South Eastern Economic Development Company of PA - Seedcopa 737 Constitution Drive, Exton, PA 19341

"I wanted to take a minute to share what a wonderful experience I had with the Seedco SBA team. From day one the entire team was responsive and helpful. They explained every step and what my expectation should be they just made dealing with a Bureaucratic government entity as pain free and easy as possible."

"I am the owner of 3 restaurants in the Philadelphia market area. I contacted Seedcopa after learning about one of their small business SBA refinance programs. We were locked in a variable rate for our set of business loans and were struggling to find a bank that would refinance a set of restaurant loans. Our anxiety was through the roof. Seedcopa was very willing to consider our application, and were great to work with throughout the process. The people at Seedcopa are all very nice, organized, and efficient. We knew interest rates were going to rise after all the COVID stimulus, so we had to hurry. They helped us lock in and close the loans just before the federal interest rates went through the roof, and at a much lower rate than we had previously. If we never found Seedcopa, I believe our rates would still be variable (roughly 6%+ higher than what we locked into) and it would have a traumatic impact on our monthly expenses. Seedcopa was a life saver, and I highly recommend working with them!!"

"I would not recommend this company. I do not feel as though they look out for the client's best interest. Interactions with Marie Shires were cold, uncaring. She also provided different information to different clients. It was not a trusting relationship. There was poor communication about important aspects of the process. I would recommend some sensitivity training for their staff. Beware of the hidden aspects of the SBA Loan process, including unset interest rates (they apparently aren't confirmed until the loan is pooled which can be months after closing). This may be part of the SBA process and out of SeedCopa's hands, however, it is their fiduciary duty to ensure borrowers are made aware of the risks with taking an SBA Loan, and the potential increasing interest rates throughout the process (ie. The rate is not locked in for SBA loan). They provided this information last minute when it was too late to change the type of loan, which put us in a corner, and we had no recourse. We did have a meeting with the supervisor, Sherwood Robbins, to address our dissatisfaction, which did not leave us feeling any better about the situation. He did dedicate two hours to the meeting, however nothing was accomplished by either party and no concessions made. The poor communication about the process and what to expect continued until our SBA closing. Some staff are cordial on the surface but lack the ability to adequately prepare borrowers for what’s to come. There were many surprises throughout the process including costs that were not reviewed with us. They make and already harrowing process unbearable. Our bank closing was very different so we had that to compare it with. I find SeedCopa to be the epitome of unethical in their lending process, and ultimately it’s us the borrowers/customers who pay (literally and figuratively) for their unfair practices. I plan on filing a formal complaint against them. **6/7/22 I was asked to add to my review that I was given the option to withdraw the SBA loan application at our SBA Closing. We opted to move forward with the closing and are considering our options to refinance and pay off the SBA loan, and accept the $11k+ prepayment penalty. We learned at the SBA Closing that the prepayment penalty is the rate x amount borrowed, just as a heads up for those who are also considering this. We also learned at closing that the investors who buy our loan are paid every 6 months on our loan, and if we were to want to close out our loan tomorrow, we would owe the investors 6 months of interest. Because, of course, this loan process seems to be in the best interest of the investor, not the borrower (again, this is out of SeedCopa's hands and is part of SBA's loan rules). We also learned that we will need to continue to work with SeedCopa as they will be handling our loan, not the bank. To be fair, my business partner and I agreed that Sherwood explained all of this added information well, however, it occurred at the closing table, when these risks and added fees (including the 3 additional monthly fees you pay in addition to your principle and interest) should have been clearly discussed when we had our initial meetings when we were considering the SBA loan. Instead, Marie repeated how "great" the SBA loan is, to the point where I had to ask her to stop, because simply repeating it in a conversation was not going to convince me. The benefits of 10% down was focused on, but NOT the fact that if you take out an SBA loan through a real estate LLC, you could not show a profit through your real estate LLC, that there was a huge prepayment penalty, that the interest rate is not known until AFTER your SBA Closing. When we started, they have 4% written in several places, now it's 6% which will cost and extra $400 PER MONTH. I wish SeedCopa has strategized with us to get our closing done ASAP so we could avoid the increasing interest rates. As a company who does 60 of these SBA closings a year, I would expect more expertise and foresight in these circumstances."