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Show Swindlers Set ' Trap for Vets All Kinds of Gyp Schemes i Ready to Grab Money I' Of Servicemen. WASHINGTON. Busy setting booby traps for returning servicemen, service-men, the swindler has a new gleam in his eye. He's after their families too. Whether the money is muster-ing-out pay, travel expenses, prisoner-of-war accumulated savings or the family savings, the racketeer is aware of this: , There is some $130,000,000,000 in savings in this country much in veterans' names that could be spent after the war. The Federal Reserve system says this represents ' deposits, currency and government securities such as war bonds. Seven per cent of all members of the armed forces say they expect to go into business for themselves. The department of commerce estimates that an additional 4 per cent are "inclined" "in-clined" to go into business. 800 Gyp Schemes. The Better Business bureau says already the sum has jumped from $400,000,000 annually after the last war to $2,000,000,000 now. It has records of more than 800 schemes to gyp the innocent. New ones are being concocted continuously. These range from cooperative arrangements ar-rangements to raise fruits or nuts, or breed animals, to publication of songs a G.I. has composed in a foxhole. fox-hole. One swindler sold memberships in an "own-your-own-home" club for a $100 fee. He also got several veterans vet-erans to make down payments on prefabricated houses. He sold "franchises" to dealers for $300 and to distributors for $1,000. He advertised in papers to lend money for remodeling houses, for mortgage loans and loans to veterans vet-erans to build homes. A deposit of $12.50 was asked for the remodeling job and $20 for the other two. Investigations In-vestigations made by the Washington Washing-ton Better Business bureau finally led to this sharpie's arrest. A Florida concern interested a group of veterans in buying property iin tung oil land on the absentee farming basis. There are also the so-called death vultures who victimize the bereaved by selling them flowers, Bibles or land. FBI Warns Veterans. The Federal Bureau of Investigation Investiga-tion warns veterans: "People are increasingly living by their wits, and confidence men can be found wherever there are people with money and spare time. "Don't expect a pot of gold with- out work. The FBI says that often it seems "impossible" for a sensible person to get caught on the scheme, but it works nevertheless. Most victims, the FBI points out, believe they are on the "inside" of some lottery or "get-rich-quick" ischeme. , "There are two reasons why a vie-, tlm seldom makes a complaint," says the FBI.: 1. The victim would expose himself him-self as gullible and would hold himself him-self up to ridicule. 2. The victim is usually defraud- ' ed of a large sum of money and fears that if this becomes known his creditors will immediately close in on him. Various private and government agencies all over the country are laying plans now to prevent wholesale whole-sale financial slaughter of unwary returning servicemen and their families. |