Gosh. Thanks for the reminder I even had an account, since, you know and hence, the inactivity. But like Big Brother does, it can’t leave me alone.

By way of background, I’m writing about an account called Fundbox. Several years ago — before the government created the economic disaster known as 15 days to slow the spread — I used Fundbox quite a bit when money was tight at my business. It was a handy tool for getting through the ups and downs of cash flow for a small business — if done right. Given my history with Fundbox — up until a recent morning — I must have done it right.

Here’s how it works. Fundbox is what many in business and banking call “factoring.” The idea is, if one has accounts receivable and balances not yet collected, Fundbox would front the amount of said receivables for a small fee. In Fundbox’s case, a weekly fee. Now to do things properly, I would pay off the Fundbox advances as soon as the payment was made by my client. I’d only absorb a few weeks of fees instead of several months of fees to limit the cost.

I’ll admit back in the day there were more than a few months where I had to absorb the full costs of some of the advances because access to capital is one of the major problems for small and individually owned businesses. That’s why lenders come up with things like factoring and high-interest “loans” — I had a few of those as well over the years — they’re more than willing to provide. In the case of Fundbox, it was some sort of collaboration with Quickbooks, the program I use for bookkeeping at the Business Times. Obviously, Quickbooks had a quick and dirty look at my financials before my initial contact with Fundbox — in this case one in which it opened an account for me based on basically … nothing?

So, my happy relationship with Fundbox began small. After all, it had to run my credit (more on that later) — which at the time wasn’t very good. I’d guess it was more than 100 points lower than today, with higher debt ratios and more recent delinquencies. But running personal credit for business finance is one of the things small business owners do.

I was happy and Fundbox must have been ecstatic. Because what began as a small credit line only got larger as those few years went along. It must have been because I’d take out some money and pay it back, along with some fees, and both sides benefited. Not to brag, but my line of credit went from a measly $5,000 to almost $25,000  — not that I used that much— with Fundbox. Sounds like a handy thing to keep around. At least I thought I was.

How did I know I had it around? Several months back, Fundbox started reminding me I have this line of credit in the hopes I’d use it in the way I did in the past. I just hadn’t needed it. Nor could I use it during the COVID-19 pandemic because, let’s be honest, I didn’t have receivables to factor. With a loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration, I haven’t needed it since. So the header in the latest email from Fundbox wasn’t entirely off the mark. And Fundbox should have just left it at that.

But it couldn’t. This is the opening line of the email: “After a review of your most recent account activity and overall usage of your account, we made the decision to close your account.” Interesting, since I have no “recent usage” and it would seem my overall usage when I had activity made Fundbox a bunch of money. I didn’t see the problem here.

Fundbox went on: “We got your credit score from a consumer reporting agency and used it in making our credit decision.” Wait a minute, I didn’t ask for anything from Fundbox, let alone a credit check on my credit line with it. Yet Fundbox went on in its email to address the “factors” —interesting word to use — that went into its decision. Here’s Fundbox’s factors versus what I see on my report (in parenthesis) when I sign in.

1. Available credit is too low (Good. Plenty of available credit, and it shows you manage credit responsibly). 2. Delinquent status too recent (On-time payments. Excellent). 3. Balances on open accounts too high. (Average. But that depends on the day you run things because I use credit cards for all my personal and business expenses and pay them off monthly.) 4. Too many highly utilized revolving bankcard accounts (See comment on factor 3).

Regardless of how opposite Fundbox sees my credit life from how one of the other consumer reporting agencies does, none of this matters. It’s just how some faceless, nameless corporate dolt — or worse, AI robot — decides to report on you for the benefit of the employer or creator. And that’s never good for the little guy. Yet, this is the only way many of our public and private “leaders” see us as we keep living our lives based on their “key factors.”

That is, until they decide to close our accounts.

Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at (970) 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com.