Loans, Insurance & credit card information

When we say that fictitious articles about working capital and commercial loans should be a serious concern for small business owners, we are referring to several unethical and inappropriate uses of internet content in which the website owner does not have permission to use the published information. In the most extreme examples, incorrect commercial financing decisions could be based on inaccurate articles. In less serious circumstances, a fake article about finance topics such as business cash advances and commercial real estate loans is still likely to cause unnecessary confusion for commercial borrowers.

The underlying problems with fake articles as described here can have a surprisingly far-reaching impact because the trends described in this article can also be seen throughout the internet for many other subjects such as real estate investing, credit card processing and business opportunity loans. Our focus here will be on business financing because we have repeatedly witnessed how stealing articles from others can have a negative and long-lasting outcome for many parties.

We will identify the major trouble signs to be alert for and offer two practical strategies for avoiding the publishers of fake articles about commercial mortgages and small business loans. We will publish another article which will go into more detail about avoiding fake article sites. There are several primary players that maliciously use commercial finance content for which they do not have a copyright or ownership. These perpetrators are typically seeking financial gains to which they are not entitled on either legal or ethical grounds.

Many of the sites misappropriating commercial loans articles are seeking additional content so that they will be listed more often by search engines. In most cases, they probably hope to gain monetarily by an increased number of visitors which in turn serve as potential clickers of paid advertising links.

These sites often steal their articles by using specialized software which scours the internet for relevant content based on particular keyword phrases such as small business loans and working capital financing. Some of the software then randomly combines sentences from multiple sites and produces an article which is frequently unintelligible because it has been written by a robot of sorts.

This is not likely to bother the owners of sites using the questionable practice since their primary goal is to get visitors to click on links which produce revenues for them. However, for the discerning reader who notices the nonsensical articles, this approach offers a telling clue to use as a basis for avoiding such sites.

Our first recommended strategy for avoiding fake business financing article content requires that the reader briefly reviews the overall content on the website. As mentioned above, we will provide a more detailed discussion of this as well as other appropriate strategies in a separate commercial loan report.

There are also many sites hosted by business loan brokers which literally have stolen content and published it as their own. An increasing number of inexperienced business cash advance and commercial mortgage brokers are attempting to make themselves look more experienced than they actually are by using articles written by others (typically without permission).

What makes this situation different from the first example is the likelihood that the website will steal entire articles from reputable sources and then delete proper references to the originating author. Given that the original article was typically published by a business loans expert, the resulting stolen article will look and feel like a legitimate analysis of complex topics like working capital loans and commercial real estate financing.

In our experience most commercial financing brokers who are guilty of this highly unethical and illegal practice are likely to attempt to stay under the radar by only stealing one or two articles and using them as their own. The absence of multiple articles is a potential telling clue that the content might have been taken from another author or that the publisher is simply not very experienced in successfully completing complicated strategies involving commercial loans.

Our second strategy for avoiding fake commercial loan articles requires the reader to perform at least a brief search engine review for related articles by the owner of the website. There are several approaches about what to do next, and we will discuss these recommendations in another business loan report.

Are you looking for resources online to find information on small business loans? There are many resources available for entrepreneurs in the USA looking for financing resources. Some examples are:

1. Small Business Association

The SBA provides loans, equity capital and other forms of potential financing. If you click on the free online course:finance primer:Guide to SBA’s loan program; you can find our more detailed information. On this site you will also find Surety Bonds, Equity Capital, Regulations, and Compliance information.

2. Merchant Loans

Another options is merchant loans and there are a variety of companies that offer these. You can get cash advances based on certain criteria up to $1,000, loans from $10,000 to $1,000,000 or financing using your 401k. There are numerous companies but you can check out merchantloans.com.

3. Small Business Center

Smallbusinesscenter.com has a good amount of information on loans, grants, how to get a small business loan, invoice factoring and commercial loans. There are a wide variety of article information on this site to assist you.

4. Business Loan USA

Businessloanusa is a good site for all sorts of business loans. They have information on Equipment financing and leasing, accounts receivable factoring, export trade financing, gas stations and car washes, dip financing, church financing just to name a few. There is also help with commercial real estate financing, hotel and motels, hard money, construction and renovation, medical equipment leasing, practise acquisition financing and working capital loans. This is a great resource for someone that is looking for industry specific information on loan financing.

A good small business loan rate is found in the many options available for entrepreneurs. Should a business be minority or women owned then that improves the options available. Commercial lending rates vary but typically not by much when compared to home or private lending. Because commercial loans are reviewed heavily before approval and secured very well, the rates stay close to the prime lending rate.

The Small Business Administration has a number of loan products available to assist small business. Starting with the SBA Microloan which are loans given through SBA intermediaries with lending amounts under $35,000. The small business loan rate is around 8% and is tied to the Treasury lending rate plus 7.5% or 8.5% (depending if the loan is above or under $10,000). The SBA’s primary lending instrument is a loan guarantee product called the SBA 7(a) loan with a maximum guaranteed amount of $1.5 million. Lending is done through an approved bank, the SBA guarantees the loan and the rate is tied to the prime lending rate. 7 (a) loans over $50,000 have a rate maximum of prime plus 2.75% (2.25% if the term is under seven years).

There are community development organizations that lend to small businesses. They exist to create and grow small businesses as small business brings revenue to a community and creates jobs. Their credit standards are not as rigid as formal banking institutions and they are very open to women and minority owned businesses. Typically their small business loan rate is around 4.25%-8.75% interest. Their maximum lending amounts are relatively low being around $50,000-$100,000, but they will have lending arrangements with banks to help with larger loans. These community organizations are distributed throughout the US and serve both urban and rural areas.

Examples of community organization low interest rates include Accion in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Accion offers rates of 2% to 7% depending on risk and has a maximum loan of $150,000. In Tulsa, Oklahoma the Tulsa Economic Development Corporation (TEDC) utilizes SBA products and likes to tout the SBA 504 where they can offer a fixed 4.7% for a ten-year term. The SBA 504 is used for mortgage financing for acquisition and/or renovation of capital assets (land, building, equipment) and it has loan maximum of $4 million. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania the Harrisburg Regional Chamber has the Capital Region Economic Development Corporation (CREDC). The CREDC has a small business loan below market rate at 4.25% and a maximum amount of $200,000.

These are just a few quick examples of community organizations throughout the country lending to small businesses. As seen sometimes they can beat conventional commercial lending and even the SBA small business loan rate.