[BITList] dishonesty pays!

[CT's]

does dishonesty pay?
      apparently so – 160,000 tried it and were paid $643,000,000 [about $40,000 each on average].....................................!
      ct

    FEMA is urged to pursue $643 million in bogus payments after Katrina, Rita
    Published: Monday, January 03, 2011, 10:45 PM 
     By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune 

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency should move immediately to recoup $643 million from 160,000 applicants that the agency has identified as receiving improper disaster assistance payments after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other disasters since, Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner said in a report issued Monday. 

    Associated Press archiveIn September 2005, President George Bush listens to FEMA director Michael Brown during a briefing on damage from Hurricane Katrina in Mobile, Ala. 
    The money represents about 9 percent of the more than $7 billion in assistance paid to disaster survivors by FEMA since those two storms, according to the report, and was improperly paid as a result of inadequate FEMA internal controls, human error, mistakes and fraud.

    FEMA officials say they plan to try to recoup it, though it's unclear how successful the effort will be. 

    While a number of the improper payments were the result of individuals who used false names or addresses or other illegal actions, many also were the result of people who evacuated without family financial records receiving initial payments in the days and weeks immediately after Katrina and Rita, and then got similar payments from their insurance companies without understanding that such "double-dipping" was not allowed, FEMA officials said.


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