Is most of this restaurant-type equipment...

Um, some of it is, uh, the vast majority of, of what we see is, uh, trucking and construction, uh, type equipment, um, whether it's yellow iron or, you know, a dump truck or a semi truck.

Um, And I'll give you an example of some of the lies people are told.

Like, first of all, is just about what the rate is.

And folks, the thing I was told specifically is by one of the folks I was working with back in the advertising days was he said, look, guys that pour driveways or drive trucks, they're really good at what they do, but they're not very good at finance.

So you can just tell them anything.

But one of the things we see today and is very common is we call it the fake approval scam.

What happened next? Talk to us a little history.

21st century entrepreneurship with Martin Piskorik [instrumental music] There's a lot of scams in equipment financing, and if you're not careful of them, they can cost you and your business thousands of dollars.

[instrumental music] Hi, my name is Rob Mischloff, and I founded Smarter Finance USA after having spent a number of years running a, a direct marketing company.

And I started direct marketing doing, uh, mailers for equipment financing companies to try to get customers.

And, and through that process, one of the things I found was they weren't always honest with their customers.

In fact, a lot of them were proud of the way that they, as they put it, pulled the wool over the eyes of their customers because somebody who drives a truck or somebody that pours concrete driveways is very good at their trade, but they are not necessarily knowledgeable about financing, particularly the private financing markets.

And so y- i- in their words, you could tell them everything.

For our listeners getting to know you for the first time, would you give us just a little more about your story and your current focus?

Uh, yeah, absolutely.

So, uh, I started the company, uh, about a dozen years ago, and the reason for that, I was running a, a direct marketing firm, uh, since from 2003 to 2013, and our main product was direct mail, which by 2013 was not really a, a viable product anymore.

And, uh, uh, w- we were mostly, uh, marketing for a niche product called reverse mortgages, and a gentleman that had worked for us and had moved on went to go work at an equipment finance company, and he was shooting hoops with someone who w- who was still working for us, and he said, "So y- you're doing this equipment finance thing now? How are you guys getting your leads?" He says, "Well, they're sending out direct mail and people call us." I said, "Wow.

Well, maybe I ought to start direct mailing for these equipment finance guys." So we start doing that, and I, I cold call and I get into, uh, some of the larger shops and, and I realized through that process that...

And, and let me back up for a sec, 'cause the, the, the interesting about the reverse mortgage industry, uh, was there wasn't a lot of scammers.

Most of the people...

And, uh, okay, so now, now someone comes to you, maybe give a, give us, give, give a, a recent equipment financing, uh, deal that you helped someone with, right? What, what did it look like? What were they purchasing? You know, f- what, and how do they qualify and, and, uh, what was the, what was some of the general rate and term?