Neighbor (small business) got a 290k PPP forgiven, used it to buy two company trucks, nothing was given to employees. (business stayed open)

2.6K

As someone who's still owed about $36k from a boss who took $7.8MM in PPP money for himself and is now serving 5.5 years in federal prison for it... REPORT THIS MOTHER FUCKER!

450

Ohh this sounds juicy, mind sharing what happened?

809

I worked for a small aerial advertising company that flew blimps with ads on them. When COVID hit we lost like 85% of our business because no one was having sporting events and what not. The guy who owned the company proceeded to take $7.8MM in PPP loans and buy himself all kinds of things including a small island and paying off his 75 acre ranch. All while telling us he had no money to pay us. We all gave him the benefit of the doubt and believed him when he told us he would catch us all back up when the business got back on track. Well, that never happened and then the FBI showed up at some of our houses asking questions about him. Turns out he was listing all the employees as being employed by a half dozen or so LLCs simultaneously. They got him but none of us will ever see our back pay because the government gets theirs first. Tried 3 large, well known, law firms to try and file a case against him and they all refused to take the case because they knew that they would never see their fees in a case where the gov wanted money. So anyway, as usual, the employees got fucked even though none of it was our fault, except for giving him the benefit of the doubt. We even petitioned the court to include our back pay in the restitution he was given with his sentencing but we were completely ignored by the court. They didn't even give us a response to our request. Honestly, I should have known he was a POS who would fuck over anyone for his own gain when I found out he was a big Trump supporter. Last time I'll ever give anyone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to my money.

xacto337

284

$7.8 million? He should have gotten way more time. We need to start making punishments scale with how much they steal (if we're not already).

PipsqueakPilot

372

Don't be silly. Sentences like life in prison are reserved for 2 oz of marijuana or third strike petty theft.

nice--marmot

[GIF]

CalendarAggressive11

And soon, being homeless (maybe not life, but who knows)

osricson

Got to get your slaves from somewhere...

Original_Software_64

Who else was gonna make the hand sanitizer? Children? Wait here I have a billion dollar idea.

LiveLaughTurtleWrath

Yep.. They cant send the violent offenders out of the facility so they have to slam drug charge and petty crime people when they can.

Lifernal

Remember, kids, slavery is still legal in the US so long as you can pin a crime on someone first

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Adept_Information94

They do. 7.8 mil is a little bit of time. 78 dollars is 20-30 years.

NessyComeHome

Damn monkey paw wishes.

MrAttorney

In all jurisdictions that I know of the level/grade of the offense is based on the amount of the theft. I know that at least one jurisdiction where a conviction for theft of more than $250,000, has a sentence range of 15-60 years of incarceration. Each state (in the US) has different ranges. For example a theft of $1,000 may be a felony in some states and not in others.

PrintableDaemon

The problem with so many corporate fraud cases is they are allowed to plea out and settle with a fine and no admission of guilt, never setting foot in prison, while joe schmo is held without bail for 3 years waiting on a trial for a theft of $30.

Jeeze, that was worse than I expected, I know the guys in prison, but that can't be any consolation with that much money being owed! I'm really sorry you and your colleagues have been screwed over, first by him, then the system!

Thanks. We're all doing ok, no one went bankrupt or anything as most of us had sayings and what not to fall back on. We've pretty much all moved on with our lives and found other paths after the company went under. Now it's just a weird story that just kind of pisses us off when we think about it too much. Would love to have that money back but life goes on.

Fantastic attitude!

coolgr3g

I'm not surprised someone who supports a grifter and fraudster is guilty of grifting and fraud. For 7 million, he should get life in prison. That's no small amount he stole and if I were to steal that, I'd for sure never see light of day again. Sucks the justice system is two tiered, one law for the rich, another for the poor.

Oddly enough, he wasn't really what I would call rich. Reasonably well off, not poor, but not rich IMO. Not disagreeing that it's a two tiered system though. I think if he were actually rich it would have just been a slap on the wrist and he would have paid it back and just gotten probation. The government had to liquidate most of his assets to get their money and I think he may still owe some.

LookAlderaanPlaces

The more of these Russian kremlin supporting idiots are in jail, the more likely the US will not become a theocratic dictatorship. He stole from the people, the people and the government responded back. Should have also had back pay for you guys.

CaraAsha

Plus since they love private prisons so much, let them live it.

DelightfulDolphin

🤩

Astralglamour

Yet forgiving student loans is unfair.

Rakatango

I sure hope the government at least seizes his properties.

I believe they liquidated pretty much everything.

Likes2Phish

I'd round everyone up and form a line outside the prison on his release date.

redditsuckspokey1

Is that double m some kind of made up currency letter like Billion Double Dollars from Trigun? Is this supposed to be Mega Millions? Or is it Mega Man's Millions?

badpeaches

Like hot sausage with mustard.

abcdefkit007

-27

I mean it's all right there

If you think this is the whole story, I'm concerned for your reading comprehension.

ChrAshpo10

Boss took 7.8m in PPP loans, obviously didn't use it to pay employees as it was supposed to be (still owes $36k), went to prison for PPP fraud. Not sure what else you want. That's a whole story.

I'm sorry you got fucked. But what OP described is perfectly legal. Employees got paid, that's all they needed to do. Loan forgiven.

Frogger34562

-3

Ops boss doesn't sound like he committed a crime. If he had 290k in payroll and paid it during that time frame he followed the rules of the loan. It doesn't matter if a business needs the money. The 290k extra just legally became part of his business profits.

Enigmatic_Observer

1.4K

Do it. He stole from all of us

Muladhara86

282

It’s just crooks all the way down.

“Margins are so tight because of all the corruption that I HAVE to get mine!”

seraphim336176

I worked in the pest control industry previously and the margins are definitely not small. Actually had a pain management doctor tell us we were bigger crooks than he was.

PanthersChamps

232

It’s not fraud if he put the $290k into the payroll account and then just continued invoicing customers without having to fund the payroll account.

It’s why the PPP was such a joke. It didn’t require businesses to close.

Because it was meant to keep employee on staff instead having to reduce employees due to decreased sales/traffic etc.

LuxNocte

It was meant for the political donor class to have free reign to grift more of our money.

Biz owners didn't have 6 months of expenses saved up like the rest of us are supposed to?

grownotshow5

6 months? Where did the pandemic last 6 months lol more like 2 years

VidaGeek

whoosh

welcometothewierdkid

Most businesses probably have enough to cover 6 months of bare minimum operations, but they aren’t going to keep staff on payroll for the fun of it

Then they'd lose some trained workers. Not smart. Guess it beats having to sell the time share or the wakeboard boat. Poor biz owners...

welcometothewierdkid

The business owners wouldn’t cut back anything, they’d just fire people with mortgages and families.

That's my whole point.

welcometothewierdkid

Isn’t that a bad thing though? We don’t want people losing their jobs because we told companies to rely on the money they had saved

Depends on if the boss said that all the workers 'were family.'

Here's a test. Run a PPP loan check on your closest hardware store, like Ace or Tru Valu. They had exemptions to stay open, and were overwhelmed with business, at inflated prices. Still got checks.

Not going to cry about hypothetical people losing jobs while I saw this con in real life.

Alarmed-Employee-741

No, that's just the advertising slogan. PPP was the Republicans doling out corporate welfare

Respectfully, you are incorrect.

The main stipulation for the loan to be forgiven was to maintain payroll. If the business did not suffer losses from covid and could still make payroll, the loan was a giveaway to the business.

TheLazyD0G

Was great for medical offices.

Frogger34562

My spouses old medical office closed for 2 days and got $1.7 million ppp loan. They made record profits that year.

political_bot

Legally not stealing.

But in the libertarian-esque "taxation is theft" sort of rhetoric. He was stealing from the workers.

So report him for doing something perfectly legal and waste even more taxpayer money.

Fucking brain of the year.

RockAtlasCanus

No, if he didn’t lay anyone off, reduce hours, or reduce pay then he didn’t steal anything, he used the funding within the guidelines of the program.

The program funded 2.5x the typical monthly payroll expense. Forgiveness was contingent on showing proof that the business used the funds for continued payroll, and/or other qualified expenses like mortgages on the business property. So basically all you have to do for forgiveness application is show that you kept paying employees. The rationale/justification was that if businesses were forced to close for the pandemic the government would cover 2.5 months of salaries so that workers could still get paid & keep their benefits.

In reality PPP was a shit program designed to benefit businesses and their owners.

Groundbreaking_Part9

300

Soo if the owner of a company laid off almost all of their employees during covid, then suddenly bought a 100k+top of the line brand new truck to complement his 4 year old top of the line truck, does that make him a likely candidate as well?

StripClubJedi

100 - you know what to do!

Teknicsrx7

You’d need to check if he got PPP money and see if that works out to what those remaining people made

If he did not maintain payroll for the period stipulated in the loan, he would have to pay it back.

But if he maintained payroll through the stipulated period and then cut the jobs, it's legal.

T_Money

The OP literally says no one was laid off, idk how this would be illegal. He’d just claim he needed the trucks no matter what and would have had to lay off employees to pay for the trucks if he didn’t get the loan, so the loan technically went to the employees.

lycosa13

I'm gonna comment what I told OP. It's not your job to know if he committed fraud or not. Report it and they can figure it out for themselves.

StripClubJedi

-1

100 - you know what to do!

glockops

438

This is exactly how the Paycheck protection program was designed to operate. Your neighbor used the program within the guides of how it was written - he kept the business open and employees employed. The PPP was a massive transfer of public funds to private businesses. It is among the most corrupt pieces of legislation passed during covid - and really highlights how the US government thinks of "job creators" vs "citizens." Citizens couldn't be trusted to receive money directly from the government, and the stimulous checks there were sent have been singled out as the reason for inflation and the attitude of "nobody wants to work" .The PPP was a prime example of the best of capitalism - we cut checks directly to companies to "pay their payroll" and know the money is well spent because we can trust companies and business leaders - but certainly not normal people. /s

PPP was insane. I don't think you have any claim here. I honestly don't think this guy did anything wrong in how PPP was written - he'll just say that the trucks were a capital expense, everyone still got paid, and his business is open/expanding because of the PPP. Adding two fleet vehicles to a pest control agency during Covid would be considered a success in terms of how this money was used.

At the end of the day, the US government (you and I) paid your neighbor 290k to keep operating his business normally. Which he did. We paid the bill for all his employees salaries, and because his business costs were reduced by $290k, he was able to expand with new trucks.

If this makes you mad, then you need to get engaged in politics - because there is CLEARLY a difference of how those with money and those without are treated.

Solnx

142

This is correct. It’s not fraud! Just capitalism working as you would expect.

Evilmeinperson

Corporate/business welfare. Helping people is apparently wrong but handouts to businesses are fine.

Solnx

Privatize the profits socialize the losses.

fordianslip

Business are people until they're not...

Udub

I thought 75% of it had to go to wages. But if it went to wages and wage money went to trucks, I guess that’s the same thing.

Solnx

Payroll had to at least be 75% of what it was the year prior. If you kept everyone employed and your revenue was not impacted by covid then PPP money was effectively free money.

Udub

Noted!

Financiallylifting

This isn’t capitalism. While it was wrong, capitalism isn’t having the government come in and give away free money. Capitalism would have said, the business should die if the owner didn’t have the money to keep the business running. This is just terrible politics.

pexx421

The reality is that Capitalism is the guys with deep pockets get to buy policy. There is nothing in our capitalism that keeps monopolies or oligarchs from buying the system. Regulatory capture is prevalent from the top to the bottom. Surprising, the Biden administration has been the most aggressive in pursuing and enforcing anti trust adjudication in recent history.

BoomerSoonerFUT

The government pushing public funds to private business is not capitalism.

Izuzal

Fraud investigator here. Unfortunately, this reply is most likely correct. When a business applies for the funds, they certify the funds are needed due to economic uncertainty. There’s no way to argue that certification. When they receive the funds, they are required to use it mostly for payroll and rent/mortgage and utility payments. Since forgiveness on loans smaller than $150k only required a self certification that you used the funds as required, there’s no way to know if the funds were used legitimately. So, what you can do is deposit the PPP funds into your payroll account but put other business income that would normally have been put into payroll to somewhere else… like a dividend to the owner. This does not violate any rules. I’ve seen many companies do it.

salty-band-aid

This was the reply I was looking for, thank you.

It just irks me that he got this money, that he did not need. His business never slowed down, it actually picked up because more people were home noticing issues that they would normally not see due to being at work all day.

bpdish85

My boss at the time gloated about using his PPP funds to pay the down payment on his brand new million dollar house. Our industry was 100% recession proof, we were never in any danger of closing, and absolutely no money got funneled into the business as far as any of us could see (no new EQ, no vehicles, nothing) - but he sure fired two people.

And yes, I reported it. No clue if anything got done.

bee_vomit

My bosses did the same thing. Got a big payout, but the business would have been fine without it. Honestly, from a business standpoint they would have been stupid not to take the money. But it's still totally fucked that they got handed a big lump of money for no goddamn reason.

bellj1210

i will say my employer did this as designed-

Got a loan, kept staff on. Saw a 50-60% reduction in billables. Kept us all on 100% until the PPP loans had run out. When i got let go, he helped me find a new job with a competitor (at the end of the day it was the best thing to happen in my career).

I am sure with the PPP loans his income took some level of hit- but at the end of the day, all of the PPP money went to paying his employees.

TheVermonster

The worst part is, that you had a great boss who ultimately didn't gain as much as the shitty bosses who abused the system.

We had a guy who owned a landscaping business take PPP loans, then hire his son, who made a new business, as a subcontractor, fired his employees, his son hired them, then took PPP loans out too. Double dipping on the employees. Plus, there isn't exactly a ton of landscaping going on in the northeast in Feb and March.

I'm 99% sure they were investigated and they were able to prove anything. And that's why so many laws favor the assholes. Knowing they did something wrong isn't the same as proving they did something wrong.

jbourne0129

Didn't PPP loans start like super early in the pandemic? Many probably had no idea how things were going to play out and were applying for loans.

glockops

The wholesale forgiveness of PPP loans was the cherry on top of the whole thing. I don't people realize that the US government paid almost everyone's salaries for months and then just was like - oh that wasn't a loan, nothing is owed.

We have full out debates about students loan forgiveness and how unfair it is, etc. - but the government just gave businesses free money to pay their staff and no one even noticed.

jbourne0129

Yeah the lack of oversight and follow up is pretty absurd. It was all abused so badly

terrymr

The money was intended to be forgiven up front as long as 90% of it went on payroll expenses. It was a quick way to prevent massive layoffs. It wasn't a total success in that many companies took loans, layed off employees and then lobbied for more time to spend the money on payroll (which they got).

Stonedfiremine

Sadly pure capitalism never cares about the whole! It only cares about the basic functions and as long as those improve, the rest doesn't matter. PPP loans were designed to GIVE away money for those who know how to cheat the system. Us normal citizen simply can't be trusted!

Lopsided_Panic_1148

I'd still report him for not paying what his employees are owed. Report him and let the Feds figure it out.

kambo_rambo

Citizens couldn't be trusted to receive money directly from the government

Thats so shit the tax paying citizen is meant to have a voice in politics and this clearly doesn't represent them. We had workers receive money irectly from the government in Australia, you just had to show some semblance of proof you were out of work or reduced work.

SenorBeef

The democrats wanted to put more restrictions and accountability on it, but the republicans said "nope, giveaway to businesses or we crash the economy"

pexx421

I think the ppp was used to do a silent bailout. What most aren’t aware of is that prior to Covid, almost all businesses in the us were subject to massive debt overhang due to a decade of zero interest loans. The us business community was about to fall off a cliff as interest was about to rise and they were becoming unable to service the debt. The ppp allowed them to handle this without the massive public backlash that another bailout would have created.

Sadly, we are now about to see a bailout of the commercial real estate market. Let’s see how that one goes!

bellj1210

The US population does not have the stomach for another bail out. Most also want to see commercial real esate die- so i think it goes the way of the whaling industry and there is no bail out for them. The rent assistance programs and ppp were that.

pexx421

Ah, if only the will of the people mattered.

Lopsided_Panic_1148

According to OP, he's still skimping on paychecks, so employees aren't getting paid what they should be.

iwasatlavines

As long as payroll was greater than the loan amount, it doesn’t matter, it gets forgiven. Certainly 25 employees cost more than $300k. It sucks but it’s what it is. A legal transfer of wealth to a business owner with employees.

soapinthepeehole

Citizens couldn't be trusted to receive money directly from the government, and the stimulous checks there were sent have been singled out as the reason for inflation and the attitude of "nobody wants to work

Those fucking stimulus checks… I didn’t qualify because of the income I’d made before Covid, despite needing one because I was working for a year on a 30% pay cut.

Basing them on 2019 income was bullshit.

ChihuahuaMastiffMutt

Yep, capitalism is awesome isn't it?

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-abruptly-removes-inspector-general-named-oversee-2t/story?id=70024680

1) I disagree that it was pure corruption. When PPP was passed there was very real concern that all of our economy would shit the bed and the majority of business would close. There was no time, no infrastructure to put something reasonable in place. That said, the fact that we haven't put an emergency system in place to do it right for the next mess is corrupt. In retrospect it was a huge waste, but there was no way to know how bad things were going to be for businesses. Imagine how much worse the recovery would have been if so many more businesses had died.

2) I completely agree that it was absolute bullshit that we couldn't also just make direct payments to people who lost their jobs. Honestly, the biggest problem with what we did was allowing the states to administer it, states like Florida design their welfare systems to literally fuck people over. (why does anyone who works for a living live in Florida? Wtf)

3) you're spot on with the inflation. Fuck the conservatives who claim that sending less than $1T to people making less than $75k over 18 months caused inflation in a $100T world economy.

All in all, this was business as usual for our nation: keep the workers alive just enough to be desperate. But let's not pretend we don't do this to ourselves. Trump has literally told the world who he is over and over and still the working class loves him over the guy who is endorsed by unions.

You can blame the billionaire class all you want. People who vote to line the bosses' pockets because they are racist, xenophobic, and frankly, stupid as shit are the problem.

mar421

My old job at a bmw dealership, used the money to put in “improvements” instead of giving us hazard pay. They did give the salesmen bonus for selling during Covid. They redid the parking lot, bought lifts, tools and a freaking turn table for the photographer.

spacembracers

If he used it to pay his employees their normal wages and purchased legit trucks for the business, then no it doesn't sound like fraud. The money was meant to keep business open and employees employed during the downturn caused by Covid. Business owners weren't required to just take that money and give it directly to employees. There have been some pretty insane stories of what "business expenses" owners have used PPP loan money for, but this sounds... normal?

I'm not a fan of how the PPP loans were given and the guidelines they haphazardly enforced, but it sounds like he did it within what was asked. It's shitty, but that was what it was for.

PipsqueakPilot

Also got to love how the PPP program helped cause an absolutely massive spike in inflation (Along with greed and actual supply chain issues)...that people blamed on the 1,200 checks and then Biden.

MrRiski

Only thing I don't understand. Was one of the things Biden bragged about during the debate was that Trump spent more money than any other president and double what Biden spent during his presidency so far. But ~4.6 trillion of the ~8.xx trillion Trump spent was in COVID relief spending much of which was pushed by the Democrats.

I'm a trump supporter by no means both of the candidates are to damn old to be running a McDonald's let alone our country but that bit stood out to me for some reason.

TwistedBamboozler

There were some bailouts to the tune of trillions under the trump admin. That is what really kicked us in the nuts

MrRiski

For sure. And granted I didn't follow much of it very closely but it generally seemed like those things were pushed by the Dems. Admittedly I work in trucking and most of the people I'm around day to day are Republicans or don't give shit so my view on most of that was pretty limited. I just remember our ties of not enough aid and such.

TwistedBamboozler

It was pushed by the FED. Both sides are complicit but it was under trump’s administration

PipsqueakPilot

I see where you’re coming from- but you’re missing a few key details. Democrats wrote the law to have a robust corruption prevention program. They then appointed an inspector general (IG) who was to implement a program to screen for sketchy loan applications and then follow up with audits to make sure the money was used appropriately.

As soon as the law was signed Trump immediately fired the IG, never appointed another one, and dismantled the entire oversight program.

He also tried to block the release of PPP data. Meaning the website you can use to look up who got a loan.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/judge-orders-trump-administration-reveal-ppp-loan-data-it-sought-n1246792

Lastly in the waining days of his administration they deleted all of the flags which marked suspicious loans- presumably in order to make it harder for the Biden administration to go after fraud.

MrRiski

Ahhh I do remember seeing about him firing the IG. Didn't know about blocking the PPP data or deleting flags. Shit bags gonna shit bag I guess.

JigglyWiener

Genuine question here. If a company's business skyrockets unbelievably in the first few months of COVID and they apply and take the money, is that fraud? Or was it just a giveaway on the chance something may go south while the guys on commission working for the company saw their commission income dry up?

laughertes

Absolutely report it

DocBrutus

My ex boss used ppp to take a wonderful vacation while our checks bounced. Pretty much most of the staff reported his ass.

Corlel

I know a couple (friends of my parents) that used theirs to buy a yacht, so not even for their business at all. Extremely frustrating. The husband bragged about it. Of course they’re republican so they’ll complain about welfare queens or whatever, but at least those person actually use it for food and reasonable things. Not a damn yacht.

rsgoto11

My boss bought a million dollar vacation house and a half million dollar boat. It’s so fucked how forgiving student loans is vilified, but no one talks about the PPP forgiveness.

MTBisLIFE

He can mail me mine and everyone else's $0.00096 tax refund check or you report him.

No_Entertainer_1129

Good Luck- they made it nearly impossible to report fraud

ilikeb00biez

If he continued to pay his employees, this is not fraud.

mypizzanvrhurtnobody

Yes it’s fraud. One of the rules was that a certain percentage (maybe 70%?) had to go towards payroll.

ilikeb00biez

Money is fungible. He used the PPP to fund payroll. That freed up cash that would have funded payroll to buy trucks instead.

bellj1210

this is basically what everyone did- the PPP covered payroll and then everything esle went to profit.

terrymr

But there was no restriction on what you could do with the money you now didn't have to spend on payroll. The government pays your employees, you get to keep the money that you were going to pay them.

toomuchtodotoday

🤝 Join A Union

https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus

Report it, let investigators triage and decision prosecution referal.

Fayko

Yes fuck all these people. There was almost a trillion in tax payers money given to PPP fraudsters. They stole from you and all of the regular peons in America. Make multiple reports.

Even if you wouldn't be handed a penny you should report this person.

-1

For doing what the law asked? He didn't lay off any employees and kept them all employed. Government took care of payroll so it freed up funds to reinvest in the company.

Fayko

No matter how much boot you lick you won't get noticed by senpai.

He took advantage of a system as did a lot of others and they all need to be punished and made an example out of.

-1

No he didn't. All employees were retained. He followed the guidelines of the program. There wasn't fraud.

TrailRunner421

Tons of business did this during Covid, of all sizes. I had someone tell me they had their best year ever during Covid and still got tons of PPP money

midgaze

Just a small taste of the injustice that you will be forced to tolerate under fascism. You think things are bad now? Well they are. But just wait.

SomeSamples

This is such a common story. Companies getting PPP "loans" and not using it for what it was intended. Biden said his administration is going after these folks, so maybe report him to whatever org. take care of this.

He kept his employees employed. He used the money within the scope of the rules.

HaphazardFlitBipper

Money is fungible.

Saying he used some money to buy trucks while using other money to pay employees is meaningless because one dollar is just like any orher. Besides, he bought work trucks, If he hadn't bought trucks, his employees may not have been able to work and been laid off. If he'd bought sports cars or boats for his personal enjoyment then maybe you'd have a case, but keeping people employed was the intended purpose of PPP and it sounds like that's what he did with it.

absolutebeginners

What do you mean "none of the money went to employees"? Did the company continue to employ those people? Money is fungable. Nothing you said indicates fraud.

TweeksTurbos

Ask how they feel about student loans. Then report them.

sloth_jones

Just so you know, you can’t stay anonymous and get the money as far as I can tell. I looked into this about my old job that I didn’t have solid enough proof on to report. (Didn’t want to even do anon because if they didn’t technically misuse funds the. It’s wasting more taxpayer money)

simononandon

at least he kept you "employed" & paid you. he's still a POS & should be reported & hopefully has to pay. but i've heard of plenty of instances where owners got PPP loans but didn't actually keep any employees.

Sprinkle_Puff

Yes, absolutely report it

ACP68

Report it. At the time we had a small hair salon & our accountant called us to tell us we were eligible for $10k. We had no idea what the PPP even was but she said we could use it for the business & didn’t have to pay it back. Our answer was we didn’t need it & that way that was $10k going to a business that did. Oh how naive we were lol. Of COURSE something like that was going to get corrupted beyond belief.

UnbrandedContent

I got i think $8,900 from PPP. My employees got every single penny. It did not last long, obviously. But every single bit of it went to them. That is what it was for, and they deserved every bit of it.

Report it, my man.

https://www.investopedia.com/paycheck-protection-program-ppp-loan-forgiveness-7550209

It wasn't meant for employees. It was meant so businesses didn't have to lay people off.

SmartWonderWoman

Yes.

louglome

Even if you get no money, report fraud. Fuck these people

jmlinden7

It depends. The main requirement for loan forgiveness is that you don't lay off any employees. There are other requirements though, and it's not quite clear if those apply here:

ClamatoDiver

Not seeing the fraud, he didn't lay anyome off.

If he had laid them off and took money that was meant to keep them working then there would be fraud.

Guy bought two trucks for the business and is keeping people employed.

pabmendez

The point of PPP was to keep people from being laid off... so it worked "so nobody was laid off or anything"

jmaneater

Supreme court is gonna rule that this was fine as long as he was a registered republican. But if he's a democrat it's off to jail

completely legal

No one seems to know how these "loans" worked.

The main stipulation for having a PPP loan forgiven was to maintain your payroll through an 8 week period in 2020.

That's it. The government was desperately trying to make sure that people didn't lose their jobs over that initial period.

So, as an employer, all you had to do was keep paying people. For companies that actually were shut down by covid, those loans kept people employed and paid.

For companies that weren't affected, it was free money. You didn't have to pay it to employees unless you didn't have revenue to pay them as you did a month ago.

Was it wasteful? You betcha. But think of what it would take to set up an administration to decide who got money and who didn't? Tens of thousands of employees, training, infrastructure, etc. There was no time.

WonderfulCattle6234

You say none of the money went to employees, but he didn't lay anyone off. PPP loans weren't about giving raises, they were about giving businesses the resources to allow employees to keep their incomes.

I don't know what all of the requirements were for PPP loans though. I'm not sure if they actually had to demonstrate that their businesses were losing money due to covid and therefore needed the money to keep employees.

snatchinyosigns

As a tax payer, I am begging that you report him.

TheDevilsAdvokaat

Report him.

rhayhay

Report

koticgood

Probably not.

Only idiots, like the one described in the top level comment, face consequences for pocketing PPP money.

Look at all the wildly fraudulent shit they had to do to get a few years behind bars, and the amount of their loan.

You say "nothing was given to employees", but that's not true. Unless your boss didn't pay employees during COVID. Otherwise, the 290k loan gets attributed to wages, and then you take 290k minus COVID related losses to see how much PPP was donated to some douchebag.

As long as they had 290k in payroll, it's just free money. That's why people view the PPP with such disgust. It saved many businesses, but had 0 oversight to prevent loans going out and being forgiven to businesses that didn't need it or suffer at all.

Trevorjrt6

The purpose of PPP was to supplement businesses so no one got fired. That sounds like what happened...

RhitaGawr

That was the final straw for me in restaurants. Place I was at, I managed to keep it profitable during the pandemic(not by a lot mind you) and after a year and a half I asked for a raise. This man told me he didn't have any money.

He took out 200k in PPP loans.

I walked out.

CommanderMandalore

Can you clarify skimping on the paychecks?

verticalgiraffe

I have a “family friend” who got a 30k PPP Loan for her business. She basically spent all the money on herself by increasing her payroll significantly. I think a lot of people abused this, basically.

WoodchipsInMyBeard

I know someone who put their kids on payroll to get PPP loans and used the money to buy a condo and then closed the business a month later.

lycosa13

Report him anyway 🤷🏻‍♀️ it's not YOUR job to know if it's fraud, it's theirs. They'll figure it out one way or another

atlantik02

My sole proprietor business got $10k (ten thousand dollars) and I have to pay back.

ghsteo

⛓️ Prison For Union Busters

Report him, those are yours and all of our tax dollars he stole.

melouofs

We got this for our business too, and I don’t believe any of the money had to be given to employees. I believe it was meant to go to the business to keep it from going under during lockdown. If he never closed, I don’t understand that part. We were closed for several weeks and we used that money to keep paying rent and utilities when we had no income and we also got way less than this.

NewPhoneNewAccount2

I dont know about ppp loans but the irs whistle blowing rewards dont pay until you hit a couple million dollar mark

budding_gardener_1

✂️ Tax The Billionaires

I'd fuckin do it for free tbh. Fuck these people.

NewPhoneNewAccount2

Thats fair

ketomachine

What’s there to report? He didn’t lay anyone off and that’s how it was supposed to work. He put the $290k in for payroll and used revenue for his vehicles. There’s nothing illegal about it. He might not have qualified for the second ppp if revenue wasn’t down.

Up2Here

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. Under the program employees weren't entitled to anything except their jobs. Quit being a dick.

The_Scyther1

Even if the accusation is heresay he would only be punished if he dodged something illegal. I would report it.

maddenallday

100% report it. I work for a company that is cooperating with the feds going after these kinds of people. They are aggressive and will definitely reward you nicely

Sounds like the business owner didn't do anything wrong. Kept all employees on the payroll basically what was asked for. Now funds thay were normally for payroll could be used elsewhere

maddenallday

-1

You cannot get an extra 290k if you don’t need funding for payroll. So there’s a 100% chance the business owner lied on their app

Brah doubtful. They were handing it out like candy. There was 0 reason to lie on it

There was 0 stipulations on whether you needed it out not. Have you seen the form?

maddenallday

I am currently getting paid 400k per year to help the OIG collect data to go after people who defrauded them. Yes I’ve seen the forms lol. What this guy did is almost definitely shady.

RabidWeasels

That isn't how it worked. You submitted your payroll, utilities, rent, etc. expenses for the applicable period. 75% of the loan amount needed to be matched by payroll, and utilities/rent/etc. had to cover the other 25%.

There were issues with the implementation, but it kept at least 2 companies that I worked with open and their employees from being laid off.

witness149

That must be a very satisfying job.

4score-7

Please report. Even if nothing comes of it, it will likely require a response from him, and all the hassle and possible legal expense that entails.

Report them all.

Cultural_Double_422

If his employees didn't lose too many hours during covid it won't be considered fraud, but if he's shorting their checks that's wage theft

Right when theft is a completely separate issue

Cultural_Double_422

It is for the purposes of PPP loan fraud.

So ppp terms were you had to maintain x percentage of staff. By the sounds of it the guy kept everyone. So it wasn't fraud.

Cultural_Double_422

Exactly

LookAlderaanPlaces

Fucking do it. That money was for the employees. Fuck these shitty business owners.

No it wasn't. It was so the company didn't have to lay people off due to decreased revenue. It was never supposed to be some bonus for the employee.

LookAlderaanPlaces

It was supposed to go the the employee in the sense that people didn’t lose their jobs. If someone (like in many of the below examples) got shafted on pay because the business owner said “times are tough”, then that is a violation.

No it wasn't. You had to keep x % of employees on payroll. There was nothing about the amount that had to be paid.

iago_williams

Report them to the FBI. Tips.fbi.gov

Sskity

I would report him for free. No incentive needed.

gtclemson

Report it.

You are using good faith. Let them investigate.

teach4545

Yep.

dngvafuk1

Yup report

krebiz7969

So to burst some bubbles. The ppp loans were to keep the same number of employer. As long as the the business kept the same number of employees for the same rate the business keeps the money. Period stop. There was never any condition to give any of the money to any employee.

salty-band-aid

i agree, but lets just say that PPP was never an option.. This business would have never skipped a beat

oopgroup

-1

I'm sure he'll just say something like, "Wull I bought trucks for the company, and I give you work, so you should be grateful, that's how this free $300,000 loan helped you! Stop complaining!"

That's how all these lunatics think.

It's always the 'we provide more for society by existing than you do by being the reason we even exist' argument.

Their mental gymnastics are wild.

Meanwhile, god forbid students get $10k forgiven. You know, people who actually work hard and are the future of this country. Nah, fuck them, right? Keep them in debt and groveling. They don't do anything for society! /s

showyerbewbs

-1

https://www.pandemicoversight.gov/
Did a query for all PPP loans in just Covington KY.
1014 results. 52 Charged off. 20 with a status of exemption 4.
Meaning this: Exemption 4 is usually used by agencies to withhold trade secrets and confidential business information submitted to the government by private individuals and companies.
Which could literally mean anything.
10 listed as paid in full. No amounts listed as being forgiven so a total of 572,225 paid back. Didn't see anything about how much interest on those that were paid back. 929 listed as forgiven and thus Paid in full along with the dates forgiven. A total of 136,427,412.25 The amount forgiven is 136,810,013.85. 382,601.60 appears to be the interest forgiven? That's the only speculation I can think of for the forgiven amount to be higher than what was loaned out.
Can someone smarter than me tell me if I did my math wrong?

My personal TL;DR -- they forced banks to "loan" this money out knowing damn well they had no feasible mechanism to force repayment so they just made these banks eat it.

saintstephen66

-1

Corporate welfare in action

coolplate

-1

Absolutely

liptoniceteabagger

-1

In essence he stole from all of us, so yes, you should absolutely report them.

aForgedPiston

-1

Report that motherfucker, they stole from all taxpaying Americans when they failed to use those loans as intended and in good faith