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Comment by GarrisonPrime | Hacker News Reader

My business bank (Wells Fargo) didn't even begin taking applications until the day before the money ran 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.

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FWIW, my experiences:

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.

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.

SBA should have just distributed the money directly without overhead.

A year later, we can hire lots of investigators to verify the loans and pursue any fraud.

I’ve always thought it would make sense to attach specific penalties to this type of legislation. Something akin to “If you lie on an application, your loans won’t be forgiven and you will need to pay a 50% penalty. If you’re a bank and you knowingly facilitate this fraud, you will lose Federal backing for the loans and your employees and executives will be subject to minimum 1 year sentences in Federal custody.”

It’s unfortunate we live in such a weird carceral state yet white collar crimes that would probably be the type most deterred by the threat of prison are so rarely prosecuted.

If those kind of risks were imposed on banks they would only work with businesses they knew very well or not at all. As it is there were significant questions from the banks side on what they would be liable for if the loan was ultimately found to be invalid, or fraud.

That’s why you cut the banks out of the process as the poster you replied to suggested.

> your employees and executives will be subject to minimum 1 year sentences in Federal custody.

The bank will process applications very very slowly in that case.

You’re expecting congress to be logical.

Mark Cuban actually had an equally interesting idea as yours - just let every business overdraw their account by some amount.

I like your idea better, but either way, there is zero possibility that congress could do it in a simple way - they just don’t have the DNA for simple.

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