A small business owner near Canyon Lake is more than happy to pay the government back but he’s still waiting on the Small Business Administration.
CANYON LAKE, Texas — John Maroney is perfectly willing to pay back the money he owes the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). He also has the money to pay back the SBA.
But right now he can’t pay them, because an SBA error has made it impossible. At the same time, he’s still getting notices that he owes the money.
Maroney was approved for a COVID-19 EIDL loan during the pandemic. He and his wife have a business selling crafts and that was hard to do when they couldn’t take them to the local market.
“We couldn’t sell any crafts. We couldn’t make our bills,” Maroney said. “I was paying it online and had no problems at all.”
But then, late last year, something happened to his SBA account.
When Maroney logs in, the portal shows that he doesn’t have any active loan at all. That makes it difficult to pay. At the same time, he’s getting notices from the government that he still owes money.
He was able to make a few payments by phone but then that stopped working around December of last years.
The small business owner then called the SBA and couldn’t get through to a person. Instead he got a message saying to send an email. He sent the email, and he got an email back that said additional emails would just make the issue take longer to resolve. He then got another bill saying he owed money. He called phone number on the bill and number didn’t work.
“I just want to talk to somebody and get this straightened out and make my payments,” Maroney said.
Finally, he called KENS 5.
KENS 5 called the Small Business Administration, and sent a few emails, and the SBA did give Maroney a call back a few days later.
Maroney then provided information to pay over the phone and the SBA did start looking into his account. Unfortunately, as of Friday, the payment he tried to make still hasn’t been accepted, his account still hasn’t been fixed, and the SBA asked then asked him to provide identifying information that they should already have from his first loan application.
On Friday, a spokesperson for the SBA told KENS 5 on the phone that they are still working to get information in front of the right people and they are committed to solving the issue.
KENS 5 will be following back up.
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