Courtesy of Wikipedia.com
In La Porte, Texas a man by the name of Clay Gates applied to assistance from the gov't organization FEMA to help repair the damages to his home after Ikes storm surge forced 5 feet of water into his home.
Mr. Gates was completely cooperative and followed all procedures through FEMA in order to recieve assistance.
Shortly after Mr. Gates got a letter from FEMA stating that they qualified for benefits from the organization. FEMA then made a direct deposit into their account in the amount of $23,000.
In an effort to redo their home with the amount in which they were approved Gates had done the majority of work on his own in an effort to make every penny get its worth but still has repairs that need to be done inside of his home.
Last month Mr. Gated was informed by FEMA turned around and asked for the total of $22,989.00 back saying that all in all he was never eligible for the assistance from the begininng.
Although Gates appealed he was still denied. 6 days after he got the denial of eligibility Gates recieved another letter, this time from the US Treasury Department demanding a payment of $31,442 (with the newly added fees, intrests & penalties) within 10 days.
Gates said if he had that kind of money he would have never asked for assistance in the first place.
Gates says he got a worker of FEMA to admit a mistake was made but FEMAwill not specifically tall about the case and only comments that they are required by law to recover money that was paid out improperly, regardless of whos fault it was.
FEMA is currently imposing a refund from 1/2 of a Billion dollars that were paid out improperly by fraud or mistake.
***Do you think that Clay Gates should be responsible for the return of the money or should FEMA have to deal with the mistake their employees made?***