YOUNGSTOWN - Several senior citizens in Ohio say they're not getting their full Social Security benefits after someone used their information to take out a loan with the Small Business Association without their permission. 

The loans were given out during the pandemic, but the seniors say fraudulent actors used their social security numbers to get them. 

Now, several seniors have reported that the SBA is withholding money from their benefits to pay back the loan.

"These people are on fixed incomes, they're barely getting by with inflation and everything. They're just paying their bills and for someone to garnish their wages it's a deal killer," Ohio Congressman Michael Rulli said. 

Rulli told 21 News he's gotten several complaints from seniors about this and penned a letter to the SBA about his concerns. 

“To me the SBA’s being lazy,” Rulli said. “I think they just simply were doing the auditing of their books and they said ‘hey listen these guys with these Social Security numbers they had these loans, they defaulted on the loans’ and in reality it's an identity theft problem and if they really did their diligence they would see that the routing numbers don’t add up.” 

Rulli said at least four seniors have reported this theft to his office who are losing several hundreds of dollars in benefits a month. Rulli suspects there are many more seniors in Ohio and in other states being affected. 

The SBA Office of Inspector General said in 2023 that they believe about 17% of all pandemic loans given out by SBA were to fraudulent actors. 

Currently, those affected have to prove they did not receive money from SBA for these economic loans.

Rulli is encouraging more congressional leaders to sign his letter to the SBA and encourages any seniors that may suspect they were scammed to reach out to his office. 

The congressman's full letter can be read here.