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American Veterans Aid

American Veterans Aid

americanveteransaid.com
What is your customer experience with American Veterans Aid?

American Veterans Aid Overview

The aggregated data is based on reviews and questionnaires provided by PissedConsumer.com users.

  • American Veterans Aid has 1.2 star rating based on 2 customer reviews. Consumers are mostly dissatisfied.

  • Rating Distribution
  • Consumers are not pleased with Customer service and Discounts and Special Offers. The price level of this organization is high according to consumer reviews.

Darrell W Mfw

This review is from a real person who provided valid contact information and hasn't been caught misusing, spamming or abusing our website. Check our FAQ

Verified Reviewer
| map-marker Atoka, Tennessee

Stay Away

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The VA advises not to pay this or any other company to file for aid and attendance. You can file for free and there are veteran's organizations that will help you for free.

American Veterans Aid made claims that turned out to be false.

The most egregious are:

1. Even though most claims take 8 to 12 months to be processed and fulfilled, ours take only 3 to 4 months because we deal with them regularly and know them and the system.

This is NOT what happened. Their claims filed are done by the VA in the same time frame as all others. Our claim was eventually approved but it still took 11 months!

2.

After filing the claim we will stay on top of it and constantly check on it and keep you informed of the status.

Again this is NOT what happened. Once they took our money and filed the claim we never heard back from them again unless I hounded them with emails, etc... wanting an update.

Also when i tried to check on the claim myself i was told that I could not check on the claim because it was in the name of american Veteran's Aid (or rather it's founder).

So they would not check on it and would not update me and I could not check on it myself. Very disappointing and aggravating.

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Preferred solution: Be Honest!

Anonymous

Almost 6 months and no check from VA

After completing all the paperwork and paying our fee, we were told it would take 2 to 4 months to start receiving benefits from the VA. Almost 6 months went by and still no benefits.

Mom passed away 6 months after application was received by the VA. So we get NOTHING.

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Christene Lbr
map-marker Orange, California

American Veteran's Aid Bogus Refund Policy

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Updated by user Apr 06, 2017

American Veterans Aid

1717 West Orangewood Suite G

Orange CA 92868

Phone: 888-438-****

My family engaged the services of American Veterans Aid (AVA) for help with our application for the Aid and Attendance benefit provided by the Department of Veteran Affairs. After deciding that this benefit program was not a good financial fit for our mother, Elizabeth Walsh, we stopped the application process with the AVA and requested a refund per the AVA agreement.

We never got that refund.

The BBB A+ rating influenced our decision to seek AVA services. We believe the BBB should review that rating. We strongly believe that BBB A+ rating is not an honestly earned rating.

The disagreement: Our position: Agreement verbiage: “A full refund of the service fee will be given if it is determined by the financial advisor that repositioning the assets will not be the most cost effective, tax efficient strategy to improve the client’s financial condition.” After determining that repositioning assets would have a negative financial impact, Mary McAloon, myself and our financial advisor decided to stop seeking this Veteran’s benefit. Agreement verbiage: “The Provider has 30 days to process the refund upon receipt of a written request stating the reason for cancellation.” The AVA took 80 days to respond to our request for refund, a full 50 days late. Further, this response would have never happened without prodding the AVA for a response. We feel that the AVA – a) The AVA 45-day imposed limit on refund application did not take into account the time it took to arrange the necessary meetings – a timeline that we did not fully control.

Consults started and ended on 10/3 and 12/12 respectively. That is 44 days, leaving us with only one day to complete consults with our lawyer and financial advisor. This is inadequate. Our decision to terminate came on 12/19, 7 days after our last meeting with Ed Schrenzel.

b) Taking 80 days to respond to our request and ignoring several prompts for response is enough reason alone to challenge the BBB A+ rating. This is hardly good customer service. To the contrary, they did their best to ignore us. It took this email sent by me on 3/7/17 to get our first response to our refund request – “Since you will not engage us in any way on this topic, the next step is to file a complaint with the BBB.

Today is March 7. I we have no response by March 13 from ADA, we will file with the BBB.” c) The denial of refund email contains this text: “This original message was sent on 1/16/17 in regards to the refund request.” This claim is not true. We received nothing on 1/16/17. The AVA position: Text from denial email received on 3/9/17: We have already reviewed your request and based on the service agreement signed on 10/3/16, you are unfortunately no longer entitled to a refund.

Please refer to your service agreement under Refund Provision: 5d. After 45 days from the start date of service, the client will not be eligible for a refund for any reason including but not limited to not taking our VA Accredited Claims Agent and/or financial advisor's advice, death of claimant, applying for Medicaid, or receiving Hospice care. Provision 5d does not exist in the service agreement The timeline: 1. 10/3/16 – Service Agreement signed and mailed.

2. 10/28/16 – Initial conversation with Edward J. Schrenzel, Veteran's Consultant at the AVA. Initial conversation with Mary McAloon (sister) to gather information.

3. 10/31/16 – After consideration Mary McAloon and myself decided to enlist the help of the AVA in seeking the Veteran’s benefit for our mother, Elizabeth Walsh. 4. 11/03/16 – Consultation with Ed Schrenzel 5.

11/21/16 – Consultation with Ed Schrenzel 6. 12/12/19 – Consultation with Ed Schrenzel 7. 12/19/16 – Notified AVA of decision to “stop the process” via email. We requested a refund of $2,275 at this time.

We got no response from this email. This is 49 days after we decided to enlist the AVA’s service. 8. 01/09/16 – AVA Senior Case Manager Ardee Diamante forwards our 12/19/16 request to the “refund committee” 9.

02/23/17 – Sent follow-up email to Mr. Diamante requesting a response. 10.

03/09/16 – Received denial of request for refund from Angelo Tuble, AVA. This is 80 days after requesting a refund.

Original review Apr 05, 2017
Caution - the refund policy is designed to never refund money. For us, the tax hit out-weighed the advantage of the benefit, so we applied for the refund.

The AVA immediately began to ignore us. It took 80 days to get a response; and that response was a rejection. This is a violation of the agreement that says, “The Provider has 30 days to process the refund.” The AVA agreement is designed to take and never return funds. Customer service ceases as soon as revenue is impacted.

Read the agreement. The clock starts ticking at the moment a signed agreement is received, not at the time of your first AVA consult. It was weeks between signing the agreement and the first contact with our AVA representative. It took that long to gather documents and consult with our financial advisor.

Then it took several more weeks to figure out how to structure finances and make application. By the time we determined the lack of financial benefit, it was too late. The Veteran’s Administration application process is complex and it takes time to consult with your financial advisor. The 45-day refund policy should: a) Not start until AVA provides the first service and b) Be longer than 45 days.

The BBB A+ rating was an important factor in deciding to use AVA services. That rating misled us.
View full review
Loss:
$1540
Cons:
  • Refund policy
Reason of review:
Return, Exchange or Cancellation Policy

Preferred solution: Full refund

1 comment
Guest

Thank you for the most valuable information. After reading all these negative reviews of the Americans Veterans Aid, someone should investigate them, follow where the monies are going to, (Caymans?), and make the accountable for what they are advertising.

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