Have you been charged a fee to file a VA disability claim? As the number of fraudulent predatory companies and their boldness increases, VA remains vigilant against scams targeting Veterans’ entitlements. Particularly scams where unscrupulous entities may try to charge Veterans fees for accessing their benefits or helping Veterans file initial claims.
“Claim Predators” is the term VA uses to describe these aggressive companies or individuals that prey on Veterans and their loved ones and steal their disability entitlements. Predators will promise a 100% disability rating, unrealistic claim processing times, and charge thousands of dollars for services that trusted Veteran Service Organizations (VSOs) provide Veterans for free. Remember, only VA has the authority to determine disability ratings. VA is committed to informing Veterans about these exploitative practices, and emphasizing that Veterans and their families should not have to pay anything when they seek help in filing their initial benefit claims.
How to identify a claim predator
Claim predators target Veterans’ benefits via mail, telephone or online channels. Here are a few unlawful red flags to watch out for from entities that are not accredited by VA:
- Charging high fees: Predatory companies charge absurd fees or require you to pay them a portion of your VA benefits. You should never pay a fee to a file an initial claim for benefits.
- Making deceitful promises: No one can promise or guarantee a VA disability rating or an accelerated claims processing time.
- Require binding contracts: Never sign a contract to pay an unauthorized individual or company a percentage of your benefit payment in exchange for help with your VA claim.
The best way to prevent being preyed on is to educate yourself about these shady tactics and to be aware of these red flags.
How to protect yourself against claim predators
VA and accredited representatives provide free assistance to help you obtain the benefits you have earned. Veterans can shield themselves from fraudulent activities by being vigilant and adhering to a set of guidelines:
- Do not pay anyone to help you file an initial claim for benefits.
- Work with an accredited representative, Veteran Service Officer (VSO), or trusted attorney before filing a claim, appeal or providing personal information.
- Do not sign a contract agreeing to pay an unauthorized individual or company a percentage of your benefit payment in exchange for their assistance with your VA claim.
- Verify accreditation by utilizing the Office of General Counsel accreditation tool before filing a claim or providing personal information.
- Always review all forms and documents. Do not sign a fee agreement with someone or a company who refuses to sign a VA representation from (VA Form 21-22A).
- Understand accredited individuals may charge a reasonable fee for service regarding a denied claim; generally, no one should charge you a fee greater than 33%.
- Know you never have to make fee payments yourself. You can rely on VA’s direct payment process, where VA will directly pay your representative for securing your past-due benefits. If someone is unwilling to be paid that way, you should question why.
- Protect your personally identifiable information and never provide any systems login credentials, such as user IDs or passwords to VA.gov and eBenefits, to anyone to access your personal information.
- Be aware of companies that advertise they have special relationships with medical professionals and can guarantee your VA benefits award percentage.
How to report fraud
If you miss a VA benefits payment, identify a discrepancy in payments or find suspicious activity with your direct deposit account, contact VA immediately at 1-800-827-1000. If a Veteran or loved one has been the victim of fraudulent activity, they should immediately file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
- If you believe the attorney or claims agent that represented you did not earn the fee in your fee agreement or the fee was too high or unreasonable or both, you should immediately file a motion challenging the reasonableness of the fee.
- If you believe an accredited representative has acted in an illegal or unethical manner in assisting you in filing a VA benefit claim, you should immediately file a complaint regarding their conduct.
- Verify accreditation credentials to avoid unnecessary fees, dishonest promises, and keep your benefits safe! VA Office of General Counsel – Accreditation Search.
- VA has safeguards in place for Veterans’ benefits. Find out more information at the VSAFE website.
VA is dedicated to protecting Veterans from predatory practices. This commitment involves equipping Veterans with the necessary resources to recognize such practices, connecting them with accredited representatives to assist with their benefits claims, and providing support to both contest excessive fees and report unaccredited representatives. Remain vigilant and educate yourself about the proactive steps you can take to protect both yourself and your VA entitlements.
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Last but not least.
If there is any doubt that an injury is service connected or occurred at same time as a reinjury then that is a secondary connection entitled to full healthcare benefit for the injury.
You should treat injuries first and ask questions about monetary benefits later. When you have a practitioner in the healthcare system that is denying you assistance based on a current disability rating (mine was 1989) then there is really a problem.
Vso works in the next office to provider. If I can’t explain my problems within your construct I get no care and it just gets worse. Why can you not knock on that providers door and say “hey will you take care of this guy”?
I’m ready to retire now. Im still fortunate in other ways. I forgive the administration and vso in anchorage. Maybe I’ll make it back to my home and my family this year since you reauthorized care… 5 years later
I appreciate these articles. I’ve been listening for years. There are tons of them out there. I’d like to discuss accredited atty. I can hire one depending on their workload and being able to identify an obvious discrepancy. There is a charge for that prosecution of the claim tho and they make their money off of a veterans back pay. I’ve contacted 2 and one is directly affiliated with DAV and referred my cases back to DAV instead of helping me. The second atty readily took my case because there were obvious errors and omissions of my issues in the vba record. I cancelled my business with them because they were not doing anything different than what I was trying to do with a vso for 3 years. I don’t care about your money but I gotta say… a very poor representation of vso is dav alaska. What the va/vba/vso did is fumble my records and not schedule exams post recovery. It cost me the healthcare that should have been allowed for me to recover from several directly service connected disabilities. It crippled me. Lack of healthcare ended me up with a compartment syndrome and extreme changes in the original injury. If you want us to do a better job and stay in your system of connected people you have to do better. I’m actually almost 5 years along. I’ve lost my career work a home and any access to friends and family. Dav could have helped me
These people are not predatory. They simply charge a fee to pair the medical and legal evidence with VA’s requirements. I have had numerous claims denied when using VROs to file but the paid companies have been awesome. I was stuck at 30% for years and have reached 80 % because I sought help from an entity that knows how to navigate the system.
Useful article thanks
The ongoing problem is that some VA-accredited agents and attorneys practice exactly what this article warns against, and OIG rarely, if ever does anything about it. Fee aggreement “addendums,” undisclosed “retainer fees,” and ending representation but claiming entitlement to an agent/attorney fee for “work done” are common. The typical business model is 1) get the veteran to sign a VA-required “Agent/Attorney Fee Agreement;” 2) file the most complex and circulatory decision review request possible; 3) sit back and wait until compensation is granted and VBA withholds 20 percent of the veteran’s past- due benefit and pays it to the agent/attorney; and 4) do it again and again, no matter what the VBA decision is, to keep the gravy flowing. The honest, professional agents/attorneys who actively advocate and work for their veteran clients are a small number compared to the number who do next to nothing on the veteran’s behalf, but have VBA acting as their collection agency. The solution is for VBA to get completely out of the business of withholding and paying agent/attorney fees from veterans’ past -due benefits; agents/attorneys should collect their own fees; perhaps that would be incentive to do a good job. The maximum allowable fee should be standardized across all claims-processing federal agencies. VBA should get aggressively into the business of making the process transparent and understandable to claimants, who should be able to view their own electronic claim files and get answers to their questions in real time. OIG should continue to train, accredit, monitor and regulate agents/attorneys who want to represent veterans. Until VBA stops supporting the agent/attorney fee industry, veterans and claimaints should protect themselves by getting help first from Veterans Service Organizations, which never charge for claim assistance; avoid (like the plague) “agents” and attorneys who may run a stable of agents; and do the careful homework before hiring an attorney claiming to have expertise in veterans’ claims.
If filing a claim wasn’t such a complicated convoluted process, there would be no need to seek help from so called ‘claim predators’. If filing a claim is so quick and seamless these so called predators wouldn’t exist. I tried to file a claim online and it wouldn’t work. Said I needed a DHCP number which no one at the VA knew what that was or how you get one. Filed with pen and paper and snail mail. Still fighting with VES over mileage reimbursement for travel to and from a medical exam that took place on Feb. 21, 2024. Yet no one a the VA can contact VES. Why is that? The plain and simple truth is the VA does everything it can to complicate the claim filing process so that veterans will just give up and go away.
I agree with you 100% about what you said…The process is designed to see you fail or give up so they won’t have to help you. We are in The Information Age…it shouldn’t be anyway shape or form this hard to file a claim and get a rating for service connected issues. I knew the system was flawed when they send you to a contractor that doesn’t specialize in whatever your condition is that you’re being seen for…..so therefore your write up doesn’t fit the the requirements of the condition so you get denied for your claim, then you have to file an appeal, then you have to resubmit your claim, and wait and the cycle repeats for years on years in hopes of the service member dying or giving up due to lack of consistency or motivation because of so many failed attempts and you wonder why the suicide rates are steadily rising. Who has time for mind games like this? There needs to be a Social Media site just for these issues that continually haunt veterans about this broken system. This in itself is Systemic torture and don’t let me comment on the denied claims rate of our Black Kings and Black Queens…whom I know won’t speak up because of fear of back lash, especially if they have finally got their just due, but that’s a whole story in itself. Just give US Reparations and I’ll find my own doctor and get the medical help and benefits I deserve on my own…after all I did deserve at least that being a black veteran in this flawed system. We have been LIED to long enough!!! It needs to be FIXED Yesterday, not just for those veterans now, but for those that have come and gone and never got their just due and for those that will come in the future!!!!!!!!
I blame VBA, they are the ones not approving claims unless the veteran inputs a Nexus Letter in the claim, making veterans pay hundreds of dollars or giving up a percentage of their Benefits to the people doing these letters. So how a desperate Vietnam veteran that he just found out he can claim “COMPENSATION”, it is not a Disability, for all he has endure all his life, know who is legit or who is not. We did not signed in the dotted line where indicate that we were to be exposed to chemical, poisons, ext. Or that our brain would be turned into mush, and that we will be treated less than an animal, we were not allowed to go to sick bay. And now VBA denies your claim because nothing is documented in your record. Wow. I have many masses thru out my body, but we get treated one mass at a time, Medullary Thyroid Cancer, removed due to it was advanced. I have put in a claim twice, and you can get YES, Denied, thank you!
Good Information. Thank you
Can my deceased husband’s SSAN be sold on the black web? How can widows find out. My step grandson helped me move. Went into my boxes, stole my info, taxes using my info was used to file, according to the IRS, for tax years ,2020,2021,2022. I did not receive a stimulus a check. My info is on the dark web.
My Husband’s info was with mine. How can I find out please?
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Some Vets have caregivers and family members that also need to be vigilant. Thanks for the information on what to watch and who to contact.
I’ve run into a couple of Claims predators. I think they surf social media sites looking for vet postings about claim difficulties. I think you should do a segment on VSOs and how to find a good and available one. Personally I struck out with one VSO who became unavailable and several more who told me they were too busy or they no longer offer claim support.
[Editor: https://www.benefits.va.gov/vso/ ]
The statement in your article regarding the VA’s fee payment process contains inaccuracies that could potentially mislead veterans regarding their financial interactions with attorneys and accredited agents. It is crucial to correct these misrepresentations to ensure veterans have a clear and accurate understanding of their options.
The claim that veterans “never have to make fee payments” themselves oversimplifies the complexity of fee agreements in veteran representation. Many attorneys and accredited agents opt not to use direct fee agreements and are not required to do so under law or VA regulations. This variety in payment arrangements allows for flexibility that can be beneficial to both veterans and their representatives, depending on the specifics of their case and financial circumstances.
Furthermore, suggesting that veterans should be wary of representatives who prefer alternative payment arrangements to the VA’s direct payment process perpetuates misinformation. The implication that such preferences might indicate questionable motives is not only unfounded but also casts undue aspersions on legitimate, well-established practices within the legal community serving veterans.
It is important for veterans to understand that they have multiple legitimate options for managing fee payments and that they should choose their representative based on trust, effectiveness, and personal comfort with the fee arrangement—not merely on the method of payment. Accurate reporting on this topic is essential to empower veterans to make informed decisions regarding their representation.
Latest email scam, Sleep Apnea “up to 100% disability benefits “.
One of the reasons these predatory companies are so successful is because of poorly performed claim evaluations.
I’m retired from the Air National Guard after 36 years of service, THE LASYT 28 YEARS WERE ALL ACTIVE SERVICE.
All of my claims were initially denied stating no service connection, i.e. didn’t begin during nor aggravated by service.
28 years of active service…
I just got word today that my higher level review also ended in a denial for all conditions after acknowledging my active service.
Veterans turn to predators to assist with their claims out of desperation after months and often years of either uncaring or incompetent “support” from the VA.
VSOs often, if not mostly, do not have the required skills and/or time to prepare a veteran’s claim properly; thus, veterans turn to unaccredited companies. Also, VA medical examiners, mostly contractors, very often issue bogus medical opinions leading to claim denials; thus, forcing veterans to seek costly private medical opinions. The VA is the cause in the raise of these predatory claim companies. My book “The Irate Veteran” details how to fix the broken VA claim system so veterans will not fall prey to these greedy companies.
Maybe you look for help from an outside source because you don’t trust the VA any longer. Example, I requested a re-evaluation on my knees twenty four years after the first evaluation. I don’t get sent to see a orthopedic specialist I was sent to see a PA general medical. The PAs finding my knees are the same as they were twenty four years ago. I wasn’t in that much twenty four years ago. I now live with constant pain. Do I trust the VA the answer is no. This is just one example why veterans don’t trust the VA.
I have seen people who say they want to help you file a claim. Something just seemed odd about their promises, now I know why their promises seemed odd. Thank you for sharing about these crooks.
What about the mesothemeola and the Camp Lejune law firms. Are they legit?