Madoff was taken into custody Dec. 11 last year and is in prison serving a 150-year sentence.
Some of his victims asked the House Financial Services subcommittee on capital markets for help with claims that are slow and are woefully short of what many victims claim they lost, USA Today reported Thursday.
Out of 16,000 investors, only 1,487 have been paid for their claims.
Twenty-five percent have yet to hear a decision, while 9,916 claims have been
rejected, the newspaper said.
"You'd think that by this week … our financial regulators ... would have helped as many victims as they could. Sadly you'd think wrong," said Rep.
Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y.
Qualified victims are entitled to a $500,000 payment from the Securities Protection Investor Corp, but what constitutes a qualified victim is in dispute.
In addition, although sizable lawsuits are pending, court-appointed trustee Irving Picard has so far recovered only $1.4 billion on behalf of victims, far short of the estimated $19.4 billion in claims.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
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