Can you spot the fraud? Nine loan files and the tells the front-end almost never caught
StartPlay the loan reviewer. Some of these applications are frauds that ended in federal convictions; some are illustrative legitimate borrowers who only looked suspicious. Fund the clean ones, flag the frauds, and find the tell. The program’s front-end rarely caught these before the money went out, while over-flagging fell hardest on the self-employed borrowers PPP was extended to reach. The fraud files are real adjudicated cases; the tells come from the charging documents.
You’re at the underwriting desk in the spring of 2020. Applications are pouring in faster than anyone can check them, and the rules let borrowers self-certify almost everything. Your job for the next nine files: fund the ones that hold up, flag the ones that don’t — and when you flag, point to the single detail that gives it away.
Not every file is a fraud. Some are illustrative profiles of ordinary borrowers who look scary and are perfectly clean — flag one of those and you’ve made a false positive, which in the real program meant a real business waiting on money it was promised. The fraud files are real defendants whose cases are in the public record and in this archive.
9 files · fund the clean, flag the frauds · No penalty for a wrong guess — the reveal is the point