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Identifying fraudulent PPP loans through network analysis

31 points by apwheele 5y ago

stefan_ 5y ago
> Created an edge if the two businesses were within half a mile Well it certainly looks nice but it also seems to mean nothing at all.
awb 5y ago
Interesting, but I’m not sure what to conclude from the graphs. Anyone who had a side gig was eligible for PPP, regardless if they had a storefront. So it wouldn’t surprise me if there were some geographical outliers. Especially, if you work from home, then more remote properties would potentially be more desirable.
donclark 5y ago
It would be kind if we posted a TLDR with our submissions.
- HillRat 5y ago
  My impression is that the title’s accurate, with the exception of “identifying,” “fraudulent,” and “network analysis.”
  - donclark 5y ago
    I understood the title. What can we do about it, why should I care, etc?
    - HillRat 5y ago
      TLDR; The author uses arbitrary distance metrics to construct a graph structure from a public dataset, which fails to reveal anything of interest.
cyanydeez 5y ago
"WERE they friends with republican donors, donald trump or a basketball team?"
blantonl 5y ago
I hope that the federal government devotes hundreds of millions of dollars to research to identify this $80B in fraud and waste and hold each and every person, entity, leader, whatever, accountable - and figuratively burn them at the stake. The PPP program's "spirt" was absolutely decimated by thousands of money grabbing small business owners who had single owner LLCs etc in businesses that were not dramatically affected by the pandemic, and typically in high earning professions such as lawyers, accountants, real estate agents etc - all of these people got complete handouts of tens of thousands of dollars of cold hard cash in loans that were completely forgiven. Everyone knows a real estate agent that has absolutely killed it in the last 2 years, and they also took PPP loans in the tens of thousands of dollars. It's disgusting. I get that the "uncertainty" of the time necessitated people to take a hard look into the abyss and make some hard choices moving forward, but a lot of what I pointed out was absolute grift and disgusting. And we won't even talk about some of the businesses that worked their tails off to get funding and PPP loans (restaurants, retail etc) that had terrible times working through the maze of getting the loans. The disparity is disgusting. There IS a reason why trying to buy a top end Mercedes or BMW has been difficult, and it isn't ALL chip shortages and supply chain issues. I own a two member LLC that is an amazing successful business, and we KILLED IT during the pandemic, and I could have easily applied for 90K in loans that would have been forgiven, but I made the conscious moral decision that I didn't need it, and there were more deserving business owners and firms that really did need that money. It's gross and disgusting. I hope projects like this continue to peel back the onion and nails these people to the wall. I frankly don't care that the government said "take the money."
- digitaltrees 5y ago
  It’s easy to have outrage in retrospect, but during the early days of the pandemic it seemed that every business would be decimated. You also have to remember that lawyers and accountants and these types of businesses you deem unworthy have lots of support staff, many of which would have been fired but for PPP funds. I seriously question $80b being labeled as waste or even fraud. We look back now and can say lots of businesses didn’t need the funds, but only because programs like PPP stabilized the entire economy and created enough confidence to handle the transition. So we as a society spent $80b but avoid Trillions of harm from what would have been the worst recession in two generations. Seems like a good trade.
cosmiccatnap 5y ago
I would imagine half of them were but that's not the problem. The problem is that plenty of people who took that money then to mitigate risk will use it now to lawyer up against these claims and make no mistake they won.

31 points by apwheele 5y ago

> Created an edge if the two businesses were within half a mile Well it certainly looks nice but it also seems to mean nothing at all.

awb 5y ago

Interesting, but I’m not sure what to conclude from the graphs. Anyone who had a side gig was eligible for PPP, regardless if they had a storefront. So it wouldn’t surprise me if there were some geographical outliers. Especially, if you work from home, then more remote properties would potentially be more desirable.

donclark 5y ago

It would be kind if we posted a TLDR with our submissions.

HillRat 5y ago
My impression is that the title’s accurate, with the exception of “identifying,” “fraudulent,” and “network analysis.”
- donclark 5y ago
  I understood the title. What can we do about it, why should I care, etc?
  - HillRat 5y ago
    TLDR; The author uses arbitrary distance metrics to construct a graph structure from a public dataset, which fails to reveal anything of interest.

cyanydeez 5y ago

"WERE they friends with republican donors, donald trump or a basketball team?"

blantonl 5y ago

I hope that the federal government devotes hundreds of millions of dollars to research to identify this $80B in fraud and waste and hold each and every person, entity, leader, whatever, accountable - and figuratively burn them at the stake. The PPP program's "spirt" was absolutely decimated by thousands of money grabbing small business owners who had single owner LLCs etc in businesses that were not dramatically affected by the pandemic, and typically in high earning professions such as lawyers, accountants, real estate agents etc - all of these people got complete handouts of tens of thousands of dollars of cold hard cash in loans that were completely forgiven. Everyone knows a real estate agent that has absolutely killed it in the last 2 years, and they also took PPP loans in the tens of thousands of dollars. It's disgusting. I get that the "uncertainty" of the time necessitated people to take a hard look into the abyss and make some hard choices moving forward, but a lot of what I pointed out was absolute grift and disgusting. And we won't even talk about some of the businesses that worked their tails off to get funding and PPP loans (restaurants, retail etc) that had terrible times working through the maze of getting the loans. The disparity is disgusting. There IS a reason why trying to buy a top end Mercedes or BMW has been difficult, and it isn't ALL chip shortages and supply chain issues. I own a two member LLC that is an amazing successful business, and we KILLED IT during the pandemic, and I could have easily applied for 90K in loans that would have been forgiven, but I made the conscious moral decision that I didn't need it, and there were more deserving business owners and firms that really did need that money. It's gross and disgusting. I hope projects like this continue to peel back the onion and nails these people to the wall. I frankly don't care that the government said "take the money."

digitaltrees 5y ago
It’s easy to have outrage in retrospect, but during the early days of the pandemic it seemed that every business would be decimated. You also have to remember that lawyers and accountants and these types of businesses you deem unworthy have lots of support staff, many of which would have been fired but for PPP funds. I seriously question $80b being labeled as waste or even fraud. We look back now and can say lots of businesses didn’t need the funds, but only because programs like PPP stabilized the entire economy and created enough confidence to handle the transition. So we as a society spent $80b but avoid Trillions of harm from what would have been the worst recession in two generations. Seems like a good trade.

cosmiccatnap 5y ago

I would imagine half of them were but that's not the problem. The problem is that plenty of people who took that money then to mitigate risk will use it now to lawyer up against these claims and make no mistake they won.