On April 6 we submitted an application to the bank's portal, which included the standard federal form with information like average payroll and headcount.
On April 8 we received an email saying that we needed to submit some additional information, which just turned out to be repetition of payroll information we had already listed on the federal form.
On April 13 we received another email asking us to submit ownership details for any equity holders in our LLC.
It's now April 17 and we have not heard anything back. If I call the bank's number, I get a recording which says they'll process our application as soon as possible and they're unable to provide status updates over the phone.
Now I'm reading reports that the program is already out of money. If this is what's supposed to help small- and medium-sized businesses weather the pandemic, it is not inspiring much confidence. Have others had a similar experience?
Second off, we're already tooling up for the second round of SBA to get more loans through the system by eliminating a lot of manual processing. So have some hope and contact your reps and senators - we're already getting ready to get loans through once they open up the program again.
We are facing the same issues here. We are struggling to even get SBA logins created to add additional manpower to the manual process. I'm curious how paypal was able to push these loans through so quick, I'm assuming they have some API access that is difficult to obtain.
We are also trying to implement some automation for the second round. If you are able to share are you building that or implementing a 3rd party product? We are looking at a few 3rd party apps and have a few hopeful candidates that look like they will help.
1) The SBA was approving PPP submissions in like an hour (rubberstamping).
2) Any delay was 100% your bank. Many banks just didnt get to applications but didnt notify people. Some banks said people were approved (by the bank) but didnt submit those people to the SBA
3) There was a lot of time to submit to intermediaries like paypal. Paypal was turning applications around in 24 hours to funding. There were people that applied on 4/3 with a big bank that didnt get it and people that applied thursday night through paypal that got it
4) Big banks often added additional criteria which made it harder to complete the application. Some big banks were not using the correct calculations
5) Once you have an SBA loan number you are good and money is allocated. Banks have 10 days to disburse the funds
6) The SBA ran out of allocated funds, not all the money has been disbursed.
7) People submitted to multiple lenders and it was fine
Overall I think the program went pretty well and there was plenty of time for people to get applications in. There was obviously working of the system (hedge funds, large restaurant chains, etc) but if you look at the distribution of funds there were still many many small loans.
750K under $150K with an average of $51K
I spent the last 2 weeks doing nothing but reading reports, stats etc about the program to ensure I was able to get it for my team. Lots of people submitted with a big bank and just waited accepting no updates, now are complaining after it is over.
The way the statistics are presented is purposefully designed to obfuscate the fact that the vast majority of funds went to large businesses while small ones were very often shut out.
My personal bank (Bank of America) flat-out refused to talk to me, since I'd never had a business credit or loan through them.
Quickbooks is apparently planning something, but of course have nothing ready yet.
PayPal never mentioned to me they were an option. I've logged into my business account with them daily since this all began. Not a peep. Not an email. Not a notification anywhere on the page. Nada.
I scoured the SBA page daily - hell, three times a day - checking up on my EIDL application and also looking for any update on them offering PPP. Never saw anything, despite many people asserting like you are that it was there all along and early.
It's like you're from a completely different reality.
I filed an EIDL partway through on the SBA site Apr 6, got far enough create an account, to save my work and get an application number.
Login UI was gone by April 7 when I went to finish my app. No hint of the UI I'd used one day earlier.
Tried again April 9 - different application interface. Got through primary info input, requested $10K as emergency bistro, received an application number (different from the first number), then the process closed down suddenly. Got two emails from SBA saying my application had been received. There's no way to check status. Still hearing crickets since April 9.
A year later, we can hire lots of investigators to verify the loans and pursue any fraud.
All on top of just keeping my restaurant afloat and keeping my employees safe, while I have a newborn, while the world is on fire and favorite customers come by crying about losing their jobs and fuck, what’s the rainy day fund for if not for commiserating six feet apart after giving them a free burger.
So yeah I guess I just sat on my fat ass for weeks and I shouldn’t be complaining.......?
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I find it hard to blame the companies when they did everything right and the banks failed them.
Well guess what, most people entrusted banks to do the right thing, why the hell else are you paying them for (with your deposits).
Hi. Joe citizen here. Congratulations on your ability to work the system. I'm in the category you deprecate, just a loser needing my big bank to run interference for me and get us our $52k. Our business did not halt and allow me to devote full time to the endeavor. The future will be run by you.
SVB:
Local Bank:.... but I'm on the phone with you, logged in to my account, reading everything about the account to you that you are asking me for security reasons... the same thing that a hacker would do....
Applied on the first day they opened their portal, which was a few days after the program started.
Got an error on the second page of the app when I told them I am C Corp, was told the portal wasn't ready for C Corps yet.
Got an email the next day to try again, and did so and it worked.
Got a promissory note automatically at the end of the application which just needed a few bits of info and my payroll worksheet from Gusto.
Was informed this morning that the program was out of money and they would let me know if/when the program had more money to fund the loan.
Oh and through the entire process Chase has stressed that my local banker has no information, no access to the system, and no way to help me, so not even bother trying to talk to them.
I’ve had to spend countless hours for things that took me minutes to do with AmEx + local credit union.
Both have existing checking + lending relationship with BoA.
Company #1 is 5 years old, Company #2 is 6 months old.
4/3: Both companies applied
4/6: Both companies submitted all required docs
4/8: Received a call about Company #2 - claimed we could only use 2019 payroll to determine size of loan. Incorrect - new co's can use Jan/Feb. Told the rep this. Was told I would received a callback.
4/9: Received a promissory note for Company #1, signed and submitted.
4/10-4/15: Received numerous automated calls + emails asking me to do things I already had done.
4/16: Received a request to update business info for Company #1. Did so. Rep said I should expect deposit of funds in 1-5 days.
Still nothing on Company #2. I am tentative that the $$$ is allocated already as we have been assigned an SBA loan number.
BoA did some things right (opened up first), some things arguably right (as someone who has a previous relationship, I appreciate getting prioritized), and some things terribly (having people take time to give reminders on actions that have already been taken, having no one available to answer questions or provide support, etc.)
I did read somewhere though that their system was looking for specific file names in Intralinks and if you did not have those your application fell through the system. After reading that, I went back yesterday and looked at our docs and one the we had renamed the addendum and template files to remove spaces. I also looked at their instructions (probably should have read them more clearly from the beginning) and it does say in there not to rename files and/or to use specific file names. I am now wondering if that was what caused our application with them to fall to the black hole.
Luckily we had applied through a local bank and received a SBA number. Waiting on final docs now from them.
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People are sharpening their pitchfork tines...
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/how-stop-business-l...
I hope the above article is either wrong or misleading, but I do worry a tipping point could be hit that gets people out in the streets in numbers far larger than what was seen in Michigan.
I sense a growing distress at how bleak the situation is in places like here in Austin where relatively few deaths have been reported but countless people with livelihoods ruined.
Hopefully I’m wrong, but even having started prepping earlier than most for this lockdown, I’m still surprised every day how much worse things are getting than I imagined.
* Wave Life Sciences, a biotech company incorporated in Singapore, got $7.2 million for the 97% of the company’s work force based in the United States. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1631574/000119312520...
* Potbelly Sandwich Shop, a chain of 400 restaurants, got $10 million for its 6,000 employees. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1195734/000119312520...
* Texas Taco Cabana, a chain of 121 Mexican food restaurants, got $10 million https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1534992/000153499220...
* Ruth’s Hospitality Group, a Florida-based steakhouse operator, got $20 million for its 5,700 employees. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1324272/000156459020...
Call me skeptic but it's likely that banks prioritized applications of companies that have significant debt with the bank. This way the bank can essentially pay itself.
Louis Rossman reported that banks were doing this openly (explicitly saying they only allow applications from existing account holders). They have now removed that but nothing is preventing them from doing it behind closed doors anyways.
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Behind the error message I could make out the text of what appeared to be the ordinary final page of the form. The the error pane was a translucent overlay over the functioning form. I opened Chrome debugger, identified the element, and set its style to "display: none". Et voila: the glorious final page of the form, where I was able to tick off several attestations and press "Submit". About 10 hours later, I received the "application received" message.
You're Chase Bank. You have about 3 days to assemble a webapp that will accept bazillions of hits. You won't have any time to shake it down. Why in the name of Salmon P. Chase do you build a javascript-laden behemoth with a slick wizard interface with page transitions, that has a session timer but no persisted saved state (of any use to the user), using XHR file uploads, the combination of all that hot code bound to fail on any browser but Chrome (it failed to get to page 1 using Firefox)?
They could have built a plain old HTML single-page form with a POST action that would upload all the attachments. It could even have had wonderful CSS to support the branding they feel they must have. The whole thing could have run on Apache hosts with a CGI handler. Seriously.