Current and Ex- Military Faking or Exaggerating TBI To Get More Benefits

I don't know about any of you but a while back I watched a show called America's Got Talent and was moved by the story of Timothy Poe and how he had been injured while in the army and now had TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury)..

I later found out that he made the entire story up. He was never injured. Heck, he wasn't even in the Army as long as he said he was.

Here's his story.

I was shocked to see this guy on an episode of Dr. Phil and how Dr. Phil called him out on every single one of his lies and even got military records showing the guy was a liar. I mean, who does this? Who makes up a traumatic brain injury and why? For sympathy? For more benefits?

So I went looked and found a couple more stories..
Matt Farmer, an American Idol Contestant also lied about his TBI.

I think it may be time for shows like these to make sure they do background checks and get facts before airing them on tv. But why do they lie about things like this?

Maybe these two articles will shed some light on those questions.

Tide of New PTSD Cases Raise Fears of Fraud

Are Soldiers Faking Their Injuries to get More Benefits?

If you read those articles, it seems that a few doctors think that some soldiers are actually faking their aliments including PTSD and TBI in order to get more benefits after they retire from service. Since there isn't a true test for PTSD or TBI and symptoms can be exaggerated or even faked outright, it seems that there's probably a good chance that some of the people saying they have these ailments are probably faking it to get disability.

That's a really dirty thing to do because in essence they are taking money from those who really have suffered an injury and are really suffering from these things.