The Men Who Sell Veterans Their Own Benefits

By Matt Stone

Don't Mention Our Name

Two retired Army lieutenant colonels built a company in Pinehurst, North Carolina, a short drive from Fort Bragg. They named it Veterans Guardian.

Here is what a federal judge found they were doing.

A veteran would come to them. He would hand over his medical records and his service records. He would fill out a long questionnaire the company wrote. The company would read through his files and figure out what he might be eligible for. It would tell him what evidence he still needed. It would refer him to doctors. It would make his appointments for him. It would do medical research. It would fill out his VA disability forms, decide what went in them, attach the exhibits, and assemble the whole packet.

Then it would print the packet, mail it to him with "sign here" labels already stuck on, and include a stamped envelope with the VA's address already written on it. The company paid the postage. The company tracked the envelope on its way to him, and tracked it again on its way to the VA.

All he had to do was sign it and drop it in the mail.

And the letter in the envelope told him something else, it told him not to mention that he had been working with Veterans Guardian.

Why the silence mattered

The reason the silence instruction is the heart of this: it is the only part of the operation with no innocent explanation. Every other fact has a cover story, and they used it in court. The questionnaire, the records review, the doctor referrals, the assembled packet, even the stamped envelope, all of it can be dressed up as consulting. The label is what they argued and the judge rejected it. But nothing in the consultant story explains telling a veteran to leave your name off. Consultants want credit. Their own marketing is nothing but credit, we got this veteran to 100, we got this one there faster. A company proud of its work signs it.

You don't hide something unless you know it should be disclosed. That is the part of this that cannot be argued around. Veterans Guardian spent years telling Congress and the courts that the law here was unsettled, that nobody had ever made clear whether a consultant needed accreditation. But you do not tell a man to keep your name out of his federal paperwork because the law is unclear. You tell him that because you know exactly what the VA would do with your name if it saw it.

And look at what the instruction actually does to him.

The VA reviews fees. That is the protection Congress built into the system, the one safeguard standing between a disabled veteran and a number somebody made up. It only works if the VA can see the fee. Strip the company's name off the packet and there is no fee to review, no agent to check against the roster, no cap to apply. The instruction did not hide a company. It disabled the only thing in the system designed to keep this exact thing from happening.

Then it put the risk on the veteran. His signature is on the claim. His Social Security number, his service record, his name, his attestation that this is his. The company that built the packet, chose the evidence, filled the forms, and set the price is nowhere on the document. They tracked that envelope to the VA's door. They knew the day it arrived. They just did not sign it.

Federal law says only people accredited by the VA can prepare or present a disability claim. Accreditation means training, a written exam, a character and fitness review, and continuing education. It also means limits. An accredited agent cannot charge a veteran one dollar for an initial claim. Not one. For later claims, the fees are capped and the VA reviews them, and anything over a third of the back pay is presumed to be unreasonable.

Veterans Guardian was never accredited. Its name never appeared anywhere in the claim packets it built. It told veterans to leave its name out too. So the VA never saw the fee. And the fee was five times what the veteran's monthly increase would be.

The numbers

Jennifer Ford went from a 60 percent rating to 70 percent. Her monthly compensation went up by $377.92. Veterans Guardian charged her $1,880. She paid it. Then she went from 70 to 80 percent, a monthly increase of $338.09, and they charged her $1,690. She paid that too.

Brian Otters went from 70 percent to 90 percent. His monthly compensation went up $599.33. They charged him $2,990. He paid.

Eric Beard filed his first claim. He came back 100 percent disabled, $4,272.80 a month. They charged him $21,360. He has paid $19,224 and still owes $2,136. He was rated 100 percent disabled for the rest of his life, and the first five months of that compensation went to the company that just mailed him a pre-stamped envelope.

That was his initial claim. An accredited agent could not have charged him anything at all. The VFW would have done it for free. The DAV would have done it for free. The county veterans service officer, who works for the government, would have done it for free.

Three veterans are the named plaintiffs. They represent a certified class. According to the VFW, materials filed in that case allege the company collected more than $250 million from veterans during the class period. That number is an allegation, not a finding. The judge has not ruled on it yet. But it tells you the size of what we are talking about.

How they knew when to bill

The fee only came due if the rating went up, so the company needed to know when it went up. The contract required clients to forward their rating decision letters within two days. Some clients didn't, so the company found another way.

The VA has an automated phone line that verifies a veteran's pay. You need the veteran's Social Security number and date of birth to use it. They already have this information by this point, so they used the veteran's social and birthday to establish his new rating, so they could continue to take advantage of him.

During the class period, Veterans Guardian employees called that line more than 250,000 times. They often knew of a veteran's increase before the veteran did.

The VA's lawyers sent Veterans Guardian a cease and desist letter in January 2019. The letter said that to assist with a VA claim, even for free, a person has to be accredited.

Nothing happened.

They sent another one in August 2024. Same message. Congress requires accreditation to act as an agent in preparing a VA claim.

Nothing happened then either.

On May 20, 2026, Chief Judge Catherine C. Eagles of the Middle District of North Carolina ruled that the facts were not even in dispute. Veterans Guardian is not accredited. It prepares claims. It presents claims. It charges for it.

The company's defense was that it is a consultant, not an agent. The judge wrote that the label a company puts on its services is not what controls. What controls is the reality of the work.

She had one more thing to say about it. The company has always advertised that veterans get benefits because of its help, or get them faster. It takes credit for the outcome. But when federal law came knocking, it said it wasn't responsible for the claims at all. The judge called that disingenuous.

Six days later the VFW put out a statement. Its general counsel, John Muckelbauer, said the court had looked past the marketing language and focused on the conduct. He pointed at the word the judge used over and over, undisputed, and made the obvious point with it. The industry has spent years insisting the law here is murky or out of date. It is neither. It is just unenforced.

The part I cannot get past

Scott Greenblatt and Bill Taylor co-founded Veterans Guardian in 2017. Greenblatt is a retired Army lieutenant colonel. Twenty-five years on active duty. His company's own biography credits him with ten overseas combat deployments. Taylor, the chief operating officer, is also a retired Army lieutenant colonel, twenty-three years in.

They set up shop in Moore County, next door to Fort Bragg, in the middle of one of the densest concentrations of soldiers and veterans in the United States. The company has been celebrated locally as the fastest-growing business in the county. The Department of Labor gave it a HIREVets Gold Medallion.

These two men spent almost five decades between them being told that officers eat last. That you take care of your soldiers before yourself. That the whole deal, the reason a private follows you into a place where people are shooting, is that you will not use him.

Then they retired, and they built a machine that charged those same people five times a month's disability check for paperwork that three different organizations would have done for nothing, and they told the veterans to keep their name out of it so nobody would check the price and eventually hold them to account. The people buying this are enlisted. The people selling it are officers.

Eric Beard was rated 100 percent disabled. Whatever happened to him happened while he was serving. He got $4,272.80 a month for it. A retired lieutenant colonel's company sent him a bill for $21,360. There is no world in which that should be acceptable, but somehow, in ours, it is.

It is not just them

VA Claims Insider was founded in 2016 by Brian Reese, a graduate of the Air Force Academy, a former Air Force captain, a contracting officer who deployed to Kandahar in 2011 and came home with a Defense Meritorious Service Medal. He describes himself as a service-disabled veteran. His company marketed free coaching and then charged veterans six times their monthly increase, up to $15,000.

In January 2026, the Texas attorney general closed a case against it with an agreed final judgment and a permanent injunction. The company is barred from collecting debts from veterans who were led to believe the services were free, and gave up nine years of qualifying debts, an estimated $6.8 million.

The house doctor

A VA disability claim turns on medical evidence. That is the part the veteran cannot fake and the part the VA leans on hardest. A nexus letter, a doctor saying this condition is connected to that service, is often the difference between a denial and a rating. It is supposed to be the independent piece. The doctor is the check.

VA Claims Insider sent veterans to a company called Telemedica. Telemedica sells medical evidence. Nexus letters run $849, or $974 if you want it in two business days. A records review is $199. The company says it has served more than 25,000 veterans.

On its own page listing the best places to get a nexus letter, VA Claims Insider puts Telemedica first, and prints this underneath: "Telemedica is a VACI-Affiliated Provider and VA Claims Insider Elite Members can get Nexus Letters and DBQs at 61-67% off Telemedica's published rates."

Read the discount again. If a membership takes two thirds off the price, the published price was never really the price. It is the number you pay for not being a member yet.

The Texas attorney general's petition put the rest of it on the record. Telemedica's chief executive is Laurel Reese. VA Claims Insider's chief financial officer is Laurel Reese. The state alleged the company misrepresented its relationship with the provider it was recommending. The case ended in an agreed judgment, so a court never ruled on the allegation.

But look at how the money is built. VA Claims Insider's fee is six times the veteran's monthly increase, up to $15,000. The bigger the rating, the bigger the bill. And the evidence that drives the rating comes from a company run by its own CFO.

So the veteran pays for the letter, and then pays again, six times over, for what the letter does to his rating. He thinks he got a referral to an independent doctor. He got routed back to the same building.

Trajector Medical, out of Gainesville, got its cease and desist from the VA's lawyers on June 29, 2017. The letter said the company may be engaged in illegal activity and was prohibited by law from representing veterans. Nine years later it was still in business, facing a class action alleging fees from $4,500 to more than $20,000. NPR found a Navy retiree, Erik Jensen, with thirty years of service who was charged $12,000. In July 2026 Trajector and twenty-one affiliated entities filed for Chapter 11, which froze the lawsuit.

In May 2026 the Arizona attorney general secured roughly $2 million from VetLink Solutions for consumer fraud against veterans.

How big is this

Nobody knows exactly, and that is part of the problem. Michael Missal, the former VA Inspector General, says the true number is hard to even estimate because the industry is unregulated.

What we do know: the Washington Post found more than 100 unaccredited for-profit firms operating in this space, charging somewhere between $5,000 and $20,000.

Against that, the VA accredits roughly 15,000 agents and representatives who do the identical work for nothing.

Between 2017 and 2024, VA lawyers sent warning letters to 140 unaccredited groups and individuals. The Post only got those documents by suing the government under the Freedom of Information Act.

The War Horse and NPR went back and were able to check what happened to 39 of the companies that got warned. Of those, at least 29 were still in business as of late November 2025. Thirty-four still had a live website or social media account. Nine were registered as nonprofits.

If you have a rating and a smartphone, you already know the rest. The ads never stop. Get to 100 percent. Get the rating you deserve. The VFW's national commander told both congressional veterans' affairs committees in March 2024 that the organization was watching these ads multiply.

There is a reason for that timing. The PACT Act passed in 2022 and opened up billions of dollars in benefits, with presumptive conditions for burn pits and Agent Orange. Presumptive means the VA grants it without the veteran having to prove the connection. A whole generation of veterans became eligible for money they could get by filling out a form.

Which is exactly when a hundred companies showed up to charge them five times a month's increase for filling out that form.

Why aren't they in jail?

Because there is no jail to go to.

Congress used to attach criminal penalties to charging a veteran unauthorized fees for claims help. Congress removed them in 2006, trying to lower the barriers to veterans getting help. That is the whole trick. The law still says you cannot do this. It just stopped saying what happens to you when you do.

So the VA writes letters. The letters say you are prohibited by law. The companies read them, throw them away, and keep billing, because everyone in the building knows the letter is the entire consequence. There are no teeth behind the enforcement mechanism.

The fix has a name and a number. The SAFEGUARD Veterans Act would put the criminal penalties back. Richard Blumenthal introduced it in the Senate as S. 4646 on June 1, 2026. Chris Pappas introduced it in the House as H.R. 9105 on June 2. Both of them are sitting in committee right now. The GUARD VA Benefits Act, which does much the same thing, has been stalled for years. In December 2025, forty-three members of Congress demanded a crackdown. The crackdown has not arrived.

Meanwhile the states have gone in both directions at once. At least nine have passed laws banning unaccredited companies from charging fees. At least six have passed laws legalizing them. Same conduct, same veterans, different answer depending on which side of a state line you were standing on when you signed.

Nine years

I should say where I am standing. I did not file for nine years. I thought disability meant you came home missing something. An arm. A leg. An eye. Something you could recognize from across a room. I had all my parts, so I assumed the word was not about me, and I went about my life with a body that had been put through the 75th Ranger Regiment's full pipeline and did not say anything to anybody about it.

That is not modesty. That is ignorance, and the government did nothing to correct it. When I finally filed, I went through the VA. I did not pay a dollar. I did not hire a consultant, sign a contract, or agree to hand over five times anything. The work took my records and about a month. Airborne and Ranger service leaves a paper trail the Army built itself, every jump, every school, every deployment, and that trail did most of the arguing for me. My rating came back 80 percent.

Nine years of compensation I was owed and did not collect, because nobody told me I qualified. Then one free claim, and about thirty days.

That is the product these companies are selling. Not paperwork. The paperwork is easy and the help is free. What they are selling is the sentence somebody should have said to me in 2012: you probably qualify, go find out. They found a generation of veterans who were never told, and they put a price on it.

What to do instead

Nobody can legally charge you anything to file your first VA disability claim. Nobody. The VFW, the American Legion, the DAV, and your county veterans service officer will do it for free, and they are accredited, trained, and accountable to somebody. If you want a lawyer or an accredited agent for an appeal, you can have one, and their fee is capped and reviewed.

If a company tells you to leave its name off your paperwork, you have learned everything you need to know about that company. Do not sign anything. Delete. Block. File a complaint. Blast them on social media.

The verdict

Scott Greenblatt and Bill Taylor took an oath, wore the uniform for a combined forty-eight years, retired as field grade officers, and then built a business that billed disabled veterans five times a month's compensation for work the law says is free, while instructing those veterans to hide the company's involvement from the government.

The VA told them to stop in 2019. They didn't. The VA told them again in 2024. They didn't. A federal judge told them in 2026, and the case is still going.

Those who take advantage of veterans are some of Karma's Most Wanted. Officers who take advantage of enlisted veterans have a special place in Hell. Karma always gets hers.

The Grounded stands behind every factual claim it publishes with a $100 accuracy guarantee. Find an error of fact and tell us. If you are right, we pay.

Sources

Ford v. Veterans Guardian VA Claim Consulting, LLC, No. 1:23-cv-00756-CCE-LPA (M.D.N.C. May 20, 2026), Memorandum Opinion and Order, Doc. 175: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ncmd-1_23-cv-00756/pdf/USCOURTS- ncmd-1_23-cv-00756-3.pdf

Task & Purpose, "Unaccredited VA claims company charged veteran $21,000 in violation of federal law, judge rules," May 22, 2026: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/va-claim-shark- court-ruling/

VFW, "VFW Applauds Federal Court Ruling Against Veterans Guardian," May 26, 2026:

https://www.vfw.org/media-and-events/latest-releases/archives/2026/5/vfw-applauds- federal-court-ruling-against-veterans-guardian

Veterans Guardian, "About Us": https://vetsguardian.com/about-us/

Moore County Economic Development Partnership, HIREVets Gold Medallion Award:

https://moorecountyedp.org/news/veterans-guardian-honored-with-hirevets-gold- medallion-award/

Texas Attorney General, "Attorney General Ken Paxton Secures Over $6.8 Million in Debt Relief for Disabled Veterans Harmed by Fraudulent VA Assistance Scheme," January 23, 2026: www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton- secures-over-68-million-debt-relief-disabled-veterans-harmed-fraudulent

VA Claims Insider press kit: https://vaclaimsinsider.com/press-kit/

Military.com, "Disabled Veterans Charged Up to $20K to File VA Benefits Claims: Lawsuit," April 14, 2026: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2026/04/14/disabled-veterans-charged-20k-file-va-benefits-claims-lawsuit.html

Military.com, "Lawsuit Against Company Accused of Charging Disabled Veterans $20K for Benefits Halted by Bankruptcy": https://www.military.com/lawsuit-against-company- accused-charging-disabled-veterans-20k-benefits-halted-bankruptcy

NPR, "Congress calls for a crackdown on companies charging disabled vets," December 10, 2025: https://www.npr.org/2025/12/10/nx-s1-5639990/congress-crackdown-veterans- companies-disabled

Washington Post, "The unregulated industry that coaches veterans to pile on benefits," 2025: www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2025/va-disability- ratings-profit-consultants/

The War Horse and NPR, "VA told companies they may be breaking law. Most are still in business," December 2025: www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2025/12/02/va-told- companies-they-may-be-breaking-law-most-are-still-in-business/

CNN, "Do these companies help veterans, or are they cheating them?", February 13, 2026: https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/13/politics/veterans-affairs-disabilities-benefits-pay- companies-louisiana

Statement of Duane Sarmiento, Commander-in-Chief, Veterans of Foreign Wars, joint hearing before the Senate and House Committees on Veterans' Affairs, March 6, 2024: https://www.veterans.senate.gov/services/files/0711C6F2-7222-4635-A9CC- 15C4F6A3A271

S. 4646, SAFEGUARD Veterans Act of 2026: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th- congress/senate-bill/4646/text

H.R. 9105, SAFEGUARD Veterans Act of 2026: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th- congress/house-bill/9105/text/ih

MOAA, "Bipartisan Bill Takes Another Step Toward Protecting Veterans from Predatory Claims Companies": https://www.moaa.org/content/publications-and-media/news- articles/2026-news-articles/advocacy/bipartisan-bill-takes-another-step-toward- protecting-veterans-from-predatory-claims-companies/

38 U.S.C. § 5901, § 5904; 38 C.F.R. § 14.627, § 14.629, § 14.636