They Promised Quick and Easy PPP Loans. Often, They Only Delivered Hassle and Heartache – By Lydia DePillis and Derek Willis (ProPublica) / January 17, 2022
More than a million government-approved loans ended up being canceled, including some that would have gone to people who needed the loans and applied just as they were told.
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In May 2021, Terry Kilcrease thought he saw a lifeline. He was out of work, living in a hotel in Lewisville, Texas, when he ran across a promising ad on Facebook. People who worked for themselves, it said, could still get loans from the government’s then-13-month-old pandemic Paycheck Protection Program.
Kilcrease had just started selling credit card processing systems to small businesses in early 2020 before the pandemic killed much of the need for cash registers. He hadn’t thought he was eligible for the $800 billion program. But the ad, posted by a company called Blueacorn, convinced him it was worth a try.
“We’ve created a 60-second quiz that can tell you if you qualify and how much you can get,” one ad promised. So Kilcrease registered on the Blueacorn site and answered a few basic questions about his business.
“With a few clicks of a mouse, I had applied,” Kilcrease said. It was so quick, he doesn’t recall many details. Blueacorn checked for all required documents before passing along Kilcrease’s approved application to a lender, Prestamos.
