Merchant Cash Advance Company Settles With FTC For $2.7 Million

The FTC’s 2020 lawsuit against RCG Advance, a Merchant Cash Advance company settled recently and will return $2.7 million to consumers and small businesses. The crux of the lawsuit against the MCA company was based on the company’s misleading claims, deceptive tactics, and intimidation which we commonly see across the board when dealing with Merchant Cash Advance companies. In this case, RCG lured clients in with fast talk and alleged sweet terms for these advances. Once more, this is the reasoning we frequently hear from our clients about why they took these MCA loans out in the first place.

According to the FTC, RCG told defendants that no personal guaranty of collateral was required but then placed personal collateral requirements in their contracts as well as taking hefty up front fees leaving businesses with less funding than promised. More worrisome is the threat of physical violence that people and companies received if they defaulted on the MCA debt. The threat of physical violence is a frightening and common issue our clients tell us about as well, pointing to the means of collection for MCA companies and the type of companies that small businesses and consumers are dealing with.

We always recommend aggressively defending against Merchant Cash Advance companies by submitting an answer when receiving a lawsuit to protect the business and your personal assets as well moving to vacate a default judgment immediately which are frequently obtained in these matters. Counterclaims may also be necessary against the MCA if they are conducting themselves as discussed above. Additionally, we recommend retaining counsel to prevent collection harassment and the sort of intimidation that has been discussed here.