You Can Get MCA UCC's for Free... Or Can You?

[Jay Ballentine]

Somewhere in MCA land Larry F. Smith just got funded for like $100k or more.

The deal is so large that the underwriter is using a randomizer to spit out what filing company Larry should be filed under to ensure no one finds the deal and wrestles it away, or stacks on it.

That’s the plan. However, tomorrow, we’ll have Larry on the phone, congratulating him on just getting funded, offering him a free deal analysis, and will open the opportunity for him to get more money. In thirty days or so, someone will approach a data provider to purchase some UCC’s expecting to not only find Larry, but a bunch more Larry’s.

Unfortunately, they’ll strike out because the darned Larry's out there are being hidden too darned well!

Somewhere else in MCA land, Peter J. Stevens is getting $100k or more too.

But the underwriter in his case is not using a randomizer nor are they using an alias and are just flat filing under their name. In 30 days, Peter J. Stevens’ contact info and filing date will be made available for sale via leading data providers.

However, tomorrow, we’ll have Peter on the phone congratulating him just getting funded, offering him a free deal analysis, and will open the opportunity for him to get more money… The guy who purchases his contact info in 30 days will be sorely disappointed.

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Dear deBanked Community,

I’ve had a lot of conversations with folks who are interested in leveraging our unique abilities and these points are consistently brought up, I wanted to broach them and hopefully you’ll get useful info in the process. Here’s what I’m hearing:

1. "Anyone can get them for free."
2. "I can just buy them."
3. "All you’re doing is scraping UCC’s right?"

Let’s dive right in.

"Anyone Can Get Them for Free"

I assume people buy them because as good as using $0 to get the value I described in my opening sounds, folks just haven’t quite figured out how to scale getting free UCC’s. While we have no idea how to get a whole bunch of UCC’s for free, here’s a glimpse into the process... if you’re interested…


California

1. Push papers back and forth through snail mail with the state of CA.
2. Send them some money. EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.
3. Get an account in return and place orders. Place orders Friday available for Monday. New data available weekly.
4. Get almost 50 years worth of XML data. in 5 YUUUUGE SEPARATE FILES. EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.
5. Download the 50 years worth of XML data. EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.
6. Run code to extract what you want for any given date range. In our case 130 secureds, 600+ aliases, and 1200 alias variations… and counting.
7. Hop on over to a leading data cleanser and pay 40 to 45 cents to get a contact name, phone number, and e-mail.
8. Serve with biscuits.

Florida

1. Use a link available at the FL website to download these 3 gigantic files. EVERY SINGLE UPDATE (can pull FL daily!).
2. You can’t open these files on a “normal” machine… but once you have the hardware, you run code to merge files using a common identifier.
3. Run code to extract what you want for any given date range. In our case again, 130 merchant cash advance funders, 600+ aliases, and 1200 alias variations… and counting.
4. Hop on over to a leading data cleanser and pay 40 to 45 cents to get a contact name, phone number, and e-mail.
5. Serve with biscuits.

New Jersey (easy one!)

1. Go to their site and buy what you need for a date range you need. EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK. If you want Decembers' data it'll run you about $271 before you even get to filter it.
2. You can’t filter out what you need first so you’ll have to extract the goodies from what you download.
3. Hop on over to a leading data cleanser and pay 40 to 45 cents to get a contact name, phone number, and e-mail.
4. Serve with biscuits.

Ohio

1. Push papers back and forth with the Secretary of State so as to formally register your business - all snail mail.
2. Pay them some money. EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.
3. Get access to an FTP site where you can download Ohio data.
4. Merge: Ohio sucks because there are an assortment of these random files you have to merge - different extensions, all HUGE. Very big headache.
5. Extract: pretty much the same process like the other states.
6. Hop on over to a leading data cleanser and pay 40 to 45 cents to get a contact name, phone number, and e-mail.
7. Serve with biscuits.

New York

1. Push papers back and forth with the state.
2. Get the pleasure of downloading all THE IMAGE FILES you can handle. IMAGE FILES. Not CSV, or TXT files.
3. Run OCR on these image files and / or hire remote laborers to get the stuff in text format. We use a combination of the two.
4. Nothing to merge, pure extraction (the stuff we want).
5. Hop on over to a leading data cleanser and pay 40 to 45 cents to get a contact name, phone number, and e-mail.
6. Serve with biscuits.

Texas

1. Push papers back and forth with the state.
2. Pony up $1,350 to for one master download of every filing since the Nixon administration.
3. Pay $65 per day, or $325 per week, or $1,300 per month for regular updates. Here's the kicker, you can't just go and buy a days or weeks worth, you have to pony up that $1,350 out the gate.
4. Download these gigantic files for your aged stuff.
5. Download smaller files on a regular basis for your more frequent updates.
6. Merge and extract.
7. Hop on over to a leading data cleanser and pay 40 to 45 cents to get a contact name, phone number, and e-mail.
8. Serve with biscuits.

This is only 6 of them... But, it represents more than 50% of the market. Still...more states to go!

"I Can Just Buy Them"

Yes, you absolutely can. However, we’re finding there are more brokers buying fewer UCC’s because...

The data is almost INSTANTLY stale as soon as it’s made available for sale.

The coverage is lacking… Many UCC vendors and providers simply don’t invest human hours in identifying MCA UCC’s that may be filed under weird names like; Stanley F. Sandwichface. I’m being facetious, but some of these filing aliases are downright funny.

A bunch of random stuff is thrown in. For instance, it’s a “gamble” to order CSC Global UCC’s (the preferred filing company) because CSC is a mixture of all kinds of UCC’s many not related to MCA at all. We “magically” extract MCA only UCC’s from filing companies like CSC.

"You Just Scrape for UCC’s Right"

I love designing scalable solutions… Scrapers are not that. They are fragile and coding hours aren’t cheap. Scrapers can be rendered useless the instant a site changes, thus scrapers are not reliable, and I bet using scrapers on government sites in particular is illegal. I’m no lawyer, but I figured there was no incentive for me to hire one for a second opinion here.

Our Secret Sauce

None of this would be worth the time effort and energy were it not for one thing; the ability to find great paper wherever it’s being filed. You can pull all the UCC's you want. However, if all you're doing is pulling against a list of MCA providers like the one here, you're behind in the game.

We tried to buy whole a bunch of UCC's for Buynance back in 2014 and that's what started this journey. The output we got didn't match the market size and there were a ton of UCC's of folks who just got things like a mortgages or motorcycles. So, we decided to do for ourselves what others could not do for us...

It’s literally fun for Yuliya. She has a blast… guess it’s like a cat and mouse game for her. Some funders only file certain aliases in certain states, some file behind companies, behind companies, behind companies... One even tucked a bunch of his stuff away securely at a relatives’ house (you can’t make this up). Anyway, once you have your ability to find stuff down pat, the rest is a piece of cake… Or is it?

Yuuuuge announcement coming soon...

Screw it... Cat is out of the bag. The announcement is that we'll partnering with experienced brokers to get great PIPING HOT ready to "(re)fund" deals... No cold calling. No wondering if a guy qualifies. And very minimal paper chasing... Let's get this $$$.

[Rob Buchanan]

This post about UCC's is not very accurate. Where are you getting your facts from that you are basing this on? It's surely not based on the type of UCC data a company like Infogroup aka InfoUSA provides.

[Jay Ballentine]

This post about UCC's is not very accurate. Where are you getting your facts from that you are basing this on? It's surely not based on the type of UCC data a company like Infogroup aka InfoUSA provides.

Hello Rob and Happy New Year!

Open to discussing any potential general inaccuracies as you see them. Not prone to publicly engage regarding any specific experiences I've had with any specific companies. Thanks!