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Payday lenders prey on Airmen

Senior Airman Devante Williams

LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Arizona -- Loans can be very useful in life. “We try our best to prevent Airmen from going to payday loan stores,” NEWS
From paying off bills to moving expenses, loans can help Airmen out when Carmichael said. “We are here to help Airmen create a budget for them-
they need it. selves and learn how to live within their means.”

Sometimes Airmen are attracted to a less than ideal option of obtaining Carmichael is part of the 56th FSS Airman and Family Readiness Center,
cash other than getting a traditional loan. What they may not realize is that which is an organization dedicated to helping Airman with budgeting, sav-
going to a place that offers easy, fast money can put them in a big hole of ing, goals, thrift savings plans and more.
debt that they will not soon be able to get out of.
“We want Airmen to not be afraid of asking for help when they need it,”
Customers of that kind of loan business, also known as payday loans, Carmichael said. “We also provide one-on-one appointments to review and
have paid up to 800 percent in interest. With payday loans, it is expected to discuss budget and spending plans. The Air Force Aid Society can provide
be repaid within the next paycheck regardless of how much is loaned. In or- interest-free loans to Airmen based on their situation.”
der to get approved for the payday loan, Airmen are expected to show their
leave and earnings statement. With the Air Force Aid Society, all activeduty and Reserve Air Force and
Air National Guard personnel are eligible for these loans.
“Your LES statement is basically a golden ticket for the payday loan
sharks,” said Senior Airman Scott Giles, 56th Comptroller Squadron cus- “With the many types of financial opportunities available to Airmen, the
tomer service technician. payday loan sharks should never be considered as an option,” Carmichael
said. “Seek help if you see yourself going down the payday loan road. Asking
If the Airman isn’t able to repay the loan on the due date, the option is to for help is better than trying to do it yourself.”
repay it on the next paycheck. That’s when everything goes downhill.

“Even though the loan shark giving you the loan is smiling at you and be-
ing friendly, there’s a reason why,” said Cory Carmichael, 56th Force Support
Squadron community readiness specialist. “They continue to increase the
interest of the loan each payday that the loan isn’t paid in full.”

This cycle continues until the Airman unfortunately has to take out an-
other payday loan to pay off the first payday loan. This process leads to more
debt, until the lendee is broke and unable to support himself.

Air Force offers assistance to PII hack victims

Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs

WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- The Air Force maintains its com- In addition to assisting OPM and DOD, the Air Force remains
mitment to protect personal information from cyber threats by committed to protecting its own information systems from attack.
continuing efforts with the Defense Department and the Office of The Air Force privacy and information assurance officers work di-
Personnel Management to assist those impacted by the recent cy- rectly with program managers or system owners to ensure those
ber incident involving federal background investigation data. systems which contain personal identifiable information have the
proper security controls in place to prevent unauthorized access.
OPM and an interagency response team, including investigators
from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, concluded There are tools and techniques everyone can and should use to
that sensitive information, to include Social Security numbers, was protect information in cyberspace.
stolen from background investigations of 21.5 million individuals.
“I want to stress again that our total force and their families need to be
“We sincerely regret this has happened and that so many people informed on how adversaries attempt to gain access to our information,”
were impacted by having their key information at risk,” said Secre- said Lt. Gen. William J. Bender, the information dominance chief and chief
tary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James. “Cybersecurity and pro- information officer for the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. “More
tecting personal information of our personnel will always be a top importantly we must be vigilant and act to deter them: guard information
priority for the Air Force. We will continue to support the DOD by practicing good OPSEC (operations security), follow basic computer se-
and OPM to ensure our personnel are protected.” curity practices and alert the proper security offices of anything suspicious.”

While background investigation records do contain some infor- The Air Force has created a toolkit of information for cybersecuri-
mation regarding mental health and financial history provided by ty and safety at www.af.mil/cybersecurity.aspx. Additional informa-
applicants and people contacted during the background investiga- tion from OPM is available at https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/.
tion, there is no evidence that health, financial, payroll or retire- This site contains details about what information was breached and
ment records of federal personnel or those who have applied for a what remedial actions and assistance will be made available.
federal job were impacted by this incident, for example -- annuity
rolls, retirement records, USAJobs.gov and Employee Express.

OPM will offer affected individuals credit monitoring services
and identity theft insurance. This comprehensive, three-year mem-
bership includes credit report access, credit monitoring, identity
theft insurance and recovery services, and is available immediately
at no cost to affected individuals identified by OPM.