An army captain from Oregon convicted of stealing $690,000 from the U.S. government was recently
sentenced to 30 months in jail.
Authorities said 28-year-old Michael Dung Nguyen, a graduate of West Point, stole the money between April 2007 and June 2008, while serving in Iraq. Nguyen was supposed to be safeguarding the money, which was earmarked for Iraqi humanitarian relief, rebuilding projects and security services.
Instead, he peeled off bills from bundled stacks of money, put the money in boxes and shipped the cash to his house in Beaverton, Ore.
Federal investigators later found $300,000 cash in the officer's basement, as well as expensive purchases, such as a BMW, a Hummer, furniture and electronic equipment.
http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,entry&id=880137&pid=880136&uts=1273597179
http://cdn.channel.aol.com/cs_feed_v1_6/csfeedwrapper.swf
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
Quizno's Sub Shop has an online video ad showing two girls simulating a porn video by sharing a sub sandwich. The online ad, "2 Girls, 1 Sub," takes its name from a notoriously heinous movie trailer, for a fetish film, which shows women eating their own feces. Critics have pointed out that the Quiznos video, starring Playboy Playmate Hiromi Oshima, is basically comparing the sandwiches to "poop."
This is Quizno's second porn-themed ad to come out in recent months.
SPAT Communications / AP
BlackVoices.com
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
Store: Midas
Accusation:California filed a $222 million lawsuit against the owner of 22 Midas Muffler shops after uncover agents discovered in which consumers were charged for unneeded repairs, California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced. Click through to see more stores that got caught cheating.
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
Store: CVS
Accusation:California caught the chain with expired merchandise on the shelf. The result? CVS must give $2 coupons to anyone finding more expired items. This isn't the first store caught doing something shady (or even the first time CVS was caught doing the same thing). See more Gotcha Moments by clicking through.
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
Store: Kmart
Accusation:Marketed paper products as biodegradable that aren't actually biodegradable. The result? Kmart settled the case with the Federal Trade commission. This isn't the first time KMart was caught.
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
KMart's Previous Gotcha:Kmart, Ashley, and World Market< were accused of deceptive furniture labeling -- wood that wasn"t wood and leather that wasn"t leather -- in an on-camera investigation by Good Morning America The result? Kmart said full product descriptions were available online, Ashley defended its wording as a description of color only, and World Market acknowledged that a quarter of its supposedly leather chairs were actually synthetic, and it pulled them from sale.
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
Sears Holdings Management Corp., the parent company of Sears and Kmart, settled a case to stop enticing customers to sign up for a software that spies on them. It must also instruct customers how to uninstall the software that monitored their spending across the web, even on sites that are supposed to be secure, and destroy the data that was collected. The Federal Trade Commission brought the case against the Sears Holdings.
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
Quizno's Sub Shop has an online video ad showing two girls simulating a porn video by sharing a sub sandwich. The online ad, "2 Girls, 1 Sub," takes its name from a notoriously heinous movie trailer, for a fetish film, which shows women eating their own feces. Critics have pointed out that the Quiznos video, starring Playboy Playmate Hiromi Oshima, is basically comparing the sandwiches to "poop."
This is Quizno's second porn-themed ad to come out in recent months.
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
If you are dining out -- and many of us still are these days, despite the economy -- make sure to check your bill carefully for extra charges that might creep on there.
Call it the airline a la carte approach, as many restaurants are apparently sneaking in charges for bread, tap water, takeout boxes and mandatory tips. The New York Post found all of these items added to bills on an investigative mission that the paper undertook recently.
For more on advertisers caught misleading consumers, click through our gallery of Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame.
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
Blockbuster was found guilty of charging customers higher than the advertised prices on scanned items by district attorneys of Los Angeles and San Diego counties. Blockbuster owes $237,750 in penalties, and $62,250 in costs, and is further prohibited from charging amounts greater than the advertised price.
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
A regulatory organization for the advertising industry demanded that Wrigley change its misleading packaging and advertising for Eclipse gum. The ads for Eclipse say that the gum's natural ingredient - magnolia bark extract - kills germs that cause bad breath. This has not been proven and the National Advertising Division Council of Better Business Bureaus asks that Wrigley clarify this in its ads.
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
Store:Chase Bank
Accusation: In late March, the bank rescinded a $10 monthly fee it had imposed for several months on hundreds of thousands of credit card accounts, after New York's attorney general decried the practice as a bait-and-switch for customers seeking low interest rates.
Results:The settlement could save customers $22 million over the next year.
Gotcha Moments of Retail Shame
It would be easy to dismiss this case as a rogue military officer who cheated the system and tried to get over. And indeed, Nguyen may be no more than a common thief posing in military attire. But to simply see this as a unique case of theft would be to overlook a broader issue: namely about pay in the military.
It's a well-documented fact that the majority of enlisted U.S. servicemen and servicewomen come from lower to middle class backgrounds. Some enlistees see the armed forces as not just a career, but also their only way out of tough economic circumstances. So imagine the economic realities that settle in when they realize that the
average pay for new recruits in the Army and Navy is just $15,406. The
median salary for a U.S. army sergeant is $26,267, according to Salary.com.
I'm not saying that low pay -- in any field -- justifies stealing. So it's clear that what captain Nguyen did was completely wrong.
But I do think that it's about time we looked more seriously at the issue of personal finances and how it impacts members of the military, their families, and the choices they make.
There's a reason why military officers and their families are often targeted, for instance, by payday lenders who pop up near military bases. It's because these servicemen and servicewomen are often cash-strapped and struggling to make ends meet, just like so many other Americans. So they may turn to payday lenders "just to get by," even those these companies charge exorbitant interest rates for those "easy" loans. In extreme cases, financially desperate members of the military may be tempted to break the law to deal with difficult economic circumstances.
President Obama has requested a 1.4% military pay raise starting in 2011 as part of his overall defense budget. That would be the smallest pay increase since the creation of the country's all-volunteer force in 1973. This year, in January 2010, military pay rose by 3.4%.
When we ask men and women to put their lives on the line and fight for America, the very least we should do is make sure they're not worried about money while they're serving our country.
Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, an award-winning financial news journalist and former Wall Street Journal reporter for CNBC, has also been featured in top newspapers including the Washington Post, USA Today, and the New York Times, as well as magazines ranging from Essence and Redbook to Black Enterprise and Smart Money. Check out her New York Times best seller
'Zero Debt: The Ultimate Guide to Financial Freedom.'
'Toddlers & Tiaras': Damitri'ana Wears 'African' National…
Autopsy: Trayvon Martin Died Of Single Gunshot Fired From…
Comments: (2)
Add a comment
By: Mikki Gables on 5/16/2010 4:59PM
Ms. Khalfani-Cox correctly states that enlisted service members are grossly underpaid. As such, the temptation for laundering or other crimes such as CPT Nguyen's may be higher. However, there is a large disparity in pay difference between enlisted and officer ranks. The pay cited for privates (roughly $15k) and sergeants (roughly $27k) in the armed forces is accurate, however officers such as CPT Nguyen make closer to $50k base salary before housing and food allowances. Though $50K is still not a lot of money,and one can argue that it is not sufficient compensation for the duties performed, it is significantly more than the pay of the enlisted soldiers as cited in the article. Though I think the attempt was valid, I believe the American population needs to be more informed regarding the structure of the military. The fact that CPT Nguyen was an officer and therefore charged with the responsibility of caring for enlisted soldiers such as privates and sergeants is what makes his crime even more severe.
Reply to this Comment | Report This
By: charles on 5/31/2010 4:39PM
Oh come on now stealing is stealing . nice try to spin this into low pay issue why even bring it up. I do agree the military needs a raise I dont know or care what they make now but give them a raise anyway .
Reply to this Comment | Report This