Written by Joshua Patton

Deployed soldiers are promised a lot of things, especially when they are headed overseas, that are often forgotten about once they are in-country or back home.  One of the more popular stories soldiers hear before deploying is that they do not have to worry about their debts while they are gone.  Yet, amidst the clamor of the financial crises and the high foreclosure rate, the stories of some veterans had gone unreported and ignored by Congressmen and -women more interested in scolding Goldman Sachs Executives for the cameras (and then not punishing any of them) than these stories.  All the while JPMorgan Chase was harassing some 4500 military clients who were deployed.  Breaking the law put in place by the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), that provides special protections for active servicemembers and their families. 
 
                Yet, the time has come for more posturing.  The House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs has put on another good show, berating the evil bank executives rather than fixing the holes in the law that caused the problem.  Sure, there may have been human error, malicious greed, or some combination of the two behind the actions taken on the servicemembers involved.  The SCRA is not a blanket protection for veterans, but instead has a strict set of guidelines that must be met for servicemembers to be eligible.  The banks know this, because they were put into place to protect them from servicemembers who may “abuse” the system.  Say a soldier buys a handful of properties and then deploys to Kuwait.  He pays the SCRA rate for his mortgage over an 18-month deployment.  Upon his return to the States, he returns to a better real estate market than when he left and sells the property for a profit.  The banks say that this is abuse of the law and represents an unfair advantage given to the servicemember.  Yes, the same banks who nearly toppled the world economy by chopping up and selling high-risk mortgages as low-risk investment to line their own pockets think being sent to a warzone is an unfair advantage in the real estate game.
 
                However, in this case, the posturing and media attention seems to have affected some positive change.  Both Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase have established service units that are dedicated to their military customers and should serve to at least lessen the run-around element that soldiers face when dealing with these problems.  Also, JP Morgan Chase is going to refund $2.4 million in wrongly-collected payments from their military customers.  Will it fix the problem?  Only time will tell.