[RETVET-INFO] GIBill.com Shut Down In Settlement Over Defrauding Veterans

From: RETVET-INFO@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: <RetVet-Info@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:15:27 -0500
GIBill.com Shut Down In Settlement Over Defrauding Veterans

ByLeo Shane III
Stars and Stripes
Published: June 27, 2012

WASHINGTON - The marketing firm behind GIBill.com (http://www.gibill.com/) will
shut down that website, scale back more than a dozen others and pay $2.5 million
in penalties under terms of a settlement with state attorneys general over
deceptive advertising practices aimed at student veterans.

Veterans groups and Department of Veterans Affairs officials hailed the
announcement as much-needed victory over the tactics of for-profit colleges, who
they say have targeted those students as potential cash cows for their schools.
Industry representatives called it smear campaign.

The settlement is the result of a monthlong investigation into the practices of
QuinStreet, an online marketing firm whose clients include a host of for-profit
colleges. Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway said called the company and its
use of the GIBill.com website "the most egregious example" he has seen of
misinformation and greed directed at veterans.

"This is a public trust issue," he said. "We have many publicly traded companies
taking a funnel of taxpayer money intended to educate veterans, and instead
giving them credits they can't transfer, debt they can't discharge and putting
them in a hole. That's unconscionable."

The website, which offered information on veteran education benefits and
careers, consistently redirected visitors to a small group of for-profit schools
as the best place to use their GI Bill tuition.

State attorneys charged that the website managers did little to acknowledge
their site was not an official government information page, or that those
for-profit schools in many cases would cost them more money than public school
options.

Conway said the investigation included a review of 8,000 emails to QuinStreet
through the GIBill.com site, many of which came from veterans who thought they
were communicating with government officials. Under the settlement, the
GIBill.com domain will be handed over to VA officials, who will use it to
redirect web surfers to the VA's official GI Bill site at http://gibill.va.gov/.
Social media accounts associated with the page will be shut down.

In addition, QuinStreet agreed to put disclaimers on other military-themed sites
clearly stating they are not connected with the government, and refrain from
using the term "GI Bill" in the address of any future sites.

Conway would not say whether any of the schools that helped fund the site will
also face future sanctions. Many of the officials at the settlement announcement
used the event to take aim again at the for-profit industry.

"Dollar signs in uniform, that's how the for-profits see our troops and
veterans," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. "If we're going to continue to fund the
GI Bill, we need to make sure those dollars are being well spent, and not being
used for misleading advertising and recruiting."

VA data shows that about one in four veterans using the post-9/11 GI Bill attend
a for-profit school, but the industry accounts for 37 percent of the total
tuition payouts.

Veterans of Foreign Wars Deputy Legislative Director Ryan Gallucci said veterans
groups worry that lawmakers could see the education benefit as wasted money if
it continues to flow to for-profit schools to fund questionable degrees with
limited job prospects.

He praised the settlement, saying it helps "ensure our veterans have access to
the quality education they earned."

In a statement, Steve Gunderson, president of the Association of Private Sector
Colleges and Universities, condemned "any activity by companies that mislead
veterans," and noted that industry officials are working on get rid of any such
practices in the future.

But Gunderson also noted that for-profit schools provide an important
alternative for student veterans, and other industry officials grumbled that the
settlement was used as a vehicle to unfairly attack the reputation of all such
schools.

Conway and other attorneys general said they aren't trying to shut down the
for-profit industry, but are closely monitoring numerous reports of misleading
and overly aggressive marketing by those schools. Delaware Attorney General Beau
Biden said he believes the whole industry has been tainted by the problem.

"This is about fraud," he said. "I know there are some good actors out there,
but until they clean up, I tell people to call their community college, or a
state college. I don't have faith in them."


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SOURCE:  Stars and Stripes web site at http://www.stripes.com/news/



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[RETVET-INFO] GIBill.com Shut Down In Settlement Over Defrauding Veterans

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