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The Attorney General Runs a Military Consumer Desk — and an Active Duty Credit Alert Is Free

Nebraska’s Attorney General maintains a consumer protection programme aimed at servicemembers and veterans, naming the scams that target them disproportionately — advanced funding buyouts of VA benefits, bait-and-switch pension annuities, yo-yo car financing, credit repair, affinity marketing — and taking complaints. It also sets out how a deploying servicemember places a free active duty alert on their credit file, which lasts a year and can be renewed for the length of the deployment.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

Nebraska’s Attorney General maintains a consumer protection programme aimed at servicemembers and veterans, naming the scams that target them disproportionately — advanced funding buyouts of VA benefits, bait-and-switch pension annuities, yo-yo car financing, credit repair, affinity marketing — and taking complaints. It also sets out how a deploying servicemember places a free active duty alert on their credit file, which lasts a year and can be renewed for the length of the deployment.

What it's worth: A complaint route with the state’s own enforcement office, and a free renewable active duty credit alert

  • This is a service and an enforcement channel, not a payment. No sum is claimed and none should be inferred.
  • The active duty alert itself is a federal credit-reporting right exercised with the three bureaux; the state’s contribution is telling you it exists and taking the complaint when something goes wrong.
  • The weight is deliberately low. What it buys is a place to complain and a checklist, which matters most when something has already gone wrong.

Who is entitled to it

  • The programme addresses servicemembers and veterans directly.
  • The page addresses military families as well as members, and the pension scams it names target veterans and their families together.
  • You are in this state.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

  1. 1Place the active duty alert before you deploy. Contact ONE of Equifax on 1-888-836-6351, Experian on 1-888-397-3742 or TransUnion on 1-800-680-7289 — the office says the company you contact is required to notify the other two.
  2. 2The alert means businesses have to take extra steps before granting credit in your name. It lasts one year and can be renewed to match the length of the deployment, so diary the expiry.
  3. 3Send identity documents by CERTIFIED MAIL only. That instruction is on the page and it is the step people skip.
  4. 4Keep a record of the dates you called or wrote and copies of the letters. The office lists that as its third step, and it is what makes a later complaint provable.
  5. 5Know the two scams that specifically target VA money. "Advanced funding", also called a benefits buyout, offers a lump sum in exchange for a stream of your monthly benefit and is usually worth far less than the benefits given up. "Bait and switch annuities" persuade veterans over 65 to move assets into a trust or insurance product to qualify for Aid and Attendance, without saying it can cost Medicaid eligibility or lock the money away.
  6. 6Treat free help with a pension claim as a warning sign, not a favour. The office describes attorneys, financial planners and insurance agents offering "free" paperwork help as the entry point to the annuity scam — an accredited county veterans service officer does that work at no cost and has nothing to sell.
  7. 7Watch for affinity marketing: military-sounding company names, salespeople presented as retired servicemembers, and advertisements in service newspapers that have no official relationship with the government.
  8. 8Complain in more than one place where debt collection is involved. The office says a servicemember facing abusive collection should file with it AND with the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
  9. 9File the complaint online through the state complaint portal, or write to the Consumer Protection Division at 1445 K Street, Room 2115, Lincoln NE 68508, or email ago.consumer@nebraska.gov.
Form
Consumer complaint to the Attorney General; a telephone request to one credit bureau for the alert
File with
Nebraska Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division, 1445 K Street Room 2115, Lincoln NE 68508
Annual
Claimed once a year.
CorrectionThe protections the Attorney General lists under this heading are federal, not Nebraskan. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, the Military Lending Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act are all acts of Congress, and the office says so. Nothing on the page is a Nebraska statute conferring a right, so a servicemember should not expect a state-law answer to a lease or interest-rate problem from this route — the state contribution is enforcement and advice.
CorrectionAn active duty alert is not the same as a credit freeze and is not the same as the fraud alert a civilian places. It is specific to deployment, runs for one year rather than ninety days, and is renewable for the length of the deployment.
Worth knowingThe office is explicit that the alert only needs to be requested from one of the three bureaux, because that bureau must notify the others. Calling all three wastes an afternoon and risks three inconsistent records.
Known gapThe page publishes no Nebraska statutory authority for the office’s consumer protection jurisdiction, and nebraskalegislature.gov refuses every connection from here, so none is claimed. Whether the division has a dedicated military caseworker, and what it has actually enforced against a veteran-targeting business, were not established.

Sources

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