Ask HN: How is your PPP loan application coming along?
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?
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 280 ms ] threadI received notice my application was submitted to SBA Wednesday morning, right after they ran out of money. I thought I missed the cutoff, but was approved Thursday afternoon. So there’s a lot of uncertainty.
The whole process is a mess and everyone is suffering, I really expect additional SBA funding will be approved soon. My understanding is that members of congress are holding out for hospital funds before allocating more to SBA.
Yes, I know that's not how the CARES Act was supposed to work, but that's how it actually ended up working at all of the major US banks.
Note: the SBA cutoff announcement on Wednesday was based on both the loans already approved and those in the queue for SBA approval. Loans submitted after the announcement Wednesday evening were SOL.
Correct, I received an email from Intuit today stating that the loan volume has been hit: https://i.judge.sh/ashamed/Derpy/chrome_YyblB6Znpm.png
It’s very likely that the allocated funds actually ran out within 1-2 days of applications.
The allocated funds were so paltry that whether you got it or not was based on luck. If you happened to pick a good bank with a short queue or good processing, or if your own bank prioritized you, then you were in luck. In my case our application didn’t even get reviewed the whole time, and the applying only one time rule blocked us from seeking some better bank.
Even the EIDL which was meant for affected businesses ran out and there was a paltry amount in there too.
They're using it as leverage for funding elsewhere and more restrictions on lenders.
IMO they should allow the funding now and give Republicans an olive branch like Republicans gave them with the last phase.
It's really not the time for politics and playing the leverage game looks bad.
I don't see why no one is mentioning this. It's wrong when both sides do things like this.
There was also plenty given to Republicans, when in the Senate they managed to include yet another tax giveaway costing $90 billion for 2020 alone. The benefits will almost entirely be received by millionaires and billionaires.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/14/coronavir...
Personally I see it hard for Democrats to want to just up the amount in the fund without a strategy for distribution. Add in the executive branch immediately doing everything they can to undermine congressional and Inspector General oversight over these funds, we will have a repeat of TARP where large corporations were able to find all the bailouts they needed while SMBs were hung out to dry.
I don't care about what sides did what when.
I care that this program that was successfully lending money out has been allowed to dry up and is being used as leverage.
Up the fund once more because it's being distributed too well, then start working on any restrictions you'll need on the future funding.
I care the Dems are blocking the funds to a program that was helping small businesses.
I'm holding them accountable right now. Do you agree with their stance?
Why should they care? They just have to wait a week.
Yes the Republicans could cave to their demands, but that doesn't mean the Dems aren't extorting the situation.
We had everything prepared thanks to Gusto and submitted. But it may not matter because they had us wait to the point of it no longer being available. We’re laying people off starting Monday. :/
While being with a local bank would have helped (especially if we had any debt with them), their behavior doesn't put me in a big rush to give them business either.
I've never been naive, but the way America responded to this was with blatant corruption, and it's truly disheartened me. We've shown who we are in a very real way, and I say "we" because we're all complicit and responsible for it.
If it's one thing America needs more of, it's to stop scapegoating everything we can point the finger at and get back to working together knowing that it's OURS to fix.
*Rant over
The rest of your comment I agree with, but we have to start with a different belief system (I think anyway) before we'll ever be any good at the rest.
America is far too incompetent to plan for corruption in times like this. Just assume stupidity when it comes to bureaucracy. That was definitely the case here.
Better to ignore the status of your EIDL application and apply for PPP, in the hope the program gets additional funding. (Both EIDL and PPP are out of funds, at the moment.)
Thanks for the heads up though! Didn't see it till just now...
It’s all very frustrating.
It's rumored that, just like how BofA prioritized companies with active business loans, other banks are giving money to ensure their loan customers can continue to pay existing loans.
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.
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.
If you have evidence or a report of such behavior, by all means, post it.
https://apnews.com/cc921bccf9f7abd27da996ef772823e4
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.
They don't /want/ companies to get a loan this way, they want companies to get a bank loan. No doubt they'll be spamming all failed applicants with offerings of "discount" bank loans soon.
They certainly did, on April 3 the day the program started of the 4 big banks only Bank of America began accepting applications with restrictions to applicants (example: must be an account holder and have pre-existing loans with the bank).
BOA was already sued by business owners in attempt to get court order to force BOA to open up the application process to everyone, and the Judge already ruled the banks have freedom to prioritize their own customers on any basis they like because the CARES Act did not prohibit the banks in anyway from doing so.
Now there have been multiple lawsuits against multiple banks, here is a link to one of the Judge's orders denying the restraining order against BOA: https://www.pierceatwood.com/sites/default/files/Order%20den...
In short the banks with get an automatic 5% of the total $350B, plus of those loans that don't get forgiven, the banks can sell them on the secondary market. So as you point out the Banks basically got $17.5B to lend money to businesses that already owe them money.
It was probably the same work to process a larger amount than a smaller one, so they were incentivized to do larger ones first. They had 5% total for the lower loans and 3% for up to 200k, but if its the same work - you do the higher ones regardless of your commission %. The average loan across the board was about 200k from what I last saw.
Should have been a flat fee. And they probably should have prevented businesses from getting a PPP loan from your current bank so they didn't have that incentive to discriminate and clean up any prior non-Covid related debt.
Chase lied about reviewing applications sequentially. We were early on April 6th. Never heard anything until this morning when they emailed saying funds were gone. Since they didn't update anyone, it probably made it easier to discriminate. If you were #1 and didn't get a loan, then they'd have to tell you that you were denied if they were really going sequential and fair, and not discriminating. I won't be surprised if there's a class action fired up.
Just one crazy example - Chase funded 20M to Ruth's Chris as they got around the 500 employee limit with a size standard loophole. I don't know anyone who gets takeout steaks. Nor will people be buying a lot of them when they can even open back up again. So dumb.
There was no way to know if your loan was looked at, if it was ever submitted to the SBA by Chase or any way to withdraw your application. And since the SBA said not to do multiple applications, Chase screwed over a lot of people.
Just last week I had a fraud alert and Chase's phone service was not operational. They went completely dark. Seemed to be all hands on deck with PPP, cleaning up balance sheet and getting that easy money in commissions.
Didn't hear anything else after that.
For my company we went through Chase the same day when it was available. They never asked for any information. We called, they said it was being processed. Still no info.
I have a few other friends who own businesses and none have received the loan. The only person I know that received the loan went through a local bank in New Mexico. I think the big banks just prioritized the really large loans > $1M.
I stupidly dragged my feet in re-submitting, given all the steps required. Finally got it re-submitted yesterday, just as they announced the well's run dry.
PNC kindly got back to me today (via phone) and had me add one more piece of missing info, in readiness for the next wave of funding (if that happens).
Now I wonder if I had responded immediately last week if it might have made it under the wire. I guess who knows?
Our bank said they were still doing diligence on all applications upfront before submitting the loans to the SBA even though the bank isn't actually liable for anything. This was causing about a 2 day lag time from starting to process the loan application to submitting it to the SBA. In our case that meant not getting the loan submitted before the funding ran out.
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.
Never any updates, not even a confirmation email.
Checking the status today, looks like they never got through processing and submitting to SBA. So looks like we missed the boat.
If you have an application in process, keep it going. If your bank is still taking applications, file one.
Most members of Congress agree that the CARES Act small business programs should get more funding. But they are dragging their feet on a bill because of other topics and ideas that could get attached to it.
The more un-fulfilled applications there are waiting for funds, the more heat that banks and trade associations can put on Congress to move fast. It demonstrates the dire need.
And if more funds are allocated, banks will likely start disbursing them first to applications that are already in the queue.
You should absolutely be contacting your House representative and Senators about this. Call their office, tweet @ them, send them emails. Tell them to pass a bill on Monday to fix this.
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati...
https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_...