Some private individuals are looking for small-business loan scams situations. They have earned big payouts— in some cases, more than$ 1 million. When J. Bryan Quesenberry second learned that the federal government was providing hundreds of billions of dollars to businesses to survive the Covid-19 crisis, he realized that there was fraud going on. ” There must be,” Mr. Quesenberry said,” A few months later, he began looking through a list of companies that had received Paycheck Protection Program loans to keep paying their workers. The lawyer from Oregon discovered dozens of businesses that appeared to be attempting to obtain P. P. loans without proper authorization. He discovered that he knew businesses were not permitted to get more than one product during a single square. Mr. Quesenberry began suing those companies to try to retrieve money from the state in the summer of 2020. ” It only blows my mind”, Mr. Quesenberry said. Private individuals are scouring public records, business websites, and social media pages to find possible cases as federal officials try to recover trillions in stolen pandemic relief funds. The plaintiffs ‘ attorneys claim that the lawsuits were brought in as a result of a need to expose corporate fraud and punish bad guys. But there is also a solid fiscal incentive. Private individuals can file lawsuits against those who may have defrauded the United States under the False Claims Act on behalf of the federal government. Members of the government can usually make between 15 and 30 % of that money when they are recovered. The post content is retrievable with difficulty. In your browser’s settings, kindly help Browser. Thank you for your patience while exposure is verified. If you are in Audience mode please leave and log into your Times accounts, or listen for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while accessibility is verified. Presently a customer? Register in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.