Which funding products does this apply to?

Merchant Cash Advance, Working Capital, Term Loan. Each has its own page listing the funders in this directory that offer it and what each one publishes about its terms.

Are the figures here quotes?

No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What a particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it at all.

The Find Me Funders research desk. Some drafting is AI-assisted, and every page that is says so at the top, including whether a person has checked its claims yet.

How do I know a figure here is right?

Where a page carries the green notice, its claims were checked against the sources listed at the end and a reviewer is named. Where it carries the amber one, nobody has verified it yet and you should confirm anything you plan to act on.

Are the examples real deals?

No. Every worked example is labelled illustrative and exists to show the arithmetic. What any particular lender charges is on that lender's page, where it publishes it.

Why do you never say what a typical rate is?

Because we cannot source it. A market average assembled from lenders who do not publish prices is a guess with a decimal point on it. Where a lender publishes a figure, we show that figure and say where it came from.

Is this financial or legal advice?

No. It is general information about how these products work. Outcomes depend on your contract and your state, and a lawyer or accountant licensed where you are is the person to ask about your situation.

Can I reuse this content?

Quote a paragraph with a link back. Do not republish whole articles.

Check a funder before you send bank statements

How to check a funder or broker before you hand over bank statements

Bank statements, a voided check and a driver's licence are enough to cause real damage. Twenty minutes of checking is cheap by comparison.

By Find Me Funders research desk Updated 14 September 2026 1093 words 5 min read

Drafted with AI assistance. Not yet independently checked. Nobody has verified the claims on this page against a source, so treat the figures and legal points as a starting point rather than as settled, and confirm anything you are about to act on. How we check things.

Start by writing down the exact legal entity name and street address from the documents, not from the website. Marketing names and legal names often differ, and the legal name is what every registry below is keyed to.

1. Secretary of State business registration

Search the business registry in the state of formation and in any state where the company claims to have offices. Most states offer a free online search. You are looking for: does the entity exist, is it in good standing, when was it formed, who is the registered agent, and does the address match.

What this tells you is narrow but real — that the company exists as a legal person and someone can be served. It tells you nothing about conduct or about whether the company is licensed to do what it is doing.

2. State financial regulator

Some states license or register commercial financing providers, brokers, or both, and the number has grown. Check the regulator in your state and in the company's state. Two examples of regulator sites are the New York Department of Financial Services at dfs.ny.gov and California's Department of Financial Protection and Innovation at dfpi.ca.gov. Requirements differ by state and change, so the absence of a licence is not by itself a finding — but a company claiming a licence it does not hold is.

3. UCC search at the filing office

Search your own business name first. You want to know what is already filed against you before an underwriter sees it, and occasionally you find a filing you did not authorise or one that should have been terminated years ago. If you are dealing with a broker, ask whether it or any affiliate will file anything; a broker filing a UCC on your assets is worth a conversation before rather than after.

4. Court records

Search the entity name in the state trial court system where it is based, and in federal records. Two things are useful: whether the company appears frequently as a plaintiff, and in which county. That county is very likely the venue in your contract, and it tells you where a dispute would be heard.

5. Federal complaint and enforcement records

The FTC publishes its enforcement actions and press releases at ftc.gov, which is searchable by company name. The FTC Act's prohibition on unfair or deceptive acts or practices, 15 U.S.C. §45, is not limited to consumer transactions, so commercial finance conduct can fall within it.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau takes complaints at consumerfinance.gov/complaint. Its complaint system is built around consumer financial products, so a purely commercial financing matter may not fit neatly; it is still worth a search of the public complaint database if the company also does consumer business.

6. Better Business Bureau and general search

BBB profiles show complaint patterns and responses. A rating is not a licence and not a verification, and profiles can be thin for newer entities. Read the complaint narratives rather than the letter grade. Then search the company name with words like "lawsuit", "complaint" and "judgment", and read court dockets rather than aggregator pages.

7. Your state attorney general

Most attorney general offices have a consumer protection division that accepts business complaints and maintains records. A quick check of prior actions in your state is worth the time.

8. Ask the direct questions in writing

Are you the funder or a broker? If a broker, who is the funder?
What is your legal entity name and street address?
Are you licensed or registered in any state for this activity, and under what number?
How are you compensated on this deal, by me or by the funder, and how much?
Will you submit my file to anyone else without my written approval?

Answers in writing to those five questions filter out a large share of problems by themselves.

Then: how to send the documents

Send PDF statements downloaded from your bank, or use a read-only bank connection that you authorise from your own bank's login screen. Never hand over online banking credentials. Be sparing with identity documents until a deal is real — a licence image, a voided check and a full account number together are the raw material for account takeover.

Send documents by a method that creates a record. Ask what the company's retention and deletion policy is, and ask that your file not be resold to other funders. Whether that request is honoured is another matter, but asking it in writing gives you something later.

What the searches look like when something is wrong

The checks above produce findings rather than verdicts. A few patterns are worth recognising.

The entity was formed last month.Not disqualifying on its own — new companies exist — but combined with an approval you did not apply for and a fee request, it is the single most common shape of a problem.

The registered address is a mail drop or a residential unitwhile the website shows a tower. Look the address up. Marketing photographs of offices are stock images more often than people expect.

The legal name on the contract is not the name on the website,and the two are not connected by any filing you can find. Ask for the relationship in writing. A funder originating under a trade name will say so immediately.

A long docket as plaintiff in one county.Read two or three of the complaints. They tell you what this company's deals look like when they go wrong, and the county tells you where you would be defending.

A licence number that does not resolve.Regulator registers are searchable. A number that returns nothing, or returns a different entity, is a finding rather than an administrative slip.

The person calling will not put anything in writing.Everything above can be answered in an email in four minutes. A refusal to do that, across several requests, is the clearest single signal available to you and it costs nothing to test.

What none of this proves

Registration is not endorsement, a clean record may simply mean a new entity, and a company with complaints may still be the one that funds you fairly. These checks are designed to catch the identifiable problems cheaply, not to rank companies. Judgement is still yours.

This is general information rather than legal advice. If something you find suggests a legal problem, a lawyer licensed in your state is the person to interpret it.