Holidays are open season on military wallets
(cont'd)

"The military teaches troops how to duck bullets, but not how to duck financial bullets," Schumann said. "(Service members) have to understand that it does not take much to trash a credit score. It's not just about buying what you want now."

Harvey has a slightly different take on the causes of service members' debt.

"More guys are coming home from Iraq and the first thing they do is get hooked up with a used car," said Harvey, a lawyer at Camp Pendleton. "For most of them, this is the first significant purchase they have made."

The troops are flush with cash because they collected combat pay and usually don't spend that money overseas, Harvey said.

"For the Marine, this is found money that makes him nonchalant and not likely to look at finance charges, which can take on a life of their own," he said.

While payday loans are often reviled as the leading example of predatory lending targeted at service members, Harvey said California law has largely corralled that problem in places such as San Diego County, which is home to more than 110,000 service members and their families.

For instance, the state caps a payday loan at $300 and limits the interest rate to 15 percent.

That's not to say high-interest, short-term loans aren't a problem elsewhere.

A recent survey by the federal Government Accountability Office said many in the armed forces take out short-term loans carrying interest rates of more than 200 percent in some cases.

The 32nd Street Naval Station participated in the study, which focused on predatory loan practices and their effects on the military. It was one of 13 military bases nationwide that held focus groups for the report.

Troop morale and readiness suffer when service members confront financial difficulties, the GAO noted. Those troubles are likely to mount because of many troops' repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan that increase stress levels and disrupt household patterns, the report concluded.

In July, California and the U.S. Department of Defense launched the program Troops Against Predatory Scams, or TAPS, to educate service members about financial planning and help them confirm whether a salesman or company is properly licensed and registered.

"Our people are young and inexperienced," Rear Adm. Jose Luis Betancourt, commander of Navy Region Southwest, said during a news conference at the 32nd Street Naval Station to announce TAPS. "It makes me angry that young people are getting trapped in these binds. It affects their family life and how they serve."