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Scientology wouldn’t pull its ‘Chase Wave’ scam on military veterans, would it?

In April we told you about a recent defector from Scientology named Adam Pires who said he could corroborate our claim that SNL’s Chloe Fineman was a longtime and dedicated Scientologist: While he was in, he had done the “purif” (Scientology’s quack “Purification Rundown” involving massive intake of vitamins and days and days in a sauna) with Fineman.

And he got to know her well enough personally that he ended up buying her car.

Since we wrote that story, Chloe Fineman became a full cast member at Saturday Night Live, and her star continues to rise.

Adam, meanwhile, also had an update for us.

After he saw our story on the “Chase Wave,” he wanted us to know that something very similar happened to him.

“I can tell you I was definitely a part of that, however not through Chase. They were also doing this with Navy Federal as well,” he says.

If you remember, we posted a document sent in by a new source who said it was a step-by-step instruction sheet that Scientology’s “registrars” were given, explaining to them how to lie to Chase credit card operators in order to open up new credit card accounts for cash-poor Scientology members, and then max out those cards with Scientology charges in order to saddle members with huge debts. The “Chase Wave” involved opening up a series of different Chase cards in order to obtain a huge zero-interest credit limit. Scientology was the beneficiary, and our source said the scam was literally bankrupting Scientologists and had led to Chase blacklisting the church.

After we posted that document, two former Scientologists who recently left the organization, Mark Fladd and George McAlpine, both came forward on the record, using their full names, and said they had been subjected to the Chase Wave (Fladd) and witnessed the Chase blacklisting (McAlpine).

Now, yet another recent defector is willing to put his name forward and confirm that he was subjected to a similar credit card scheme while a member of Scientology.

“Once they figured out I had Navy Federal and good credit, they pressured me in a very unfair way to max out my credit card and take a personal loan that I am now defaulted on, as I went way over my debt to income ratio,” Adam says.

Hang on, we said. They were doing the Chase Wave to you on your Navy Federal card?

Navy Federal is the largest credit union in the country, serving some 10 million veterans and their families.

“After they found out at the Celebrity Centre that I could refer a friend to Navy Fed, they had me refer a few people so they could open accounts, even though they weren’t active duty, vets, or a family member. And they weren’t really my ‘friends.’ They were just people I knew in passing at the Org. My roommate was also involved with this, and he was a part of the Chase scam they were running. It had something to do with transferring your debt around to maintain a zero-interest account. It sounded really sketch to me,” he says. “Also, once the Celebrity Centre started doing it, the other orgs started doing it with Navy Federal. They would go out and find who was a veteran or just had an account with Navy Fed and get them to refer other Scientologists as ‘friends’.”

Stunned, we asked Adam to be extra clear on this. Scientology knew he was a veteran, that his credit union was for veterans, and they ran the same kind of credit scheme on him that they did in the “Chase Wave” we saw described in the document?

“They definitely knew I had a Navy Federal account as I told my reg Eric that I banked with Navy Fed. I had told him how they upped my credit card limit, which they considered a ‘win,’ a testament of Scientology financial tech,” he says. “They knew pretty much everything about me besides my Social Security number. I referred at least three people that I can specifically recall that got personal loans. I took out $16,000 in a personal loan and maxed out my credit card at $7,000. The church was very aware of my Navy service, as the Sea Org members would often mention Ron was in the Navy as a way to relate to me. With that being said, I’m sure they knew they were piling on a huge load of debt to a veteran. I didn’t realize until afterwards how duped I was.”

Adam says that one of the ways they pressured him into putting so much money into Scientology services he would never use was by hammering him about their 2 pm Thursday deadline.

“They kept trying to ‘TR’ me by repeating, ‘Can we confirm you will do the $2,500 before Thursday at 2pm?’” In that case, he says, they were pressuring him to pay for either a “Happiness Rundown” at the Los Angeles org, or the “Cause Resurgence Rundown” (running around a lighted pole) at the Flag building in Clearwater, Florida. When he hesitated, a supervisor called him, accusing him of “backing out” after making a promise.

“She called me a chicken. Yes, she actually resorted to calling me a chicken. Then she yells at me saying she wasn’t going to have a dishonest public at her org. At this point I’m getting scared that they are going to try to turn this into a ‘Comm Ev’ and have me declared. So I cave in and tell them I’ll come in after work. Basically they pressured me until 1 in the morning until I caved and took out the huge personal loan and maxed the credit card,” he says. “During this personal loan process in the reg office they discovered I could refer friends. The Navy Fed thing was just one of many creative ways the reges would try to find money. And of course the reges of one org talk to another and that’s how these scams develop in a region or Scientology wide.”

Hey FBI, are you listening?

here is the link to this article on the site: https://tonyortega.org/2021/12/03/scientology-wouldnt-pull-its-chase-wave-scam-on-military-veterans-would-it/

here is a link to my other post on the “vetscor” message board with all the replies: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/4017898/posts

Enjoy!

Supplementary #2:

Other noteworthy incidents involving criminal accusations and prosecutions against the Church of Scientology include:

On January 4, 1963, more than one hundred E-meters were seized by U.S. marshals at the "Founding Church of Scientology" building, now known as the L. Ron Hubbard House, located in Washington, D.C. The church was accused of making false claims that the devices effectively treated some 70 percent of all physical and mental illness. The FDA also charged that the devices did not bear adequate directions for treating the conditions for which they were recommended.^[40]^[41] Upon appeal, the E-meters were returned, with the direction that they should be used only in "bona fide religious counseling", and that all meters and referring literature must include a label disclaiming any medical benefits.^[42] In the decision, the court gave recognition to Scientology's "constitutional right to protection from the government's excessive entanglement with religion" as written by James R. Lewis, in Scientology.^[4]
In 1978, L. Ron Hubbard was convicted in absentia by French authorities of engaging in fraud, fined 35,000 francs, and sentenced to four years in prison.^[43] The head of the French Church of Scientology was convicted at the same trial and given a suspended one-year prison sentence.^[44]
The FBI raid on the Church's headquarters revealed documentation that detailed Scientology actions against various critics of the organization. Among these documents was a plan to frame Gabe Cazares, the mayor of Clearwater, Florida, with a staged hit-and-run accident. Also, plans were made to discredit the skeptical organization CSICOP by spreading rumors that it was a front for the CIA, and a project called "Operation Freakout" which aimed at ruining the life of Paulette Cooper, author of The Scandal of Scientology, an early book that had been critical of the movement.^[45]
In 1988, the government of Spain arrested Scientology president Heber Jentzsch and ten other members of the organization on various charges including illicit association, coercion, fraud, and labor law violations.^[46] Jentzsch jumped bail, leaving Spain and returning to the United States after Scientology paid a bail bond of approximately $1 million, and he has not returned to the country since. Scientology fought the charges in court for fourteen years, until the case was finally dismissed in 2002.^[43]
The Church of Scientology is the only religious organization in Canada to be convicted on the charge of breaching the public trust: The Queen v. Church of Scientology of Toronto, et al. (1992)^[47]
In France, several officials of the Church of Scientology were convicted of embezzlement in 2001.^[48] The Church was listed as a "dangerous cult" in a parliamentary report.^[49] In May 2009, a trial commenced in France against Scientology, accusing it of organised fraud. The case focused on a complaint by a woman who says that after being offered a free personality test, she was pressured into paying large sums of money. The church is regarded as a sect in France.^[50] The result of the trial was that two branches of the organization and several of its leaders have been found guilty of fraud and fined. Alain Rosenberg, the group's head in France, received a two-year suspended jail sentence.^[51]
The Church of Scientology long considered the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) as one of its most important enemies, and many Scientology publications during the 1980s and 1990s cast CAN (and its spokesperson at the time, Cynthia Kisser) in an unfriendly light, accusing the cult-watchdog organization of various criminal activities. After CAN was forced into bankruptcy and taken over by Scientologists in the late 1990s, Scientology proudly proclaimed this as one of its greatest victories.^{[citation needed]}
In Belgium, after a judicial investigation since 1997, a trial against the organization was due to begin in 2008. Charges include formation of a criminal organization, the unlawful exercise of medicine, and fraud.^[52]^[53]^[54]
In the United Kingdom the church has been accused of "grooming" City of London Police officers with gifts worth thousands of pounds.^[55]
In Australia, Scientology has been temporarily banned in the 1960s in three out of six states; the use of the E-meter was similarly banned in Victoria. In Victoria, Scientology was investigated by the state government. In the conclusion to his report written as part of this investigation, Kevin Victor Anderson, Q.C. stated "Scientology is a delusional belief system, based on fiction and fallacies and propagated by falsehood and deception".^[56] The report was later overturned^{[citation needed]} by the High Court of Australia, which compelled the states to recognize Scientology as a religion for purposes of payroll taxes,^[57]^{: para 21} stating "Regardless of whether the members of [the Scientology organization] are gullible or misled or whether the practices of Scientology are harmful or objectionable, the evidence, in our view, establishes that Scientology must, for relevant purposes, be accepted as 'a religion' in Victoria."^[57]^{: para 22}
In 2009, a Paris court found the French Church of Scientology guilty of organized fraud and imposed a fine of nearly US$900,000.^[58] The prosecution had asked for the Church to be banned, but a recent change in legislation made this impossible. The case had been brought by two ex-members who said they had been pressured into spending large amounts of money on Scientology courses and other services. Commenting on the verdict, the plaintiffs' attorney said, "It's the first time in France that the entity of the Church of Scientology is condemned for fraud as an organized gang". A Scientology spokesperson likened the judgment to "an Inquisition for modern times" and said the Church would appeal.^[58]

Treatment of members

Death of Lisa McPherson Main articles: Death of Lisa McPherson and Introspection Rundown

...Florida authorities filed criminal charges against the Church of Scientology, who denied any responsibility for McPherson's death and vigorously contested the charges. The prosecuting attorneys ultimately dropped the criminal case. After four years, a $100 million civil lawsuit filed by Lisa McPherson's family was settled in 2004. The suit resulted in an injunction against the distribution of a film critical of Scientology, The Profit, which the Church claimed was meant to influence the jury. The terms of the settlement were sealed by the court.^{[66]Death of Elli Perkins...
Death of Noah Lottick[edit]
..... Scientology is legally accepted as a religion in the United States and Australia, and enjoys the constitutional protections afforded to religious practice in each country. In October 1993, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service recognized the Church as an "organization operated exclusively for religious and charitable purposes".^[88] The Church offers the tax exemption as proof that it is a religion. (This subject is examined in the article on the Church of Scientology).
In 1982, the High Court of Australia ruled the State Government of Victoria lacked the right to declare the Church of Scientology was not a religion.^[57] The Court found the issue of belief to be the central feature of religion, regardless of the presence of charlatanism: "Charlatanism is a necessary price of religious freedom, and if a self-proclaimed teacher persuades others to believe in a religion which he propounds, lack of sincerity or integrity on his part is not incompatible with the religious character of the beliefs, practices and observances accepted by his followers."^[57]^{: para 26}
Other countries to have recognized Scientology as a religion include Spain,^[89] Portugal,^[90] Italy,^[91] Sweden,^[92]^[93] and New Zealand.^[94] The debate continues until today, with a new generation of critics continuing to question Scientology's legitimacy as a religion.^{[9] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_controversies#Criminal_convictions_of_members}}

Supplementary #3:

Project Normandy was a top secret Church of Scientology operation wherein the church planned to take over the city of Clearwater, Florida, by infiltrating government offices and media centers. Gabe Cazares, who was the mayor of Clearwater at the time, used the term "the occupation of Clearwater"^[1] and later characterized it as a "paramilitary operation by a terrorist group".^[2]

In the 1970s, the Church of Scientology Corporation used a front group, called the "United Churches of Florida", to purchase the Fort Harrison Hotel, for $3 million. The church established their headquarters in the Fort Harrison Hotel, and dubbed it their Flag Land Base.

In 1977, an FBI raid on Scientology headquarters uncovered internal Church of Scientology documents marked "Top Secret", that referred to their secret operation to take over Clearwater, as "Project Normandy". The document itself states its purpose is "to obtain enough data on the Clearwater area to be able to determine what groups and individuals B1 will need to penetrate and handle in order to establish area control". The document says its "Major Target" is "To fully investigate the Clearwater city and county area so we can distinguish our friends from our enemies and handle as needed".^[3]

On November 3, 1979, the Clearwater Sun ran an article with the headline "Scientologists plot city takeover" and later stories claimed that the Scientologists also had international plans to take over the world.^[4] The St. Petersburg Times won a Pulitzer Prize for one of their stories that exposed some of the criminal wrongdoings of the Church of Scientology.^[1] Cazares also noted that he found it odd that a religious group would resort to using code names for a project to take control of a town, and called the project a "paramilitary operation by a terrorist group".^[5]

The Church of Scientology targeted Cazares, attempting to entrap him in a sex scandal.^[6]^[7] Scientology also staged a phony hit-and-run accident with Cazares in an attempt to discredit him. Cazares and his wife sued the Church of Scientology for $1.5 million. The church settled with Cazares in 1986.^{[8]. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Normandy}

Operation Freakout, also known as Operation PC Freakout, was a Church of Scientology covert plan intended to have the U.S. author and journalist Paulette Cooper imprisoned or committed to a psychiatric hospital. The plan, undertaken in 1976 following years of church-initiated lawsuits and covert harassment, was meant to eliminate the perceived threat that Cooper posed to the church and obtain revenge for her publication in 1971 of a highly critical book, The Scandal of Scientology. The Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered documentary evidence of the plot and the preceding campaign of harassment during an investigation into the Church of Scientology in 1977, eventually leading to the church compensating Cooper in an out-of-court settlement.

Cooper, a freelance journalist and author, had begun researching Scientology in 1968 and wrote a critical article on the church for the British magazine Queen (now Harper's Bazaar) in 1969.^[1] The church promptly sued for libel, adding Queen to the dozens of British publications that it had already sued.^[2]^[3]

Undeterred, Cooper expanded her article into a full-length book, The Scandal of Scientology: A chilling examination of the nature, beliefs and practices of the "now religion”; it was published by Tower Publications, Inc. of New York in the summer of 1971. The church responded by suing her in December 1971, demanding $300,000 for "untrue, libelous and defamatory statements about the Church."^[4]

1972–1976: Operations Daniel and Dynamite

Cooper was seen as a high-priority target by the church's Guardian's Office, which acted as a combination of intelligence agency, legal office and public relations bureau for the church. As early as February 29, 1972, the church's third most senior official, Jane Kember, sent a directive to Terry Milner, the Deputy Guardian for Intelligence United States (DGIUS), instructing him to collect information about Paulette Cooper so that she could be "handled".[5] In response, Milner ordered his subordinates to "attack her in as many ways as possible"

In December 1972, the church launched a new attack called Operation Dynamite, an attempt to frame Cooper for supposedly making bomb threats against the Church of Scientology.^[9] That month, a woman ostensibly soliciting funds for United Farm Workers stole a quantity of stationery from Cooper's apartment. A few days later, the New York Church of Scientology "received" two anonymous bomb threats. The following May, Cooper was indicted for making the bomb threats and arraigned for a federal grand jury. The threats had been written on her stationery, which was marked with her fingerprints.

The charges were eventually dropped in 1975 with the filing of a nolle prosequi order by the local US Attorney's office, but it was not until the fall of 1977 that the FBI discovered that the bomb threats had been staged by the Guardian's Office.^[5] A contemporary memorandum sent between two Guardian's Office staff noted on a list of jobs successfully accomplished: "Conspired to entrap Mrs. Lovely into being arrested for a felony which she did not commit. She was arraigned for the crime."^[8]

The church sued Cooper again in 1975 in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia in 1976.^[10]^[11]^[12]

The church itself imported Cooper's books into foreign countries for the express purpose of suing her in jurisdictions where the libel laws were stricter than in the United States.^[13]

1976: Operation Freakout

n the spring of 1976, the Guardian's Office leadership decided to initiate an operation with the aim "To get P.C. incarcerated in a mental institution or jail, or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attacks." The planning document, dated April 1, 1976, declared the aim to be "[t]o remove PC from her position of power so that she cannot attack the C of S [Church of Scientology]."^[5]

In its initial form Operation Freakout consisted of three different plans (or "channels", as the Guardian's Office termed them), tailored to implicate her by her Jewish descent:

First, a woman was to imitate Paulette Cooper's voice and make telephone threats to Arab consulates in New York City.
Second, a threatening letter was to be mailed to an Arab consulate in such a fashion that it would appear to have been done by Paulette Cooper.
Third, a Scientologist volunteer was to impersonate Paulette Cooper at a laundromat and threaten the current president Gerald Ford and then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. A second Scientologist would thereafter inform the FBI of the threat.^[5]

Two additional plans were added to Operation Freakout on April 13, 1976. The fourth plan called for Scientologist agents to gather information from Cooper so that the success of the first three plans could be assessed. The fifth plan was for a Scientologist to warn an Arab consulate by telephone that Paulette Cooper had been talking about bombing it. A sixth and final plan was added subsequently. It was effectively a re-run of the 1972 plot, requiring Scientologists to obtain Paulette Cooper's fingerprints on a blank piece of paper, type a threatening letter to Kissinger on that paper, and mail it. Guardian's Office staff member Bruce Raymond noted in an internal memo: "This additional channel [the sixth plan] should really have put her away. Worked with all the other channels. The F.B.I. already think she did the bomb threats on the C of S [in 1972]."^[5]

On March 31, 1976, Jane Kember telexed Henning Heldt, the Deputy Guardian U.S., to update him on the situation:

PC [Paulette Cooper] is still resisting paying the money but the judgement stands in PT [present time] ... Have her lawyer contacted and also arrange for PC to get the data that we can slap the writs on her. If you want legal docs, from here on we will provide. Then if she still declines to come we slap the writs on her before she reaches CW [Clearwater] as we don't want to be seen publicly [sic] being brutal to such a pathetic victim from a concentration camp.^[5]
Ultimately, Operation Freakout was never put into effect. On June 11, 1976, two Scientology agents—Michael Meisner and Gerald Bennett Wolfe—were caught in the act of attempted burglary at a courthouse in Washington, D.C., as part of the Guardian's Office's ongoing Operation Snow White—a criminal conspiracy by the Church of Scientology during the 1970s to purge unfavorable records about Scientology and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. The Guardian's Office was preoccupied for the next year with attempts to hush up the scandal, even going to the lengths of kidnapping Meisner and holding him incommunicado to prevent him from testifying.^[5] The church sought to bring a quick end to the dispute with Cooper in December 1976 when it proposed to settle with her, on condition that she was not to republish or comment on The Scandal of Scientology and agree to assign the book's copyright to the Church of Scientology of California.
On July 8, 1977, however, the FBI raided Scientology offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., seizing over 48,000 documents. They revealed the extent to which the Church had committed "criminal campaigns of vilification, burglaries and thefts ... against private and public individuals and organizations", as the U.S. Government prosecutor put it.^[5] The documents were later released to the public, enabling Cooper and the world at large to learn about the details of Operation Freakout....
The Church of Scientology filed at least 19 lawsuits against Cooper throughout the 1970s and 1980s, which Cooper considered part of "a typical Scientology dirty-tricks campaign" and which Cooper's attorney Michael Flynn said was motivated by L. Ron Hubbard's declaration that the purpose of a lawsuit was to "harass and discourage".[16][17] Cooper discontinued her legal actions against Scientology in 1985 after receiving an out-of-court settlement.[18] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freakout