Pinellas veteran let off the hook from fraudulent SBA loan after 7-month fight
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A veteran in Pinellas County got some answers after he ended up on the hook for a federal Small Business Administration loan he never applied for nor received.
Joseph Carpenter called for help in August after the SBA sent him a letter claiming he owed $20,833.
The letter warned him that if he didn't pay by September, the Treasury Department would start taking up to 15% of his Social Security payments.
Consumer Reporter Shannon Behnken was able to help him get the government to agree to keep their hands off his Social Security while they investigate his fraud claim, but the loan issue was still unresolved.
Well, not anymore. Carpenter has now received a letter from the SBA acknowledging this was identity theft and clearing him from the debt.
'You got to the SBA in Tampa, which I couldn't even get ahold of anybody over there,' he said. 'No matter what you all you get is a recording.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
How scammers are using AI to steal college financial aid
'I just can't imagine how many people this is happening to that have no idea,' Brady said. The rise of artificial intelligence and the popularity of online classes have led to an explosion of financial aid fraud. Fake college enrollments have been surging as crime rings deploy 'ghost students' — chatbots that join online classrooms and stay just long enough to collect a financial aid check. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up In some cases, professors discover almost no one in their class is real. Students get locked out of the classes they need to graduate as bots push courses over their enrollment limits. And victims of identity theft who discover loans fraudulently taken out in their names must go through months of calling colleges, the Federal Student Aid office and loan servicers to try to get the debt erased. Advertisement On Friday, the US Education Department introduced a temporary rule requiring students to show colleges a government-issued ID to prove their identity. It will apply only to first-time applicants for federal student aid for the summer term, affecting some 125,000 borrowers. The agency said it is developing more advanced screening for the fall. Advertisement 'The rate of fraud through stolen identities has reached a level that imperils the federal student aid program,' the department said in its guidance to colleges. An Associated Press analysis of fraud reports obtained through a public records request shows California colleges in 2024 reported 1.2 million fraudulent applications, which resulted in 223,000 suspected fake enrollments. Other states are affected by the same problem, but with 116 community colleges, California is a particularly large target. Criminals stole at least $11.1 million in federal, state, and local financial aid from California community colleges last year that could not be recovered, according to the reports. Colleges typically receive a portion of the loans intended for tuition, with the balance going directly to students for other expenses. Community colleges are targeted in part because their lower tuition means larger percentages of grants and loans go to borrowers. Scammers frequently use AI chatbots to carry out the fraud, targeting courses that are online and allow students to watch lectures and complete coursework on their own time. In January, Wayne Chaw started getting emails about a class he never signed up for at De Anza Community College, where he had taken coding classes a decade earlier. Identity thieves had obtained his Social Security number and collected $1,395 in financial aid in his name. The energy management class required students to submit a homework assignment to prove they were real. But someone wrote submissions impersonating Chaw, likely using a chatbot. 'This person is typing as me, saying my first and last name. ... It's very freaky when I saw that,' said Chaw. Advertisement The fraud involved a grant, not loans, so Chaw himself did not lose money. He called the Social Security Administration to report the identity theft, but after five hours on hold, he never got through to a person. As the Trump administration moves to dismantle the Education Department, federal cuts may make it harder to catch criminals and help victims of identity theft. In March, the Trump administration fired more than 300 people from the Federal Student Aid office, and the department's Office of Inspector General, which investigates fraud, has lost more than 20 percent of its staff through attrition and retirements since October. 'I'm just nervous that I'm going to be stuck with this,' Brady said. 'The agency is going to be so broken down and disintegrated that I won't be able to do anything, and I'm just going to be stuck with those $9,000' in loans. Criminal cases around the country offer a glimpse of the schemes' pervasiveness. In the past year, investigators indicted a man accused of leading a Texas fraud ring that used stolen identities to pursue $1.5 million in student aid. Another person in Texas pleaded guilty to using the names of prison inmates to apply for over $650,000 in student aid at colleges across the South and Southwest. And a person in New York recently pleaded guilty to a $450,000 student aid scam that lasted a decade. Brittnee Nelson of Shreveport, La., was bringing her daughter to day-care two years ago when she received a notification that her credit score had dropped 27 points. Advertisement Loans had been taken out in her name for colleges in California and Louisiana, she discovered. She canceled one before it was paid out, but it was too late to stop a loan of over $5,000 for Delgado Community College in New Orleans. Nelson runs her own housecleaning business and didn't go to college. She already was signed up for identity theft protection and carefully monitored her credit. Still, her debt almost went into collections before the loan was put in forbearance. She recently got the loans taken off her record after two years of effort. 'It's like if someone came into your house and robbed you,' she said. The federal government's efforts to verify borrowers' identity could help, she said. 'If they can make these hurdles a little bit harder and have these verifications more provable, I think that's really, really, really going to protect people in the long run,' she said.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Feds warn: Hang up on phone scammers pretending to be border patrol agents
June 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. Customs and Border Protection law enforcement agency, or CBP, announced Tuesday that anyone who gets a call from someone who claims to be a CBP agent asking for personal information should just hang up. The CBP reports that its employees have continually received calls about people who have gotten unsolicited calls from scammers posing as U.S. Border Patrol agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. CBP Houston Acting Director of Field Operations Rod Hudson said in a press release that "If CBP suspects illegal activity, we will not call a suspect or a victim requesting money or Social Security numbers. To be clear, CBP will not make telephone calls threatening citizens that law enforcement is on the way or promising money for information." The Department of Homeland Security and CBP state that they don't solicit money over the phone. "Anyone receiving a call from U.S. Customs and Border Protection about self-deportation, or a shipment of drugs or money should recognize that it is a scam regardless of how authentic the caller may sound," Hudson added. The people who have been contacted by scammers allege the phony CBP agents say they've received drugs with the person's name on it, and if they don't give up personal details as requested, the police will come to their residence. The phishers have also given the names and phone numbers of actual CBP employees to better falsify their identity, and in some cases the fraudulent callers provide phony badge and case numbers. Another version of the swindle involves a prerecorded message that tells the victim to press one to speak with a CBP officer or agent, upon which the scammer attempts to gain the victim's banking information. The CBP also said in the release that it will never ask for bank account or credit card numbers or Social Security information, and it never uses wire transfers, cryptocurrency or gift cards. Scammers can also call with a phone number that appears legitimate, and those who have been called should not phone those numbers back in an attempt to decipher whether a call was real but should instead find the factual information online. Anyone who would like to report such calls can contact the Federal Trade Commission online to do so.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
What Parents Should Know About the $1,000 ‘Trump Accounts'
The proposed program would create investment accounts for children born as early as the beginning of this year. Credit - Markus Scholz—picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images Almost every baby born in America would get a $1,000 investment account from the government under a program championed by President Donald Trump. 'This is a pro-family initiative that will help millions of Americans harness the strength of our economy to lift up the next generation, and they'll really be getting a big jump on life,' Trump said Monday at a roundtable at the White House with top business executives. Dubbed 'Trump Accounts' by the Administration, the proposal is a provision in Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' the sweeping tax and spending package now making its way through Congress. The bill passed the House with the provision included, but the package has faced resistance in the Senate. If the legislation passes, the proposed program would create accounts for children born as early as the beginning of this year. Here's what parents should know about the program. The 'Trump Accounts' created for newborns under the program would be tax-deferred investment accounts privately held by children's guardians. The government would make a one-time contribution of $1,000 to each account, according to the White House. The accounts would then 'track a stock index and allow for additional private contributions of up to $5,000 per year,' the White House said. The program 'will afford a generation of children the chance to experience the miracle of compounded growth and set them on a course for prosperity from the very beginning,' the White House said. The accounts would be available for children born in the country after Dec. 31, 2024 and before Jan. 1, 2029. In order to open an account, at least one of the child's parents or guardians would need to have a Social Security number with the authorization to work in the U.S., The Washington Post reported. At the age of 18, the child would be able to withdraw up to half of the money in the account, according to Forbes. When they turn 25, they would be able to access the full account balance for certain purposes, such as small business loans and higher education. Only when the account beneficiary turns 30 would they gain full control of all the funds for any purpose. The Milken Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, estimated in a report released in March that an initial government grant of $1,000 invested in a broad-based equity index fund of U.S. companies would, on average, grow to $8,000 after 20 years, $69,000 after 40 years, and $574,000 after 60 years. Lawmakers have not shared a projected cost for Trump Accounts. But the Post estimated that, since there are roughly 3.6 million babies born in the country each year, the cost of the program could be greater than $3 billion a year. Some economists and policy experts have expressed concern that the program could exacerbate economic inequality. Trump Accounts are similar to 'baby bond' programs that operate in California, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. But those state programs were intended to minimize the wealth gap by offering support for children from low-income households, whereas the Trump program would be available to people regardless of their socioeconomic status. As a result, experts have noted that families from higher income households would be able to contribute more to the account, on top of the initial $1,000, and therefore have more funds accumulated in the account. Some financial experts have also voiced skepticism of the program, saying the benefits are small compared to other tax-shielded savings options, such as 529 college savings accounts. Others have pointed out that the proposal is coming at the same time that Republican lawmakers are proposing significant cuts to social safety net programs, such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 'Feel like low-income families would prefer their assistance buying groceries not get cut, but that's just me,' Brendan Duke—the senior director for federal budget policy at the nonpartisan research and policy institute, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities—said in a post on X, in response to a post about Trump Accounts. Contact us at letters@
