Lower Merion Township Brothers Arrested For Operating Fake Businesses
People who are chronically online suffer constantly from the feeling that everyone and everything is fake, but we are fooling ourselves if we think that simply stepping away from cyberspace and venturing out into real life is a direct route to honesty. Even when you interact with people in person, they inflate their credentials and falsely perform friendliness, and if you try to engage in business transactions in person, false advertising is everywhere. Sometimes people even lie about their familial relationships to their family. If you have the same last name as a famous person, the temptation to pretend to be a close relative of that person. Your neighbor Branwell Waters is neither a first cousin of the guy that made those garishly weird movies about Baltimore nor of the guy from Pink Floyd, despite what he says. Remember the White Stripes? Jack White and Meg White were not siblings, despite what they told the media; they were former spouses who had gotten the same last name through marriage. We could chalk most of these lies up to harmless fictions, but running a fake business is no joke; it is the crime of fraud. If you are facing criminal charges for pretending to operate a non-existent business, contact a Pittsburgh white collar crime lawyer.
Pandemic Relief for Small Businesses May Have Ended, but Fake Businesses Carry On
Almost everyone who never followed the news before the COVID-19 pandemic got drawn into one or another algorithmic news feed, whether it was the real-life drama that followed the broadcast of Tiger King like the tail of a comet or the tweets from celebrities and Internet famous wannabes about their experiences with COVID symptoms and cabin fever. Those of us intellectuals who have no appetite for such base human drama read the press release on the Department of Justice website about people who got charged with financial crimes for applying for COVID relief funds for small businesses that existed only on paper. The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) of 2020 kept plenty of small businesses and their employees financially insolvent during the spring 2020 lockdown, but it will be best remembered for the fraud cases that arose from it, the ostentatious lifestyles it funded for fraudsters. Now that today’s elementary school students are too young to remember the COVID-19 pandemic, using fake businesses for one’s own financial gain is still a thing.
In the News
In 2025 and early 2026, customers engaged the services of three home remodeling businesses that, based on their websites, seemed to operate in or near Lower Merion Township, but “operate” is a loose term. Two men collected payment for services, but no remodeling work happened, and the customers eventually notified police. An investigation led to the arrest of two men, who are brothers, but they changed their last names to appear to be unrelated.
Contact Gary E. Gerson About Criminal Defense Cases
A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges related to operating a fake business. Contact the law offices of Gary E. Gerson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania about your case.
Source:
patch.com/pennsylvania/ardmore/pair-conducted-high-dollar-contractor-fraud-lower-merion-police
