The user's file permissions were set wrong on /usr/lib/pt_chmod. The user had:
# ls -la /usr/lib/pt_chmod ---s--x--x 1 bin bin 3120 May 3 1996 |
# ls -la /usr/lib/pt_chmod ---s--x--x 1 root bin 3120 May 3 1996 |
The owner should be root; the user had bin as the owner. Also, the setuid bit must be set.
By using chown root pt_chmod, the problem was corrected.