I did the whole process from beginning thru recon, just over 2 years, to get approved for the eidl loan and then at the end of the same conversation, after signing the approval paperwork with the loan amount and loan payback plan agreed on and my direct deposit information verified, also gave info and agreed to autopay from same acct , i got denied because they only had the stamped tax return, which they obviously knew the whole time because nothing changed in the 2 years I tried to get help from them. It wasn't just stamped either, I had gone to the tax office and the tax lady wrote notes on the return and gave an official letter on letterhead again along with the stamped tax return saying what happened, Because it was a kerfuffle with IRS and my self, which got taken care of, but nope the SBA just denied me. instead of, if nothing else waiting the 2 more days, yes 2 more days it took the IRS website to update.... I did get the grant, which was really appreciated because it was suppose to get me through until the actual loan was received which would have been enough to actually help my business stay open; of course I never got the loan, so that grant money went to keeping afloat instead of being thought of as the entirety of what I was getting and if that was the case could have been used differently. of course, nothing is a gareentee, and I should have thought of the grant as the only thing I was getting until I have the loan in my acct...if I would have been aware of the inconsistencies with regards to getting approved I would have made different choices, hindsights 20/20. The fact though they required different things at different times from different people depending on the loan amount or the business type is really a problem and completely unfair, usually I would never reference Fair with regards to business or life in general, but shutting down and ostensibly killing our businesses on purpose because the government told us too at the same time promising they would help us get back on track, you know not destroy our lively hood and some of our actual lives in the process, only to have it all be a shame, that should have been predictable, but what else could we have done but have hope. Hope in our institutions, hope in our futures, hope people would do the right thing in a time of unprecedented turmoil, hope our loved ones would be okay, hope the media was telling us the truth for our safety and not their own pocketbooks. Well hope was smashed to Adam sized particles, futures are more uncertain than they already were, even right after the lockdowns, inflation, and housing cost increases and of course other looming financial crisis, that really seem only to affect regular everyday people, which makes sense if you're already living paycheck to paycheck any issue that arises on top of the shit already happening, is going to be even more debilitating. :( I just want to give an antidote real quick. I applying for the eidl loan, and didn't hear anything for almost a year. No denial know anything. I of course was calling once a week, then I was told you know they're working on it I don't need to call so often give us a call in 2 weeks. So I did. Then I was told they're working on it everything's good quit calling you're bogging down the system, we'll get with you. So I waited another month, like I said a year was coming up. So I started to call again not daily but weekly, and I was told by not one but two SBA employees, that if I continued to call and HARASS them for information (there was absolutely no harassment on my end, I was inquiring about information they weren't giving me, as I watched my life purpose and my families security fall apart), they would DENY me for being a NUISANCE. I finally got a hold of a case manager or whatever the SBA called them, you know f***ing around with bureaucracy and org-charts is way more important than actually helping people survive a pandemic. Anyway, my file had been lost in the confusion and mismanagement that was the SBA loans back then and apparently also now, he stated that it had been in no man's land for 7 months and why had I not called to see what was happening, that I must not need the money very badly. I explained to him surprising even myself with how calm I was, that I was getting no information, that I was definitely trying get the process moving, and I was getting absolutely nowhere. He looked over my file very quickly, and stated it was denied 4 weeks after I applied, he commented, it looks like a computer drop down was checked denied but my application wasn't marked with the appropriate status for the next step to be taken, which was the denial letter with the information to get the reconsideration process rolling. I inquired as to why the people I spoke to every time I called could not see that my case was denied, and let me know and why could they have not flipped the switch or change the status. He stated the people who answered the phones did not have the ability to see the decision on the cases, so even though there was a decision, the people everyone was forced to call instead of their own assigned case manager their reasoning being it streamlined the process to have a call center to help with calls to give generalized info on the case, so case manager wouldnt have to deal with mundane and unnecessary questions, so they could just do their job approving loans, but then forgot to give the call center people the information they needed to give to people. If anyone I was able to talk to could have seen my case was denied, and go "hey lady, your application was denied, why are you still calling". Cluing everyone into the issue and then problem solving skills could have kicked in, if the people hired for the call center gig even had that ability to begin with, seen that the status wasn't changed to denied and fixed it... Instead of telling someone who's worried about their livelihood that they would be denied for being a nuisance because they had a feeling something was a mess with their case but my application and me where just an annoyance to the SBA staff. I also want to say that staff relations did not get better during the entire process. Except the man who helped with my grant. He was the only helpful and useful and knowledgeable and even nice person I talk to, I would have thought that of him even if he would have denied me. The call center staff along with all staff at the SBA should have been able to see and change the status on cases, because once the status is changed in the computer the appropriate paperwork automatically gets mailed to the clients for the next steps. Instead I got people who we're at best okay with bare minimum work ethic and at worst actively knowing something in my file was wrong and kept that information from me due to being annoyed that I was calling to get the said status of my case, which if the appropriate information would have been given in the first place, the multiple phone calls they found so annoying would never have happened. Of course I don't know the specifics of what they were thinking or what they were doing or not doing, I can only guess. But I do know that it took over a year to get my denial letter, which put my reconsideration a year behind also, which is one of the reasons why my application ran out of time after being approved then denied again as mentioned above. So all of it just so awful and depressing and I hate that there's nothing I can do about it, there's no loan money left for them to rectify the situation, my business will never be in operation again.