Borrowers face an uphill battle when conducting an internet search for capital. Lee Haskin of Crossroads Financial discusses the misinformation out there and offers clarifications concerning certain types of finance products.

I began my career in the finance industry in the early eighties. Times were far simpler then. It was a time when a phone was something that didn’t have a screen; you put a dime into it to make a call. Cameras used film and it took days to develop to see the pictures. Your news came from a newspaper or a journalist on TV and a business loan was defined as what it was.

Today, information overload takes place from any number of so-called media channels. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and an ever growing number of Internet platforms bombard us with fake news and misinformation on a daily basis.

The catalyst for this article came from an internet search I conducted for the definition of “inventory lending”, which happens to be the business I have been perfecting for over 16 years. I also searched the internet for “receivable finance.” I was dumbfounded to find any number of non-inventory and non-receivable lending companies defining themselves as lenders in those arenas. Further, through these searches and during many conversations with borrowers and loan brokers/referral sources, I learned that many have a hard time differentiating between a cash-fl ow loan and a revolving collateral-backed loan.

Back in my day, if you were lucky enough to have all 25 volumes of an encyclopedia, you may have been able to find the answers to most questions. Today, a definitive go-to source on the internet is an online encyclopedia called Wikipedia. The content found on this site comes from the submissions of individuals who might – or might not - have a background or knowledge of the topic for which they are contributing definitions. There is no way for a common person to know whether the source of information is reliable or even credible.

With today’s technological advances, information sources are endless and immediate. All one has to do is type – or ask Siri or Alexa - on their phone or computer a question and an answer is provided within seconds. Where that information comes from is often an unreliable source. This is why I caution that you, “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

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