Maybe you should go talk to your government then, they waste far more of your tax dollars than all of the Katrina victims put together, including all their relatives, neighbours and all the people they don't know or ever will.

Seems that FEMA is caught between a rock & a hard place.

Perhaps their mind-set & culture needs a radical change,
in an effort to get relief & money & resources out to the victims quickly
The FEMA org. expected that the storm victims were an honest lot,
and gave the benefit-of-any-doubt to the victim making a claim.

not only the sex change stuff you've noted, but there was one person
investigated who made $139,000.00 from 13 different (fraudulent) claims
made to the FEMA relief effort....
let 'em have that short 'day in the sun' & splurge that illgotten gain...

& then when he/she is caught, lock 'em up and throw away the key,
for at least 2 decades...make an example of all those wanton thieves.

as all these scheemers & scammers get discovered, it occurrs to me that
many of the screams and rants, blaming FEMA bureacuracy and slowness...
was just the disgruntled moans of dubious citizens who missed out on
successfully 'playing' or 'swindling' the relief agencies, FEMA, SBA, or
numberous other NGOs & faith based disaster relief groups.

You know
as well as I, that the street-grapevine is a up-to-the-minute news source,
one can learn rather quickly where the bleeding hearts are giving away $$,
or where you can change those free food-stamps for cash,
or where you can spend them for beer or liquor.
there is an expected and accepted level of misuse of help & charity
& up to now the safeguards & oversights were enough to dissuade rampant abuses


but the trick, imo, is to find that balance

I just read about this. I tell you, this is so ridiculous. Then there's the guy that used one of our cemeteries as his address! I do feel like FEMA was in a bad spot at that point though. Their public image was really messed up from everything that happened down here, and then they knew they were going to have to save face somehow. I really think that they were so giving with the money for that main reason. I can't blame them, there was a million furious people just in my metro area alone.

A sex change though, using a cemetery as your address, and buying Louis Vuitton handbags... that is only a hint of things that I am sure are going to come out. If it makes anyone else feel better, I used the little bit that I got correctly. Rent until my job opened back up, I was even fair enough to send them copies of my receipts and a two page thank you letter. I think that they should require everybody to show receipts. Even if they misused some of it from its original purpose (say they bought some groceries), they should send the receipts. If they receipts show that the money was not used properly, time to go on a "no more money" list. Those that purposely scammed, jail time, no less.

Thank you for using the money the way it should have been used. The problem with requiring receipts, is that they can be counterfeited also. All one would need to do is buy something small and insigificant at a store, and then replicate it but with more items bought.

They would need a system set up where they would recieve a card, and not be able to use it except for certain things like the PA Access card for recieving food stamps. Then items costing over a certain amount would have to be pre-authorized somehow, but without a long wait. I would hope allowences would be made for medical, dental, and vision needs. Yes I included vision, because I wonder how many poor souls lost eyeglasses, and/or contact lenses during the storm. Heaven forbid if any of them had those disposiable contacts.

Things such as rent and utility payments shouldn't even have to go through the person's hand. Money allocated for rent and other monthly payments would go directly to the landlord and/or utility companies. That way there would be that much less of a chance to abuse what is given to someone.

It sucks that it takes away freedom to be able to buy what you feel is necessary. But when people abuse the system like those people did, there has to be more accountability not only on FEMA's part but the recipent's part also. A few people ruin it for everyone else, and make it a future logistical nightmare for those who are trying to help.

PS: nightboy82, that avatar is scary man.

The problem is with the cards, mysterylady, is that the Red Cross distributed theirs, and at the time told me (I can't speak for everyone else), that I was not to withdraw cash with this card. Then what do you think they gave me? A PIN number!

It's hard to think of an idea to make this service easier to monitor without making up a database of everyone's information available to these third parties. I also looked up the price of a sex-change, and the median price for male to female is $40,000. Female to male, $80,000. So that is quite a hefty sum to have recieved, and quite frankly I don't know how that much could have been recieved unless multiple claims were made. I know this, I would have needed to apply many many times to get that much money.

I found the document with the legal warnings, when I scan it this morning, I'll put it on this thread with an edit.