PALM CITY, Fla. — Richard Loew of Palm City needed a new vehicle.
The retired doctor was sure he'd be able to get a loan just before Christmas to buy his new Jeep.
After the visit to a dealership, a letter from Chrysler Corporation Finance arrived that read: "After carefully reviewing your application, we regret that we are unable to approve the terms of your credit request."
He didn't get the loan.
RELATED: Victim of ID theft scheme with SBA loan now faces lien
Loew said he has bad credit and blames two bogus Small Business Administration disaster relief loans taken out by someone else using his and his wife's identities in July 2020.
Whoever took out these loans claimed his one-acre property in Palm City was a farm.
"Welcome to Donna Farms and Loew Farms," Loew said as he walked the backyard of his home that sits on one acre in Palm City.
Loew, of course, is his last name and Donna is his wife.
The SBA wrote to the Loews in 2020 saying they'd have to start paying back their loans in July 2021 and for a time, they received monthly reminders.
Contact 5 found homeowners in several states who also claimed to be victimized by fraudsters applying for and receiving disaster relief loans for just under $50,000. The identity thieves then put the victims' first or last names in front of the word "farm."
"It makes no sense that the government was that gullible," Loew, who once worked for the federal government as a doctor for the Veterans Administration, said. "All they (the Small Business Administration) had to do was put in that address and they would have seen that it's a residential address."
After the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service investigated, the SBA stopped asking for loan repayments.
Loew was sure federal agencies would recognize their Palm City home was not a farm and that he and his wife were fraud victims who shouldn't have to pay back the loan.
Last month he then received another letter from the SBA that read: "Your SBA loan is past due for two installments for a total of $468."
WPTV emailed the SBA asking why the Loews were being billed.
The agency responded:
"Under Administrator Guzman, the SBA has been working diligently to prevent fraud and remedy challenges experienced during the prior Administration. We've implemented enhanced controls across our programs to mitigate the risk of resources getting into the wrong hands," SBA Special Counsel for Enterprise Risk Peggy Delinois Hamilton said. "SBA remains committed to its core mission: to empower small businesses seeking to use our products and services and achieve the American Dream of entrepreneurship. We applaud the work that our law enforcement partners and the United States Secret Service have done to ensure fraudsters are held accountable."
Scott Amey said the SBA and other government agencies were too lax at the outset of the COVID-19 crisis when someone stole the identity of the Loews and others to get these so-called farm loans.
"The government attempted to hand out money without the safety guardrails to appropriately watch that money," Amey, who is the general counsel for the Project On Government Oversight, a private watchdog group, said.
Amey also said the SBA isn't doing enough to help victims.
"To hear that there are still these farm fraud cases that are out there, and they're receiving notices that they have to pay back the amounts owed on those loans, is completely outrageous," Amey said.
"And I still owe the debt," Loew, who now believes he is on the hook for almost $100,000 for the two bogus loans, said.
He said he was told that after a recent call to an SBA customer service agent.
"They do not care that I've proven that it's fraud," Loew said. "They want me to pay for it."
He believes it's unfair to pay for a loan that he said he never applied for, for farms that don't exist.
