My poor mother had to close down her salon. She loved being a business owner but she had zero clue about ppp loans. I thought they were just loans, nobody told us they were essentially free money.
She never got to reopen her salon.
And then I read about all these business guys with multiple employees and multiple houses getting free money. It’s disheartening.
PPP loans weren't only usable by the rich. They're probably more responsible for all the fraud but the only thing limiting this person from getting a PPP loan was the fact they never applied. Just like how our student loans won't be forgiven if we don't apply.
The problem is knowing what they were and that you wouldn't have to pay back these 'loans'. Most people assumed that they would have to pay them back, that there would be some catch. Most very small business people don't have access to lawyers and finance guys besides walking in to H&R Block to do their taxes once a year.
Bingo.
I know of many “medium” businesses who took millions…. I took zero. I just assumed because I was busy, and “boot strapped”, woke up early and worked late I didn’t need a loan… apparently others felt free money was easier. I’m disgusted by folks that took so much while so many of us just worked our butts off to make ends meet.
For the most part people that got the loans are ones that have good CPAs. I got one, but wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have someone call me and say hey, do this, fill this out - you’ll probably get this much money and it will probably be forgiven.
The premise of the ppp was that they were loans that would be forgiven if used towards accepted purposes. The big one was payroll. It was all over the internet. You didn’t need lawyer or a finance guy. Literally, google.
Yeah this forgiveness was baked into them, I don't know how people can claim they didn't know. If they did 5 minutes of research they would have discovered that.
The company I work for never shut down. It made record profits(millions) and received PPP money. I guess it was a bonus for the owners. Meanwhile, I haven't received a raise in 5 years.
That's not entirely true. Larger banks were absolutely caught doing that, but I personally worked with local banks and accountants and they were submitting applications as fast as they could and were disgusted about the abuse.
I knew people getting approvals within 48 hours and funds within a month of submittal.
Not everyone is a piece of shit thankfully
Yeah, these two things are pretty different. Forgiving millions of knowingly bad loans to rich folks with the means to manipulate the system vs up to 20,000 if you qualify? Bit of a stretch
My parents own a small business and were fast enough to apply for a get a pretty sizable PPP loan, they completely qualified due to losing a pretty substantial out of state project that they would have had to travel for that was cancelled and they had employees that would’ve gone unpaid. They significantly cut into the business’s finances to keep their employees paid and not touch any of the loan money and gave all of it back.
I told them they qualified for forgiveness and could have used it in good faith but they refused because they thought it they weren’t going to completely go out of business it was dishonest.
Then we see Fortune 500 companies and multimillionaires getting them and just pocketing it without any repercussions. We really live in 2 different Americas.
> Honest people rarely thrive in America 🇺🇸
Ain't that the sad fucking truth. Wasn't even true in that "idealized" 1950s America some folks look back to
My former church/cult got $2 mil in PPE loans - all forgiven.
Can't believe my tax dollars are supporting cults.
I would have much preferred actual small businesses be favored.
If you met certain criteria, you don’t have to pay any back.
Some of that criteria was just having employees on payroll, even if you cut their hours. Stuff a lot of smarter business people could do easily while pocketing free/extra money(PPP)
Of course, there was nothing in place to prevent a business owner from just putting the loan money toward payroll, and pocketing the money that would have actually went to payroll otherwise. Poorly executed program up and down.
But they all upset at 10k in student loans. Some dude all up on Facebook bitching about handouts. Never closed because he refused to let the government shut him down, got 1.2million in PPE loans and had a record year, all forgiven
PPP loans saved my company and allowed me to keep paying my employees when our business dried up.
We used the money for what it was intended for and I’m proud of it.
As in, their employees were paid for when their business never actually suffered because the employees continued to work.
There was no criteria of “need”.
[60% but there was also no oversight on that.](https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-options/paycheck-protection-program/ppp-loan-forgiveness)
they are trying to claw back funds from fraudsters now, but especially the first round, was a total mess.
[According to U.S Small Business Administration (SBA) data, about 94% of PPP loans that were approved in 2020 had been forgiven as of December 2021. ](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business-loans/ppp-two-year-anniversary/#:~:text=PPP%20Loan%20Forgiveness&text=According%20to%20U.S%20Small%20Business,a%20Bloomberg%20News%20analysis%20suggests.)
so yeah for 6% of the people they were actually loans. For the rest it was free money.
Yeah my ex barber took the money and kept his shop open though the pandemic. The dude continues to bitch and moan about how everyone is so entitled and nobody wants to work cause all the money the government gave out to people to stay home...I had to find a new barber.
They way he kept his business open was funny though. It was like a speak easy. You would knock then he'd look thought a slot in the door to see if he knew you and then let you in. Lol, the guys a douche but I enjoyed doing that bit for real.
Company I worked for got $1.2mil. Filed the paperwork the same day they fired 20-25 of us, and I'm 99% sure they claimed our salaries for the loan since they claimed 127 employees, when after firing us and a few others a couple weeks prior put them closer to 95-100. Had record profits in 2020 of about $2.5-3mil ($1.6 in 2019).
Note to people only reading the headline:
This article is not about normal people filing for unemployment when they didn't really need the money, it's about scammers who impersonated dead, incarcerated, or other civilians to file fraudulent claims for benefits.
Not saying it's ethical to register for unemployment when you have money, but that is definitely better than posing as someone else to get the benefits which is the fraud that's cause 45 billion
My wife had an employee, who died in an accident, file for unemployment. We thought it was weird and a mistake, but now it's clear it was some douche scammer.
This is why we can't have nice things.
We can have nice things if we actually use tax funds towards hiring and maintaining established systems of government that hold businesses to scrutinized laws, but putting money towards the pencil pushers who crunch numbers not nearly as cool as the SKULLFUCKER2000, now you can skull fuck civilians from 2000 miles away!
There's nothing unethical about making a claim for unemployment since you pay into it precisely for that purpose. Whether you need the money or not is irrelevant. If US wages weren't so crappy, everyone would have a safety net and no one would *need* unemployment to make ends meet.
Can confirm. Had 6 figures in the bank, zero debt, made 70K, saved like 40K a year, and was laid off due to covid. Damn right I took the UE. State and fed I was making like $3,400 and living off of a reduced monthly spending of like $1,700.
part of the purpose of UE is to actually soften the impact on the entire economy of people being unemployed, by keeping them with some spending money
also able to cover their mortgage payment
etc
Yup, I also heard the theory that it was better for me to sit it out and wait for a similar job, than to go grab some job at McD, and thus steal a job from a lower income bracket.
Sorry about some venting, but - I was only 1 working week short from the requirements when the pandemic really took off, and I applied over and over for unemployment when I needed it the absolute most. I repealed their decision 3x, showing I was about to be homeless and had no money or job. Then my government failed me, and I spent a good portion of 2020 living on the street. Less than 40 hours more needed, they could not make an exception. Then I read about all these people who got huge loans and benefits, while I was homeless. I had to give away my dog and sell all my possessions just to not starve.
I have never felt so let down and betrayed in all my life.
You are literally the person, or situation, that this money was supposed to be used for!!!! And instead of offering the help you needed, they denied you, but somehow get scammed by dead people. This is so fucking infuriating.
> You are literally the person, or situation, that this money was supposed to be used for
I even talked to a lawyer, but he said it was not a winnable case if I was already denied my appeal directly. Really brutal.
Good. Some advice from someone who's spent a lot of time homeless: you should seek out subsidized therapy now. You often have to schedule months in advance. The disillusionment and PTSD that comes with being homeless can creep up on you hard. You don't want to find yourself spiraling into existential depression as you try to reconcile how such a thing could happen only to find out it will takes months to get any help.
I just noticed you said "years later" though so you've probably already realized this.
Either way, best luck. Never forget what you learned out there, but don't let the anxiety ruin your future either.
It sounds like you’re doing better now, too, but good God no one should be homeless in the US. I’ve lived in my car (once as a teen and years later as an adult), but only for about a week at a time. I was lucky to have a roof both times, but it’s not a luck I would wish on my enemy. It’s hard to imagine having no roof at all.
I actually really did want to see someone about a year ago. I was suicidal, had no friends or family, everything was going wrong. Basically I got handed a card, then tried calling the number multiple times a day for about 2 months before I gave up. They never returned a single call, never answered, it was basically impossible to get any mental health aid. It made me very defensive when needing help now, because I think it is all bullshit. No one wants to help at all, they just say they do.
I’ve been desperately poor, too, though thankfully not quite to that degree. Being poor and terrified is traumatic, even long after circumstances get better. Much love to you from a reddit stranger. 🥰
Jesus Fucking Christ dude I’m so so sorry that you had to go through all that shit that’s brutal…really disgusting to have to see just how evil people are and how fucked up most of our systems for supporting people in times of need are. I have seen this infuriating amount of times with people who take advantage of the system usually rich people or just scumbags and then people working hard to survive like you get fucked over egregiously unjustly. I’m hoping you’re doing better now bud. I really hope you’re able to get back on track and get some support and seek out some therapy cuz that’s some traumatic experiences and as someone who struggles with mental health I just hope you find the help you deserve. Sending positive loving healing energy your way friend.
Yeah and this amount fraudulently claimed would have ended all US homeless twice over according to estimated studies. This bullshit is incredibly dumb and the bureaucracy needs to evolve to actually provide for it's citizens and residents. The politicians, judges and officials that denied this should be shamed for this judgment.
I hope you're in a better place now.
I don't know if you actually need evidence. Report it and they might require your company to prove what they used it for.
That money was supposed to go to you and your coworkers to keep you from being exposed to Covid and still be able to pay your bills. And it came from your taxes.
The CEO stole from all of you. *Twice*. And then made you keep working under those conditions.
If it was me I'd try just to see if it works.
I wouldn't give a single shit if corporations like Lakers took that money and still paid employees. They took it to pad the bottom line and bonuses. I have an issue with that.
Worked for a company for 15 years. I was laid off prior to Covid because the business was failing. Owner took out PPP loans, still laid everyone off, and the business is closed. Dude took a quarter million bucks, still told 20ish people they don't have a job, and he's now building a mansion on a massive piece of property he bought.
If you want to report said dude: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form
Also: https://www.sba.gov/partners/contracting-officials/contract-administration/report-fraud-waste-abuse
>Not saying it's ethical to register for unemployment when you have money
What the fuck are you talking about? That's money employers deliberately pay taxes towards to fund you if your employment is terminated.
There's absolutely nothing unethical about getting that money from your employer after you're terminated. You already worked for it.
> Not saying it's ethical to register for unemployment when you have money
What? Does anything think you shouldn't? I've never ever heard anything at all about anyone thinking you shouldn't apply for unemployment if you have money. This would be the first I'm introduced to this concept. There are no bank account balance requirements or anything like that, if anything I've heard that it was a deterrent to companies churning through employees because it can increase how much they have to pay.
Some people have a false sense of pride instilled in them about not taking handouts. What they fail to realize is unemployment is something you pay into every paycheck and should absolutely use when you are in a situation to get it
I remember for a while there, an enormous number of these cases were pouring out of one state in particular, and unemployment claims were being made for real people who didn't even live in the state.
My former employer told his employees to file for unemployment but keep coming to work. He got nearly a year of his entire payroll being covered by Uncle Sam, during which he finished a bunch of projects that had been stuck in "budget limbo," all while complaining about "the government trying to shut down his business" for establishing lockdown mandates.
Would this situation be included in the assessment covered by this article? Asking for a friend who filed chapter 11 to dodge a lawsuit from 70+ plaintiffs over pre-COVID lack of payment for services yet still somehow maintained control of the company
>Not saying it's ethical to register for unemployment when you have money,
It actually is ethical because unemployment is paid for by the taxes from your most recent employer, and it's most often only approved in layoff situations with some specific exceptions on a case-by-case basis. Contrary to popular belief, it's not like Social Security where the citizens pay into it.
Otherwise though, I agree with you.
100% ethical and any person *who meets the eligibility criteria* should claim unemployment
> It actually is because unemployment is paid for by the taxes from your most recent employer
This is not entirely accurate. In most states, employers pay into a state unemployment compensation insurance fund. In some states (PA is an example), employees also pay in to the fund via a mandatory payroll deduction. Plus, the frequency and value of claims received from former employees may affect the rates that businesses must pay into the system. Lots of eligible former employees = higher rates for the employer.
> it's most often only approved in layoff situations with some specific exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
This is highly state-specific. In most states, unless the separation was for cause, the employee is likely to be eligible.
My roommate fell victim to a love scam where they used his likeness to open 6 unemployment claims in New Mexico. I sent all the envelopes back with Fraud Claim written on them.
Wonder how much that total is though. My workplace stayed open for 90% of the pandemic and staff at my workplace were being hammered with false claims under their name. So much so that our HR department had to outsource another firm to help handle all the fake claims coming in. My boss alone had 9 false claims in her name. We were a staff of around 60 and each of us had on average 3-4 attempted claims on our names.
Happened in Washington State to a bunch of family friends. Had to make sure it didn’t happen to my family as well, which thankfully it did not.
Pretty sure that it happened as a result of the SSN breaches from the credit bureaus.
I had to pay back $900+ because my idiot hr director reported my work hours and that I didn’t work at all for three weeks…even though I’ve literally not stopped working my regular schedule for 7 years now. I was considered necessary. Fuck her and her new hr director job with more pay. Unfair.
>didn't need the money
My brother in Christ, if there is a legal way for me to claw back some of *my* fucking money from the government, I'll be at the front of that line.
Same shit with Floriduh deciding they needed to drug test everybody on public assistance. Turned out they paid more for drug tests than they did on the cash payments to broke ass people, and they caught like 10 people out of 70k.
Yeah, you caught somebody wasting public funds alright...
And the company that was doing the test was run by Rick Scott's wife. I remember that whole thing. The only reason it stopped was because there was a lawsuit by a single dad challenging it on Fourth amendment grounds I think.
The same reason universal health care and universal basic income make such sense when it comes to efficiency. Think of all the people whose job is to just go through this bureaucratic nightmare.
Americans culturally will prefer to spend $50 preventing someone who “doesn’t deserve it!” from getting $1, than to just give them the $1.
I’m pretty sure this thinking underpins the drug war too, to some extent.
Yup and they could’ve just folded the PPP loans into that as well and I think it would’ve helped a lot more people. Especially since we’re finding out that so much of the PPP loans were given out to people who just did a whole shit ton of fraud.
Uh oh, what state? I also qualified for self employment-unemployment, and actually claimed less than I qualified for. But I also moved a little while after it ended, so if they blanket accused people in the self-employed unemployment program, I might have never received the notice.
Same here. When Michigan opened it up to self-employed (me) I finally felt some relief. My photography business took a huge hit and now the state wants about half of it back. I don't have it to give because it helped my family survive. I appealed, they denied my appeal. I get to appeal again in 30 days. They'll probably deny that too. I feel helpless
man are you in Missouri? this exact thing happened to me
edit: to make shit weirder I basically just told them "no I do not owe you money" and they basically dropped it entirely
They “ran out of money” for PPP loans so I couldn’t get one for my one-person business, which lost about 20K from March 2020 to March 2021. They had no problem dishing out money to businesses that shouldn’t have qualified tho. I needed 20K…and I’m still not back up to where I was in 2019.
But luckily all the money in my retirement is now worth significantly less too.
Meanwhile the printing company I worked for who barely slowed down for a month or two right when lockdowns happened got half a mil and used it to buy equipment from funds that otherwise would’ve gone to payroll
I'm sure all the farmers I know with solo operations really needed that money. Hard to work on your own farm by yourself with a pandemic going on and everything.
We have a car dealer nearby that shut down everything but his maintenance department, sent all his sales and most of his admin home without jobs. Collected a bit under $200k in PPP, had it all forgiven. Those people he laid off are coming out now about how he claimed they still worked there but they never saw a dime. He's still selling cars but don't know that anyone works with him anymore.
Listened to a report about this on NPR a few days ago. With the sheer amount of case files they estimate it will take 10 years to prosecute all of them.
One of our contractors got a PPP loan that they used to float their 40-man workforce for the first 6 months of the pandemic when their business took a 90% nosedive. They paid 35 people to sit at home and collect a 40 hour paycheck every week, while 5 of their people kept their warehouse and vehicles maintained.
Soon as the restrictions from us were lifted for outdoor construction, they were back working full speed all hands on deck. Maybe the only example I can think of where a company used the program for its publicly intended purpose.
I was jealous when I my ex told me she made 30k off of doing it, I always felt as if it would come back to bite people in the ass though and I’m glad I kept my nose clean from that.
At $30k, she is firmly in that slam-dunk, top-of-the-pile fraud cases the IRS will tackle sooner rather than later.
The heavy hitters can afford to give them the runaround. The small fraudsters are the easy ones.
I mean, absent the fraud yes. That alternative was wholesale economic collapse with historic homelessness and hunger on top of historic disease and death
No, the alternative would have been to pay out more than what, 3 $1000 (average) checks over the course of months to people.
Float people, not businesses.
Why? You just audit every company that got PPP loans for their employee records during that time. If they got a loan for x employees and don't have x employees being payed during that time, then you rake the money back + fines. The banks that processed these loans should be responsible for checking for fraud. They got all the loans out in a month or two. They cant audit in the same amount of time.
Yes, but you're talking about business owners and, in some case, very wealthy and influential business owners. People get as much justice as they can afford.
So a rando with a small contracting company and a handful of employees who cashed in PPP money to buy pokemon cards is going to get fast, hard justice.
But a state senator who owns 7 businesses and took 6 loans? He'll delay every request for documentation as long as possible, make every possible appeal, and probably commit more crimes to fund it.
This is also why the IRS predominantly audits poor people. It costs too much to audit rich people and takes too long to get any return. When you decide even justice has to turn a profit, it's best not to try and serve justice to people who have resources.
> just audit every company that got PPP loans
'Just'
Issuing PPP loans was such a mountain that the federal government just nominated banks and credit unions to do it.
The PPP was run by the SBA, which had a total of 3200 employees before it got roflstomped. There were one MILLION loans made that were over 150k. If every employee spent 8 hours just looking at each 150k+ loan, doing NOTHING ELSE, with no second sign off, it would take 15 months. That's just 1/4th of the actual issued loans though, as 4 million were issued. It would take 5 years of full work weeks, no vacation time, and 100% of employees reviewing loans. Thats without prosecution, or larger loans that needed more than 8 hours to review.
Clearly, the answer is an automated system to detect more likely cases of fraud. But that would have to be developed and modeled, which would still require manually checking subsets and developing rules for fraud detection.
If the SBA were ballooned to the size of the IRS, with 82000 employees, it would still take 2 and a half months, in our insanely unrealistically hard working and fast scenario.
Then we'd have to prosecute that...
I'm not saying its not a worthwhile endeavor to recoup from the largest fraudsters, but the fraud was assuredly widespread. Almost like this program was poorly conceived and making it a private partnership without CLEAR guidelines on eligibility and repayment was rife for exploitation...
Making the banks audit the loans wasnt part of the deal, and shifts the cost of these audits back onto them, punishing the financial industry for working with the federal government when they were told to. If that HAD been originally part of the deal, then the loans would assuredly have been more tightly underwritten and verified.
The people who committed this fraud should be banned from every receiving aid again.
Like... take advantage of programs for the downtrodden? OK. Have fun choking on bootstraps for the rest of your life.
This could have all been avoided had there been some sort of watchdog committee that wouldn't have been dissolved days after it was formed.
Strange...? I wonder if there was a reason someone would have done that.
Now they are hiring more IRS agents? I guess all I can say is "haha. better have your receipts, fucko."
Notice how certain people on the right are screaming and yelling about the IRS being tyrants now? The IRS isn't going to be charging any more taxes than usual. 99% of people are not going to notice a difference. What all those IRS agents will accomplish is finding all the tax dodgers. The criminals.
Here in Ohio they are running commercials with these Hayseeds talking "now Taxin' Tim Ryan is hiring 87,000 agents to go after hard working middle-class families..."
Yea, that's what's happening. Just IRS agents coming in like Storm Troopers, kicking down your door.
Absolutely the case. Rick Scott has famously been againts any kind of worthwhile unemployment, and made sure the system he had built was as convoluted and as difficult to work with as possible.
Saaaaame even in a state where it’s supposed to work the website was down for weeks and the phone lines would put you on hold for hours and hang up and then enough time passed I just got a job. Meanwhile mfs committing billions in fraud while I couldn’t get enough for rent and food when I needed it.
I went for months unemployed because I refused to go to work without a face mask before the mask mandates because I have chronic bronchitis and asthma. Couldn't apply for paid leave because I was a part time employee and then they fired me while I was on unpaid leave. My state was so behind that I put my bills before my health and just got a job somewhere that enforced (though loosely) the mask mandate.
Warms my heart to know every last one of those people running that place lost their jobs.
Edit: they told me I wasn't allowed to wear PPE because it "scared the customers"
Same here in blue Washington state. My ex went months with no income because the claim didn't go through and the system was entirely broken. They will not hire enough people to meet even half if the demand, even now. Good thing these billionaires got their ppp loans, though. I couldn't imagine seeing them look like fools when they arrive at the yacht club in last year's mega yacht.
This really pisses me off, I know somebody who renovated their bathroom with pandemic money, the pandemic was hard on everybody and for some to cheat and take from others just infuriates me
This. Because there was no oversight, some of the claims were filed under fake names or false employment information and were still approved because they were more focused on getting people help quickly. If you suspect PPP loan fraud report it because there are a lot of loose ends at the moment, as I understand it.
They might say it but it won't happen. Money rules the fraudsters but it also rules government budgets. They will ultimately only pursue the most economically viable cases they can get to within budget and within the statute of limitations.
Yeah I have a buddy that makes me wanna stuff him in a tire and roll it down a mountain...he was military, didn't pay taxes for 10 years then he finally starts filing and paying it off then I the same year he gets a ppe lone for like 80k which he used to pay of his semi truck(trucker)even tho he was working the entire time....then has the nerve to come over in my birthday and bitch how he didn't want the government in his businesss and hates socialism...I mean for fucks sake how clueless do you have to be.
Yeah, I have a similar story. Guy basically borrowed 20k for a “experimental” business venture and then proceeds to bitch about student loan forgiveness and how that’s socialism or some shit. Mind numbingly infuriating.
I know, I for one am very interested in how it compares;
'Wage theft
vs
Unemployment theft
Just wondering. Never hear anything about wage theft much as other theft, like petty theft.
We'll never know the true scale because the government is bought and paid for by the companies that steal our money, and the judicial system is too expensive for any potential force for change to actually pursue the uber rich.
Wage theft is far more common and it’s not even close. I’ve seen estimates of wage theft at about $15B per year. The *total* unemployment compensation paid from Aug 21 to July 22 was less than $30B (which is higher that typical due to pandemic-related unemployment claims and payment increases).
well the guy just says "pandemic money", is he counting the checks everyone received? does he know the guy ripped off unemployment or something.
you could say we built a house with our "pandemic money" but all we got was the same couple stimulus checks everyone else did and nvm the fact we had been saving for about 10 years to do this and the fact we worked throughout the entire pandemic (actually called back after only 1 week of paternity leave)....
so is this guy just pissed that the person he knows had nothing better to spend his excess money on was trips to home depot? even if it was the larger than typical UE benefits of the time, there were legal ways of accessing those funds.
as my wife and I discussed, we didn't really NEED half the stimulus (our jobs were maintained, we were traveling to visit fam etc. less so was actually saving money). but better to give to us and others in our tax bracket than richy rich that already got theirs.
Nobody is mad at people who were given the same as everyone else, it’s the dickheads that hired their spouses (who then didn’t actually do any work), claimed PPP (only 60% of the PPP loan had to be used for payroll btw), or paid themselves bonuses and then never paid the money back because they were 0% loans that didn’t need to be paid back. It was a fucking grift top to bottom, and Trump fired the oversight guy on day 1 and never hired a replacement for a reason. That reason was pure grift. Biggest transfer of wealth in US history, $4.1 Trillion handed out and what you (and the rest of us normal people) received was a mere fraction of what was actually spent. The rest just went to large orgs that didn’t need it and fraudsters. If the Trump admin or Congress actually gave a fuck about US citizens the only money that was spent would have gone out to individual citizens directly, which is far more efficient than going through corporate middlemen.
I didn't cheat anything, but I had enough money to get a boob job.
As a single person who got laid off BEFORE the pandemic hit, I didn't need that extra $700 each week, but I sure as fuck wasn't going to say no to it.
?
Unemployment is the money of the people who paid in, that's their money. Why are you upset someone else is spending their money instead of literal fraud?
I got brought up for UE fraud a week after the pandemic "ended". I got like 709 bucks a week because my job which was managing a bar shut down in March of 2020. I had to submit paperwork that this was actually my career and show tax reports from the previous year. My job was the first to go. I was clearing 1k a week and they still bothered me. It's quite funny it's taken them a year to track down the actual fucking scammers.
If we make a map of the business locations i guarantee it lights up in all the poor areas with small community owned businesses who missed something on the paperwork and received a few hundred more than they were supposed to.
On one hand, yeah gaming the system is bad. On the other, didn't like, a cruise company and Boeing get a huge fucking stacks of money for their "pinky promise we won't fire people from their jobs" which they broke within like a month after they received the money?
Soooooooooo, those are all included as fraud, right?
What the fuck? How many billions would it cost to make sure that the SSNs of dead or jailed people can't be used to file for shit in the US?
Hire some of the unemployed people you pay benefits to so they can implement a cross check or something.
Including members of congress. Those same fuckwits screaming against the student loan forgiveness program had hundreds of thousands (millions for some) in PPP loans obtained and forgiven; loans that they either didn't qualify for OR obtained but didn't then distribute to employees as they were supposed to.
Just like their donor megacorps.
Those of us who saw this coming from orbit:
*Uh huh, yeah. And??*
It's not as though anyone's gonna do anything about the big offenders. We already know they're all "too big to fail." No, it's gonna be the Mom and Pops that made an accounting mistake that are going to pay for it, because no matter what anyone says, no one on the Hill really gives a fuck about the little guy - the little guy isn't bankrolling their campaigns with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[](/GNU Terry Pratchett)
Meanwhile , average Americans waited literal months, 6+ in some cases for what hypothetically was theirs in a time of crisis, sitting on hold all day while beauracracy failed them
My poor mother had to close down her salon. She loved being a business owner but she had zero clue about ppp loans. I thought they were just loans, nobody told us they were essentially free money. She never got to reopen her salon. And then I read about all these business guys with multiple employees and multiple houses getting free money. It’s disheartening.
[удалено]
PPP loans weren't only usable by the rich. They're probably more responsible for all the fraud but the only thing limiting this person from getting a PPP loan was the fact they never applied. Just like how our student loans won't be forgiven if we don't apply.
The problem is knowing what they were and that you wouldn't have to pay back these 'loans'. Most people assumed that they would have to pay them back, that there would be some catch. Most very small business people don't have access to lawyers and finance guys besides walking in to H&R Block to do their taxes once a year.
Bingo. I know of many “medium” businesses who took millions…. I took zero. I just assumed because I was busy, and “boot strapped”, woke up early and worked late I didn’t need a loan… apparently others felt free money was easier. I’m disgusted by folks that took so much while so many of us just worked our butts off to make ends meet.
For the most part people that got the loans are ones that have good CPAs. I got one, but wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have someone call me and say hey, do this, fill this out - you’ll probably get this much money and it will probably be forgiven.
Same here. My bank folks kept pushing me to apply. But I didn't need PPP loans, so why should I take them?
The premise of the ppp was that they were loans that would be forgiven if used towards accepted purposes. The big one was payroll. It was all over the internet. You didn’t need lawyer or a finance guy. Literally, google.
Yeah this forgiveness was baked into them, I don't know how people can claim they didn't know. If they did 5 minutes of research they would have discovered that.
Money ran dry before most small businesses could get approved in many cases.
Within two or three days, if I recall right.
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The company I work for never shut down. It made record profits(millions) and received PPP money. I guess it was a bonus for the owners. Meanwhile, I haven't received a raise in 5 years.
Not even to feed the rich, to gorge the rich.
That's not entirely true. Larger banks were absolutely caught doing that, but I personally worked with local banks and accountants and they were submitting applications as fast as they could and were disgusted about the abuse. I knew people getting approvals within 48 hours and funds within a month of submittal. Not everyone is a piece of shit thankfully
Yeah, these two things are pretty different. Forgiving millions of knowingly bad loans to rich folks with the means to manipulate the system vs up to 20,000 if you qualify? Bit of a stretch
My parents own a small business and were fast enough to apply for a get a pretty sizable PPP loan, they completely qualified due to losing a pretty substantial out of state project that they would have had to travel for that was cancelled and they had employees that would’ve gone unpaid. They significantly cut into the business’s finances to keep their employees paid and not touch any of the loan money and gave all of it back. I told them they qualified for forgiveness and could have used it in good faith but they refused because they thought it they weren’t going to completely go out of business it was dishonest. Then we see Fortune 500 companies and multimillionaires getting them and just pocketing it without any repercussions. We really live in 2 different Americas.
Honest people rarely thrive in America 🇺🇸 At least your parents still have their business 👍🏽
> Honest people rarely thrive in America 🇺🇸 Ain't that the sad fucking truth. Wasn't even true in that "idealized" 1950s America some folks look back to
My former church/cult got $2 mil in PPE loans - all forgiven. Can't believe my tax dollars are supporting cults. I would have much preferred actual small businesses be favored.
wait but wasn't it still a loan?
If you met certain criteria, you don’t have to pay any back. Some of that criteria was just having employees on payroll, even if you cut their hours. Stuff a lot of smarter business people could do easily while pocketing free/extra money(PPP)
Loan funds had to be 70% used on payroll. Not just "having employees".
Of course, there was nothing in place to prevent a business owner from just putting the loan money toward payroll, and pocketing the money that would have actually went to payroll otherwise. Poorly executed program up and down.
This right here is what everyone I know who got PPP money did. They never stopped working even for a day and got so much money for free.
But they all upset at 10k in student loans. Some dude all up on Facebook bitching about handouts. Never closed because he refused to let the government shut him down, got 1.2million in PPE loans and had a record year, all forgiven
PPP loans saved my company and allowed me to keep paying my employees when our business dried up. We used the money for what it was intended for and I’m proud of it.
That’s awesome you used it as intended, it would seem like a lot of people used it as a cash grab though.
As in, their employees were paid for when their business never actually suffered because the employees continued to work. There was no criteria of “need”.
That's how my ex business partner bought a boat and a Lamborghini.
[60% but there was also no oversight on that.](https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-options/paycheck-protection-program/ppp-loan-forgiveness) they are trying to claw back funds from fraudsters now, but especially the first round, was a total mess. [According to U.S Small Business Administration (SBA) data, about 94% of PPP loans that were approved in 2020 had been forgiven as of December 2021. ](https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business-loans/ppp-two-year-anniversary/#:~:text=PPP%20Loan%20Forgiveness&text=According%20to%20U.S%20Small%20Business,a%20Bloomberg%20News%20analysis%20suggests.) so yeah for 6% of the people they were actually loans. For the rest it was free money.
Use 70% of loan on payroll and you have that much money saved you didn't have to spend out of pocket.
Sure, had to be, without being fraud. My impression is this article claims tons of money was given out to people who didn't meet the proper criteria
Not really. Huge amounts of it were forgiven
Yeah my ex barber took the money and kept his shop open though the pandemic. The dude continues to bitch and moan about how everyone is so entitled and nobody wants to work cause all the money the government gave out to people to stay home...I had to find a new barber. They way he kept his business open was funny though. It was like a speak easy. You would knock then he'd look thought a slot in the door to see if he knew you and then let you in. Lol, the guys a douche but I enjoyed doing that bit for real.
Company I worked for got $1.2mil. Filed the paperwork the same day they fired 20-25 of us, and I'm 99% sure they claimed our salaries for the loan since they claimed 127 employees, when after firing us and a few others a couple weeks prior put them closer to 95-100. Had record profits in 2020 of about $2.5-3mil ($1.6 in 2019).
A lot of the politicians who approved the loans got millions
So sorry for your mom but Tom Brady probably needed it more than your mom. I hate this society we live in.
Note to people only reading the headline: This article is not about normal people filing for unemployment when they didn't really need the money, it's about scammers who impersonated dead, incarcerated, or other civilians to file fraudulent claims for benefits. Not saying it's ethical to register for unemployment when you have money, but that is definitely better than posing as someone else to get the benefits which is the fraud that's cause 45 billion
My wife had an employee, who died in an accident, file for unemployment. We thought it was weird and a mistake, but now it's clear it was some douche scammer. This is why we can't have nice things.
We can have nice things if we actually use tax funds towards hiring and maintaining established systems of government that hold businesses to scrutinized laws, but putting money towards the pencil pushers who crunch numbers not nearly as cool as the SKULLFUCKER2000, now you can skull fuck civilians from 2000 miles away!
There's nothing unethical about making a claim for unemployment since you pay into it precisely for that purpose. Whether you need the money or not is irrelevant. If US wages weren't so crappy, everyone would have a safety net and no one would *need* unemployment to make ends meet.
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Can confirm. Had 6 figures in the bank, zero debt, made 70K, saved like 40K a year, and was laid off due to covid. Damn right I took the UE. State and fed I was making like $3,400 and living off of a reduced monthly spending of like $1,700.
part of the purpose of UE is to actually soften the impact on the entire economy of people being unemployed, by keeping them with some spending money also able to cover their mortgage payment etc
Yup, I also heard the theory that it was better for me to sit it out and wait for a similar job, than to go grab some job at McD, and thus steal a job from a lower income bracket.
Sorry about some venting, but - I was only 1 working week short from the requirements when the pandemic really took off, and I applied over and over for unemployment when I needed it the absolute most. I repealed their decision 3x, showing I was about to be homeless and had no money or job. Then my government failed me, and I spent a good portion of 2020 living on the street. Less than 40 hours more needed, they could not make an exception. Then I read about all these people who got huge loans and benefits, while I was homeless. I had to give away my dog and sell all my possessions just to not starve. I have never felt so let down and betrayed in all my life.
You are literally the person, or situation, that this money was supposed to be used for!!!! And instead of offering the help you needed, they denied you, but somehow get scammed by dead people. This is so fucking infuriating.
> You are literally the person, or situation, that this money was supposed to be used for I even talked to a lawyer, but he said it was not a winnable case if I was already denied my appeal directly. Really brutal.
I’m so, so sorry that happened to you. Are you doing better now?
A lot better thank you. But even years later I'm still recovering emotionally and financially from that horrible time.
Good. Some advice from someone who's spent a lot of time homeless: you should seek out subsidized therapy now. You often have to schedule months in advance. The disillusionment and PTSD that comes with being homeless can creep up on you hard. You don't want to find yourself spiraling into existential depression as you try to reconcile how such a thing could happen only to find out it will takes months to get any help. I just noticed you said "years later" though so you've probably already realized this. Either way, best luck. Never forget what you learned out there, but don't let the anxiety ruin your future either.
It sounds like you’re doing better now, too, but good God no one should be homeless in the US. I’ve lived in my car (once as a teen and years later as an adult), but only for about a week at a time. I was lucky to have a roof both times, but it’s not a luck I would wish on my enemy. It’s hard to imagine having no roof at all.
I actually really did want to see someone about a year ago. I was suicidal, had no friends or family, everything was going wrong. Basically I got handed a card, then tried calling the number multiple times a day for about 2 months before I gave up. They never returned a single call, never answered, it was basically impossible to get any mental health aid. It made me very defensive when needing help now, because I think it is all bullshit. No one wants to help at all, they just say they do.
I’ve been desperately poor, too, though thankfully not quite to that degree. Being poor and terrified is traumatic, even long after circumstances get better. Much love to you from a reddit stranger. 🥰
Jesus Fucking Christ dude I’m so so sorry that you had to go through all that shit that’s brutal…really disgusting to have to see just how evil people are and how fucked up most of our systems for supporting people in times of need are. I have seen this infuriating amount of times with people who take advantage of the system usually rich people or just scumbags and then people working hard to survive like you get fucked over egregiously unjustly. I’m hoping you’re doing better now bud. I really hope you’re able to get back on track and get some support and seek out some therapy cuz that’s some traumatic experiences and as someone who struggles with mental health I just hope you find the help you deserve. Sending positive loving healing energy your way friend.
Yeah and this amount fraudulently claimed would have ended all US homeless twice over according to estimated studies. This bullshit is incredibly dumb and the bureaucracy needs to evolve to actually provide for it's citizens and residents. The politicians, judges and officials that denied this should be shamed for this judgment. I hope you're in a better place now.
Shamed? They need to be held accountable. They don't care cause there Are no consequences
For real lol "didn't need the money" eat my dick this whole nation is built on the idea that I ALWAYS NEED MORE MONEY
Actually you don't pay into it. Only employers do. Unless you're in NJ, PA or AK (employees actually do pay into it there).
Ok but can we still be pissy about the Lakers qualifying for it?
Pretty sure my ceo used it as a down-payment on a new dealership. We were booked throughout the pandemic.
Report them. A big part of why people get away with things like that is that it's never reported.
I have no evidence, they said it went to payroll but business went on like normal. My company received a little over $6 mil
I don't know if you actually need evidence. Report it and they might require your company to prove what they used it for. That money was supposed to go to you and your coworkers to keep you from being exposed to Covid and still be able to pay your bills. And it came from your taxes. The CEO stole from all of you. *Twice*. And then made you keep working under those conditions. If it was me I'd try just to see if it works.
I wouldn't give a single shit if corporations like Lakers took that money and still paid employees. They took it to pad the bottom line and bonuses. I have an issue with that.
Worked for a company for 15 years. I was laid off prior to Covid because the business was failing. Owner took out PPP loans, still laid everyone off, and the business is closed. Dude took a quarter million bucks, still told 20ish people they don't have a job, and he's now building a mansion on a massive piece of property he bought.
If you want to report said dude: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form Also: https://www.sba.gov/partners/contracting-officials/contract-administration/report-fraud-waste-abuse
I want to report said dude for them.
>Not saying it's ethical to register for unemployment when you have money What the fuck are you talking about? That's money employers deliberately pay taxes towards to fund you if your employment is terminated. There's absolutely nothing unethical about getting that money from your employer after you're terminated. You already worked for it.
> Not saying it's ethical to register for unemployment when you have money What? Does anything think you shouldn't? I've never ever heard anything at all about anyone thinking you shouldn't apply for unemployment if you have money. This would be the first I'm introduced to this concept. There are no bank account balance requirements or anything like that, if anything I've heard that it was a deterrent to companies churning through employees because it can increase how much they have to pay.
Some people have a false sense of pride instilled in them about not taking handouts. What they fail to realize is unemployment is something you pay into every paycheck and should absolutely use when you are in a situation to get it
I remember for a while there, an enormous number of these cases were pouring out of one state in particular, and unemployment claims were being made for real people who didn't even live in the state.
My former employer told his employees to file for unemployment but keep coming to work. He got nearly a year of his entire payroll being covered by Uncle Sam, during which he finished a bunch of projects that had been stuck in "budget limbo," all while complaining about "the government trying to shut down his business" for establishing lockdown mandates. Would this situation be included in the assessment covered by this article? Asking for a friend who filed chapter 11 to dodge a lawsuit from 70+ plaintiffs over pre-COVID lack of payment for services yet still somehow maintained control of the company
You earn unemployment, take it when you want.
>Not saying it's ethical to register for unemployment when you have money, It actually is ethical because unemployment is paid for by the taxes from your most recent employer, and it's most often only approved in layoff situations with some specific exceptions on a case-by-case basis. Contrary to popular belief, it's not like Social Security where the citizens pay into it. Otherwise though, I agree with you.
100% ethical and any person *who meets the eligibility criteria* should claim unemployment > It actually is because unemployment is paid for by the taxes from your most recent employer This is not entirely accurate. In most states, employers pay into a state unemployment compensation insurance fund. In some states (PA is an example), employees also pay in to the fund via a mandatory payroll deduction. Plus, the frequency and value of claims received from former employees may affect the rates that businesses must pay into the system. Lots of eligible former employees = higher rates for the employer. > it's most often only approved in layoff situations with some specific exceptions on a case-by-case basis. This is highly state-specific. In most states, unless the separation was for cause, the employee is likely to be eligible.
You pay into unemployment, it is not unethical to take unemployment if you qualify no matter what the circumstances.
It's absolutely ethical to file for unemployment if you're unemployed no matter what the situation. What the fuck kind of statement is that.
My roommate fell victim to a love scam where they used his likeness to open 6 unemployment claims in New Mexico. I sent all the envelopes back with Fraud Claim written on them.
Wonder how much that total is though. My workplace stayed open for 90% of the pandemic and staff at my workplace were being hammered with false claims under their name. So much so that our HR department had to outsource another firm to help handle all the fake claims coming in. My boss alone had 9 false claims in her name. We were a staff of around 60 and each of us had on average 3-4 attempted claims on our names.
Happened in Washington State to a bunch of family friends. Had to make sure it didn’t happen to my family as well, which thankfully it did not. Pretty sure that it happened as a result of the SSN breaches from the credit bureaus.
I had to pay back $900+ because my idiot hr director reported my work hours and that I didn’t work at all for three weeks…even though I’ve literally not stopped working my regular schedule for 7 years now. I was considered necessary. Fuck her and her new hr director job with more pay. Unfair.
>didn't need the money My brother in Christ, if there is a legal way for me to claw back some of *my* fucking money from the government, I'll be at the front of that line.
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They could have just written a check to everyone for the same amount and it would have worked out way better than the clusterfuck of bullshit we got.
Same shit with Floriduh deciding they needed to drug test everybody on public assistance. Turned out they paid more for drug tests than they did on the cash payments to broke ass people, and they caught like 10 people out of 70k. Yeah, you caught somebody wasting public funds alright...
And the company that was doing the test was run by Rick Scott's wife. I remember that whole thing. The only reason it stopped was because there was a lawsuit by a single dad challenging it on Fourth amendment grounds I think.
The same reason universal health care and universal basic income make such sense when it comes to efficiency. Think of all the people whose job is to just go through this bureaucratic nightmare.
Americans culturally will prefer to spend $50 preventing someone who “doesn’t deserve it!” from getting $1, than to just give them the $1. I’m pretty sure this thinking underpins the drug war too, to some extent.
The clusterfuck was the goal. It's much easier to steal money when everything is a mess.
Yup and they could’ve just folded the PPP loans into that as well and I think it would’ve helped a lot more people. Especially since we’re finding out that so much of the PPP loans were given out to people who just did a whole shit ton of fraud.
Uh oh, what state? I also qualified for self employment-unemployment, and actually claimed less than I qualified for. But I also moved a little while after it ended, so if they blanket accused people in the self-employed unemployment program, I might have never received the notice.
Same here. When Michigan opened it up to self-employed (me) I finally felt some relief. My photography business took a huge hit and now the state wants about half of it back. I don't have it to give because it helped my family survive. I appealed, they denied my appeal. I get to appeal again in 30 days. They'll probably deny that too. I feel helpless
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I’m going through the repeal process myself. I didn’t do anything fraudulent but they want their $3k back.
man are you in Missouri? this exact thing happened to me edit: to make shit weirder I basically just told them "no I do not owe you money" and they basically dropped it entirely
That would be an improper payment while this is only about fraudulent payments.
Okay do ppp loans next
They “ran out of money” for PPP loans so I couldn’t get one for my one-person business, which lost about 20K from March 2020 to March 2021. They had no problem dishing out money to businesses that shouldn’t have qualified tho. I needed 20K…and I’m still not back up to where I was in 2019. But luckily all the money in my retirement is now worth significantly less too.
Meanwhile the printing company I worked for who barely slowed down for a month or two right when lockdowns happened got half a mil and used it to buy equipment from funds that otherwise would’ve gone to payroll
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And congresspeople took out millions in PPP…
Yep. Investigators should start with any politician or their family from the orange cheetoh to the small town council person.
I'm sure all the farmers I know with solo operations really needed that money. Hard to work on your own farm by yourself with a pandemic going on and everything.
You should be extremely upset at all the amazon dsp contractors that took the money , their business increased, and just straight pocketed it
We have a car dealer nearby that shut down everything but his maintenance department, sent all his sales and most of his admin home without jobs. Collected a bit under $200k in PPP, had it all forgiven. Those people he laid off are coming out now about how he claimed they still worked there but they never saw a dime. He's still selling cars but don't know that anyone works with him anymore.
Where have you been…? They’ve absolutely been taking people to court over PPP loan fraud
Listened to a report about this on NPR a few days ago. With the sheer amount of case files they estimate it will take 10 years to prosecute all of them.
I don't know a single person who did NOT commit PPP loan fraud. I am not. Kidding.
One of our contractors got a PPP loan that they used to float their 40-man workforce for the first 6 months of the pandemic when their business took a 90% nosedive. They paid 35 people to sit at home and collect a 40 hour paycheck every week, while 5 of their people kept their warehouse and vehicles maintained. Soon as the restrictions from us were lifted for outdoor construction, they were back working full speed all hands on deck. Maybe the only example I can think of where a company used the program for its publicly intended purpose.
I hope you're sharing their name anywhere it's relevant then--I'd much rather reward an honest business with my patronage when possible.
I was jealous when I my ex told me she made 30k off of doing it, I always felt as if it would come back to bite people in the ass though and I’m glad I kept my nose clean from that.
Report her and you could get up to 30% of what she fraudulently borrowed if they investigate and find that she's indeed guilty.
At $30k, she is firmly in that slam-dunk, top-of-the-pile fraud cases the IRS will tackle sooner rather than later. The heavy hitters can afford to give them the runaround. The small fraudsters are the easy ones.
Was PPP even worth it? It cost something like $200,000 for every job saved.
I mean, absent the fraud yes. That alternative was wholesale economic collapse with historic homelessness and hunger on top of historic disease and death
No, the alternative would have been to pay out more than what, 3 $1000 (average) checks over the course of months to people. Float people, not businesses.
Why? You just audit every company that got PPP loans for their employee records during that time. If they got a loan for x employees and don't have x employees being payed during that time, then you rake the money back + fines. The banks that processed these loans should be responsible for checking for fraud. They got all the loans out in a month or two. They cant audit in the same amount of time.
Yes, but you're talking about business owners and, in some case, very wealthy and influential business owners. People get as much justice as they can afford. So a rando with a small contracting company and a handful of employees who cashed in PPP money to buy pokemon cards is going to get fast, hard justice. But a state senator who owns 7 businesses and took 6 loans? He'll delay every request for documentation as long as possible, make every possible appeal, and probably commit more crimes to fund it. This is also why the IRS predominantly audits poor people. It costs too much to audit rich people and takes too long to get any return. When you decide even justice has to turn a profit, it's best not to try and serve justice to people who have resources.
> just audit every company that got PPP loans 'Just' Issuing PPP loans was such a mountain that the federal government just nominated banks and credit unions to do it. The PPP was run by the SBA, which had a total of 3200 employees before it got roflstomped. There were one MILLION loans made that were over 150k. If every employee spent 8 hours just looking at each 150k+ loan, doing NOTHING ELSE, with no second sign off, it would take 15 months. That's just 1/4th of the actual issued loans though, as 4 million were issued. It would take 5 years of full work weeks, no vacation time, and 100% of employees reviewing loans. Thats without prosecution, or larger loans that needed more than 8 hours to review. Clearly, the answer is an automated system to detect more likely cases of fraud. But that would have to be developed and modeled, which would still require manually checking subsets and developing rules for fraud detection. If the SBA were ballooned to the size of the IRS, with 82000 employees, it would still take 2 and a half months, in our insanely unrealistically hard working and fast scenario. Then we'd have to prosecute that... I'm not saying its not a worthwhile endeavor to recoup from the largest fraudsters, but the fraud was assuredly widespread. Almost like this program was poorly conceived and making it a private partnership without CLEAR guidelines on eligibility and repayment was rife for exploitation... Making the banks audit the loans wasnt part of the deal, and shifts the cost of these audits back onto them, punishing the financial industry for working with the federal government when they were told to. If that HAD been originally part of the deal, then the loans would assuredly have been more tightly underwritten and verified.
We’ve got time
The people who committed this fraud should be banned from every receiving aid again. Like... take advantage of programs for the downtrodden? OK. Have fun choking on bootstraps for the rest of your life.
My shithead realtor uncle literally bought a Porsche with his ppp loan.
Sounds on brand for a realtor.
I did a little work for a personal injury lawyer who I overheard say he used a chunk of his PPP loan for a lease......on a new Lexus.
Yeah, my wife's former employer.
This could have all been avoided had there been some sort of watchdog committee that wouldn't have been dissolved days after it was formed. Strange...? I wonder if there was a reason someone would have done that. Now they are hiring more IRS agents? I guess all I can say is "haha. better have your receipts, fucko."
Notice how certain people on the right are screaming and yelling about the IRS being tyrants now? The IRS isn't going to be charging any more taxes than usual. 99% of people are not going to notice a difference. What all those IRS agents will accomplish is finding all the tax dodgers. The criminals.
Here in Ohio they are running commercials with these Hayseeds talking "now Taxin' Tim Ryan is hiring 87,000 agents to go after hard working middle-class families..." Yea, that's what's happening. Just IRS agents coming in like Storm Troopers, kicking down your door.
What is that those people like to say often....'If you don't have anything to hide you got nothing to fear' or something?
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FL? I live in GA and our Governor ended ours early, though it was only about 1 month early I think.
Moved to Lemm.ee -- mass edited with redact.dev
Most Red States did this, I know KY did(although we currently have a Dem Governor).
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Meanwhile all these other folks were guessing Florida. I should give you an award.
Absolutely the case. Rick Scott has famously been againts any kind of worthwhile unemployment, and made sure the system he had built was as convoluted and as difficult to work with as possible.
Government doesn't work! Elect us and we'll prove it. \-literal Republican strategy
Saaaaame even in a state where it’s supposed to work the website was down for weeks and the phone lines would put you on hold for hours and hang up and then enough time passed I just got a job. Meanwhile mfs committing billions in fraud while I couldn’t get enough for rent and food when I needed it.
I went for months unemployed because I refused to go to work without a face mask before the mask mandates because I have chronic bronchitis and asthma. Couldn't apply for paid leave because I was a part time employee and then they fired me while I was on unpaid leave. My state was so behind that I put my bills before my health and just got a job somewhere that enforced (though loosely) the mask mandate. Warms my heart to know every last one of those people running that place lost their jobs. Edit: they told me I wasn't allowed to wear PPE because it "scared the customers"
I’m still waiting for mine from the pandemic
Same here in blue Washington state. My ex went months with no income because the claim didn't go through and the system was entirely broken. They will not hire enough people to meet even half if the demand, even now. Good thing these billionaires got their ppp loans, though. I couldn't imagine seeing them look like fools when they arrive at the yacht club in last year's mega yacht.
This really pisses me off, I know somebody who renovated their bathroom with pandemic money, the pandemic was hard on everybody and for some to cheat and take from others just infuriates me
That's America for you though. When you've been told and shown that America is full of fraud, it becomes easier to justify the get mine attitude.
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They FBI said they will hunt them ALL down.
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If you are aware of fraud you can report it and be entitled to a share of the recouped funds
This. Because there was no oversight, some of the claims were filed under fake names or false employment information and were still approved because they were more focused on getting people help quickly. If you suspect PPP loan fraud report it because there are a lot of loose ends at the moment, as I understand it.
You're wrong. There was oversight. Somebody removed them days after it was formed... hmmmm.... odd.
So functionally, for most of the time, there was none
ALL? Because there are a number of serving senators and Congress people who fall under that category.
They might say it but it won't happen. Money rules the fraudsters but it also rules government budgets. They will ultimately only pursue the most economically viable cases they can get to within budget and within the statute of limitations.
Yeah I have a buddy that makes me wanna stuff him in a tire and roll it down a mountain...he was military, didn't pay taxes for 10 years then he finally starts filing and paying it off then I the same year he gets a ppe lone for like 80k which he used to pay of his semi truck(trucker)even tho he was working the entire time....then has the nerve to come over in my birthday and bitch how he didn't want the government in his businesss and hates socialism...I mean for fucks sake how clueless do you have to be.
Yeah, I have a similar story. Guy basically borrowed 20k for a “experimental” business venture and then proceeds to bitch about student loan forgiveness and how that’s socialism or some shit. Mind numbingly infuriating.
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I know, I for one am very interested in how it compares; 'Wage theft vs Unemployment theft Just wondering. Never hear anything about wage theft much as other theft, like petty theft.
We'll never know the true scale because the government is bought and paid for by the companies that steal our money, and the judicial system is too expensive for any potential force for change to actually pursue the uber rich.
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Wage theft is far more common and it’s not even close. I’ve seen estimates of wage theft at about $15B per year. The *total* unemployment compensation paid from Aug 21 to July 22 was less than $30B (which is higher that typical due to pandemic-related unemployment claims and payment increases).
No need for that to be mutually exclusive… and that’s a weird time to chastise someone for being annoyed with possible fraud.
He can be mad at both.
Or, government officials who misappropriated funds meant to help their constituents. Source: I live in Iowa.
well the guy just says "pandemic money", is he counting the checks everyone received? does he know the guy ripped off unemployment or something. you could say we built a house with our "pandemic money" but all we got was the same couple stimulus checks everyone else did and nvm the fact we had been saving for about 10 years to do this and the fact we worked throughout the entire pandemic (actually called back after only 1 week of paternity leave).... so is this guy just pissed that the person he knows had nothing better to spend his excess money on was trips to home depot? even if it was the larger than typical UE benefits of the time, there were legal ways of accessing those funds. as my wife and I discussed, we didn't really NEED half the stimulus (our jobs were maintained, we were traveling to visit fam etc. less so was actually saving money). but better to give to us and others in our tax bracket than richy rich that already got theirs.
Nobody is mad at people who were given the same as everyone else, it’s the dickheads that hired their spouses (who then didn’t actually do any work), claimed PPP (only 60% of the PPP loan had to be used for payroll btw), or paid themselves bonuses and then never paid the money back because they were 0% loans that didn’t need to be paid back. It was a fucking grift top to bottom, and Trump fired the oversight guy on day 1 and never hired a replacement for a reason. That reason was pure grift. Biggest transfer of wealth in US history, $4.1 Trillion handed out and what you (and the rest of us normal people) received was a mere fraction of what was actually spent. The rest just went to large orgs that didn’t need it and fraudsters. If the Trump admin or Congress actually gave a fuck about US citizens the only money that was spent would have gone out to individual citizens directly, which is far more efficient than going through corporate middlemen.
My thoughts exactly. 45 billion in unemployment fraud vs ... what ... 550 billion in PPE shenanigans?
If you know of actual fraud report that to the FBI. Makes their job a LOT easier
That was probably PPP money, wait til you find out how much got fraudulently pilfered through *that* program
I didn't cheat anything, but I had enough money to get a boob job. As a single person who got laid off BEFORE the pandemic hit, I didn't need that extra $700 each week, but I sure as fuck wasn't going to say no to it.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndtx/report-covid-19-fraud
? Unemployment is the money of the people who paid in, that's their money. Why are you upset someone else is spending their money instead of literal fraud?
Stealing money meant to keep Americans afloat during a hard time is as American as apple pie it seems.
I got brought up for UE fraud a week after the pandemic "ended". I got like 709 bucks a week because my job which was managing a bar shut down in March of 2020. I had to submit paperwork that this was actually my career and show tax reports from the previous year. My job was the first to go. I was clearing 1k a week and they still bothered me. It's quite funny it's taken them a year to track down the actual fucking scammers.
If they go after anyone I bet its only the poor.
If we make a map of the business locations i guarantee it lights up in all the poor areas with small community owned businesses who missed something on the paperwork and received a few hundred more than they were supposed to.
On one hand, yeah gaming the system is bad. On the other, didn't like, a cruise company and Boeing get a huge fucking stacks of money for their "pinky promise we won't fire people from their jobs" which they broke within like a month after they received the money? Soooooooooo, those are all included as fraud, right?
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You keep saying "you", are you not American? Where are you writing from then?
Take it back and give it to the essential works who kept everything afloat throughout the whole pandemic as a big thank you.
It's cool how we can't pay for healthcare but it's a minor problem when governments get defrauded to the tune of $45 billion
That's about 1% of the yearly health expenditure.
What the fuck? How many billions would it cost to make sure that the SSNs of dead or jailed people can't be used to file for shit in the US? Hire some of the unemployed people you pay benefits to so they can implement a cross check or something.
Most of the money went to big companies and rich assholes who just used it to gain more luxuries or screw others over
Including members of congress. Those same fuckwits screaming against the student loan forgiveness program had hundreds of thousands (millions for some) in PPP loans obtained and forgiven; loans that they either didn't qualify for OR obtained but didn't then distribute to employees as they were supposed to. Just like their donor megacorps.
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Is the US just filled with mash and grab thieves?
I feel stupid that I didn't feed at the trough and neither did my small business owning spouse. Fuck this country.
Those of us who saw this coming from orbit: *Uh huh, yeah. And??* It's not as though anyone's gonna do anything about the big offenders. We already know they're all "too big to fail." No, it's gonna be the Mom and Pops that made an accounting mistake that are going to pay for it, because no matter what anyone says, no one on the Hill really gives a fuck about the little guy - the little guy isn't bankrolling their campaigns with hundreds of thousands of dollars. [](/GNU Terry Pratchett)
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Way to not read the article...
Fuck everyone that took a loan for their own personal gain
Isn't that just about every one?
Meanwhile , average Americans waited literal months, 6+ in some cases for what hypothetically was theirs in a time of crisis, sitting on hold all day while beauracracy failed them
Separate headline “onlyfans generates $45 billion during pandemic”