The local news is full of reports of small local business who were denied their PPP loan because of a mistake on the form. Many of these small businesses do not have the money to pay an accounting $1,000 an hour to fill out the forms for them. Thus they filled out the forms themselves.
One of the most common issues is with people using commas instead of decimal points in their estimated income. In other parts of the world, commas are the standard for the separation of dollars and cents instead of decimal points. And this error has hit immigrants especially hard.
For example, a restaurant listed their estimated income as $350000,00. They meant $350,000.00. But the program interpreted it as $35 Million and said they didn't qualify.
They appealed the decision, but even though it was an obvious mistake, they lost the appeal because the program does not allow you to make adjustments to your estimated income. Because of that technicality, they were denied again.
The restaurant is likely going under because of this error. And since the story aired on the local news last week, more than 25 other local small businesses came forward saying they had the same issue.