SBA Disaster Loan Servicing Center: Where Calls Go to Die

If you've ever tried calling the SBA's Disaster Loan Servicing Center in Fort Worth, Texas, you know the unique hell that awaits. This is the centralized facility that handles all post-disbursement issues for disaster loans, including EIDL loans. And it's an absolute disaster.

The center handles over 4 million active disaster loans. It employs roughly 800 people. Do the math: that's 5,000 loans per employee. If even 10% of borrowers call once per year, each employee would need to handle 500 calls annually just to keep up. Spoiler: they don't keep up.

The Hold Time Hall of Fame

We've collected hundreds of reports from borrowers about their experiences with the Servicing Center. The numbers are staggering:

These aren't outliers. These are the everyday experiences of small business owners trying to get basic information about their loans.

The Information Roulette

Here's what makes the Servicing Center truly maddening: you'll get different answers depending on who picks up. We documented one borrower who called three times in one day about the same issue and received three completely different responses:

• Call 1: "Your payment was received and applied."
• Call 2: "We have no record of any payment."
• Call 3: "The payment was received but is being held pending review."

Same loan. Same day. Three agents. Three realities.

"I spent 14 hours over three days trying to confirm my deferment was approved. Every agent told me something different. One said I was deferred until 2026. One said my deferment was denied. One said I never applied. I finally got it in writing through the portal - which showed a fourth, completely different status."

— Restaurant owner, Arizona

The Lost Payment Phenomenon

Perhaps the most common complaint: payments that vanish into thin air. Borrowers send checks, make ACH transfers, or pay through the portal, only to have the Servicing Center claim they never received them.

The worst part? While your payment is "lost," you're accruing interest and potentially being marked late. Good luck getting those late fees reversed.

The Fort Worth Black Hole

Documents sent to Fort Worth have a way of disappearing. Hardship applications, deferment requests, modification paperwork - it all enters the black hole.

The Servicing Center uses multiple tracking systems that don't communicate with each other. A document can be received by the mailroom, scanned by one department, and never make it to the loan officer handling your file. When you call to follow up, the agent can only see their system - not the full picture.

Pro tip: Always send documents via certified mail with return receipt. Take screenshots of portal uploads with timestamps. Create a paper trail that can survive the chaos.

The Email Void

Think email is better? Think again. The Servicing Center's email response time averages 45-60 business days. That's not a typo. Two to three months to respond to an email.

And when responses do come, they're often form letters that don't address your specific question. We've seen borrowers receive responses that literally don't match their inquiry - as if someone copy-pasted the wrong template.

Why It's This Bad

The Servicing Center wasn't built to handle this volume. Before COVID, it managed roughly 100,000 active disaster loans. Now it handles 4 million. Staffing increased by maybe 8x while the workload increased by 40x.

Training is minimal. Turnover is high. The systems are outdated. And there's zero accountability for performance. Nobody gets fired for providing wrong information. Nobody tracks whether your issue was actually resolved.

The result is a feedback loop of failure: overworked employees giving bad information to frustrated borrowers who call back, creating more work, leading to longer hold times, leading to more turnover, leading to less institutional knowledge, leading to worse service.

How to Survive the Servicing Center

1. Document everything. Names, dates, reference numbers, exactly what was said.
2. Use the portal first. Many issues can be resolved without calling.
3. Call early. Lines open at 8 AM Eastern. Be ready at 7:59.
4. Ask for supervisor immediately. If the first agent can't help, escalate fast.
5. Get it in writing. Any verbal commitment is worthless. Request email confirmation.
6. Contact your congressperson. Their constituent services can light a fire under the SBA.

The SBA Disaster Loan Servicing Center is a monument to bureaucratic failure. It's understaffed, undertrained, and completely overwhelmed. Until the agency invests real resources into fixing it, borrowers will continue to suffer.

Welcome to the black hole. Your call is very important to us.

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