The other thing that amazes me is the degree to which the military member will try to hide the truth of the situation they are being sent into. I can understand why -- an attempt to spare the spouse or family member pain -- but it's just ridiculous. Now, I understand that the degree of openness between my husband and me is a bit extreme, but it would probably be better to get closer to our example than the "keep my wife thinking everything's rosy" model. Yes, it's difficult to have to confront the things that are happening to and around my husband, but it's not as bad for me to hear as it is for him to experience! I would have to assume that having someone close to you that you can talk to about these things helps in the combat stress department, and it certainly helps to bridge the time and distance that come between a married couple during deployments. I can't imagine what it would be like to reunite with such a gaping chasm of known unspokens between us.

Anyway, I'm not sure I wanted to know _this_ much about my professional subject matter!

[120mm]

Sargent-

I applaud your efforts. Wished my Reserve Unit had someone like you, prior to my mobilization. As it was, it drifted along leaderless, which meant that FRG meetings were drunken, smoke-filled, bitch-fests that my non-drinking, non-smoking, positive-minded wife would shoot to kill if forced to attend.

I try to keep my spouse informed, but she has become very brittle when told something is "mandatory". the great majority of units I've belonged to have absolutely the wrong attitude toward spouses/dependents/significant others. Of course, I think they have nearly absolutely the wrong attitude toward their employees, (soldiers), but that's another subject entirely.