PALM CITY, Florida – Dr. Richard Loew collects coins at his Palm City home, a hobby he has had since childhood.
“[I’ve] have been collecting them since I was around 10, “he said.
But Löw worries that debt collectors might knock on his door.
“My credit report shows that I owe $ 48,900 to the SBA and a no-payment loan I made on it,” Loew told Contact 5. “So I called the SBA and they gave up at that I take out a loan. “
Loew and his wife, Donna, said someone used Donna’s social security number to take out this Small Business Association disaster relief loan in June.
37 miles away in Okeechobee, Patty Sarkar learned that someone with her information had also taken out a $ 48,900 SBA loan.
Sarkar doesn’t know Löw or his wife Donna.
“It’s a pretty deep hit. Pretty low,” Sarkar told Contact 5 in an interview.
WPTV
The two appear to be victims of identity theft rings and stealing some of the billions of dollars in federal aid available to companies struggling during events like natural disasters or the COVID-19 pandemic.
“So many of our identities are compromised. You are in the wild, ”said Eva Velasquez, CEO of Identity Theft Resource Center. “So this was a perfect opportunity for the scammers to take advantage of the data they already had.”
A Contact 5 verified letter Loews received from the SBA shows that the loan was made to Donna Farms.
Sarkar said her loan was almost the same and was made to Patty Farms.
Alan Mittermaier of Columbus, Ohio, sent Contact 5 a letter from the SBA stating that a $ 18,600 loan had been taken out for Mittermaier Farm. Mittermaier said he did not apply for the loan.
All three told Contact 5 that they do not own any stores under those names.
Velasquez said it was important to fix any fraud as soon as possible with the lender or provider involved.
“They want to contact the facility they received the notice from,” Velasquez told Contact 5, adding that people should consider freezing their credit if they don’t intend to take out a loan anytime soon.
“It’s just really smart, especially in these times,” said Velasquez.
A representative of the SBA sent the following declaration to contact 5:
“The SBA does not comment on individual applications. Evidence of waste, fraud or abuse in any of the SBA’s loan programs will not be tolerated and should be reported.
Sarkar and the Loews both said they had recently been visited by the Secret Service, which has frozen the bank accounts that the SBA held the loan in.
“I have a feeling that our system is not working,” said Loew.
He was frustrated with the SBA and said they should have submitted loan applications from recognized identity thieves. Loew also said it was difficult to get help fighting the fraud.
“I thought it would be easy with a few phone calls,” Loew told Contact 5. “It didn’t happen that way. Government says I owe you something, which is completely ridiculous.”
