Skip to main content

Veterans Day is almost here and it’s a fitting time to honor veterans for their service. It’s also a good reminder that scammers may be targeting you as a veteran. Of course, many of the scams that impact civilians hit veterans as well. But scammers also try to get in your good graces by emphasizing — maybe even stretching the truth about — their time in service. They hope to gain your trust so you won’t stop and ask questions about their pitches.

Some dishonest businesses set their sights on the monetary benefits veterans get for their service, especially with the passing of the PACT Act, which expands VA benefits and health care for veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances.

According to the Veterans Benefits Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), some companies advertise on TV and social media, offering assistance with filing claims — particularly for presumptive conditions or for toxic exposures — in return for a fee or a guaranteed percentage of your benefits. But you don’t need to pay to file a claim. VA can assist you — or help you identify a VA-recognized organization or VA-accredited individual to help you with your claim. Submit your application securely online via VA.gov or in person at a VA Regional Office. There is no cost for the forms and no fee to apply. VA will never charge you to apply for the benefits.

Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs) and representatives are available to assist in filing claims. To help guard against fraud and scams, validate the credentials of anyone offering to help you with a VA claim by using the Office of General Counsel’s Accreditation Search tool or by contacting your local representative or VA Regional Office.

As we lead up to Veterans Day, watch this space for more posts about other deceptive practices targeting veterans: small business scams, charity scams, and bank impersonator scams. If you run into one of these scams, or if you suspect that someone is not telling you the whole truth about applying for VA benefits, the FTC wants to know. Report it to us at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.

The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.

  • We won’t post off-topic comments, repeated identical comments, or comments that include sales pitches or promotions.
  • We won’t post comments that include vulgar messages, personal attacks by name, or offensive terms that target specific people or groups.
  • We won’t post threats, defamatory statements, or suggestions or encouragement of illegal activity.
  • We won’t post comments that include personal information, like Social Security numbers, account numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. To file a detailed report about a scam, go to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.

Carlos Delroy …
October 28, 2022

I appreciate you on informing me about pit-falls/scammers on the prowl to take advantage of Veterans in their later years whom are in search of help financially

Vishwa Pandagle
October 28, 2022

Hi,

This is such a wonderful initiative for Veterans.