Growing evidence suggests that the self-certification vetting process created an聽opportunity for people to take advantage聽of the program鈥檚 open-door design, the聽report says.

The SBA鈥檚 inspector general found 鈥渢ens of聽thousands鈥� of companies that received聽PPP loans when they were ineligible, the聽report says. This could include聽corporations created after the pandemic聽arrived, businesses that had more than聽500 employees and companies that owe the federal government money, hence are named in a do-not-pay database.

Some eligible companies may聽have received more than they should have.

The FBI has opened several hundred PPP-related investigations that involve almost聽500 suspects and hundreds of millions of聽dollars, the report says. The U.S. Justice聽Department already has charged 73聽defendants in fraud cases related to PPP.

The Treasury Department in September received 2,495 suspicious-activity reports involving business loans from banks and other聽depository institutions, more than the total for any year dating back聽to 2014, according to public data.

Many other PPP loans are falling into a gray area in which聽businesses received one despite seeing revenue increase during the聽pandemic.聽Prosecutors are probing some of those cases聽but finding聽it difficult to bring charges, in part because Congress set a low bar聽for obtaining the funds, according to law enforcement officials聽familiar with the matter.

Prosecutors face hurdles in proving business owners lied when聽they said they needed money in the pandemic鈥檚 chaotic early days鈥攅ven if profits kept coming in later, officials said.

The Small Business Administration has received more than 1,000 reports that business owners are fighting fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) applications taken out in their name based on information that hackers pulled from PPP applications. The hackers have obtained information through other avenues as well.

A few of the firm鈥檚 clients who have been scammed realized it only after receiving a document by mail from the Small Business Administration informing them of a revised repayment schedule that the businesses did not request. Some business owners also have learned their information was stolen after performing new lien searches with lenders.

KCoe advises companies to take these steps to detect fraud.

Stay Alert. Pay close attention to your mail, emails, and lender communications. If anything seems suspicious, or you receive an official notice regarding EIDL and you did not apply for it, report it immediately.

Notify Lenders. Inform your lender (whether you participated in the EIDL program or not) so that they are aware of potentially fraudulent loans. Should the lender identify liens that shouldn鈥檛 have been filed, the owner will need to report the fraudulent loan to the SBA.

Be Proactive. Closely monitor personal credit reports. Put a hold/freeze on your credit to help monitor any authorized activity.

Report Immediately. With the uptick in fraudulent activity, it鈥檚 important to report your case immediately to SBA to start an investigation and address the business fraud. Contact the SBA Customer Service Center  at (800) 659-2955.