Donna Genie walks through what to do if you can't pay a COVID EIDL loan, using a real case where a business was foreclosed and dissolved. When the SBA sends questionnaires, answer factually and briefly, skip the emotional story, and always verify callers claim to be from the SBA before giving information. Watch out for scams.
April 4, 2023.
California.
me@donnayopaccounting.com
Foreign I know everyone has been waiting on the edge of their seat for more news about the EIDL process, and we are still seeing some slow movement, nothing very hard yet, and the way that we deal with defaults or people who can't make their payments. But we are seeing a little bit of information and I'll give you some insights on what I've seen so far from people who've shared back with me about their conversations with the sba. One business owner that I know of had closed his business. It had actually been gone back, foreclosed by a bank on some equipment. So the business was completely done for. The bank took their equipment back, the business was dissolved through the state, and the SBA sent a questionnaire to this gentleman who owned the business to ask him first, is your business closed? And the answer to that, if you come upon these questions, if your business is dissolved through the Secretary of State, meaning you have an entity, yes. The answer is yes, your business is closed. It asks if you had any intentions of paying the loan back. The answer should be no. Pay attention to personal guarantee information and how big your loan was. You can reference our previous videos for more information about that, but you want to make sure that you are going with concise answers. Be direct and to the point. If the SBA gives you one of these questionnaires, you'll want to state facts, not feelings and emotions. Stick to the facts. So just like if you were going to court, your lawyer would tell you yes or no answers and stick to the facts. Don't go outside the bounds of creating your sob story here. This is not the place for that. That would be on the initial inquiry to say, hey, I can't pay my loan back. My business was closed. But if the SBA gives you these questionnaires, I'd love to see what they send to you. In comparison, I've only seen this come through on one particular case, and that one actually came out of California. So it also helps us to know what area of the country you're in or where those pieces of information came from. The SBA employs independent contractors all throughout the country, and they've been doing that throughout the Eidl loan process because they just don't have enough staff to handle this. So first I will tell you that when you do receive calls, don't be surprised if it comes in as, like an unknown number. Some of these calls you can't really clarify 100% to make sure they're not split scammers calling you. I personally received a call the other day where someone left a voicemail and said they were calling about my Covid Eidl loan and wanted to talk to me. However, they did not say in that message that they were calling from the sba. So be careful. There are a lot of people out there scamming their way through this trying to get information, so do not provide information over the phone unless you are 100% able to confirm where that person is getting your information. If they call you, I would suggest that you tell them what I've just said, that you're concerned about identity protection and you would like them to email you something specifically from their email showing that they are the one that's supposed to be calling you and do not give your email for them to email you. If they are truly from the sba, they should reply to your email and provide you with your loan number so that you can verify and match and make sure that person is actually from the sba. You cannot be too careful in these situations, so if you've had any updates on how things are going with default situations, business closing, or being unable to pay your loan at the full scheduled rate, we'd love to hear from you. We're trying to provide this information back to the general public to help everyone get through this situation. Please note we are not taking on any consulting engagements or setting meetings to discuss Eidl loans, but we promise we will feed this information back to you so through our content on YouTube to keep everyone aware of what we know. Thank you very much. Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Please make sure to check out our blog and our website linked below. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell to be notified when we post. You can email me@donnayopaccounting.com.
