Entrepreneurs Must Continually Be Alert For Con Artists!
We�re seeing an
amazing growth of new businesses nationwide, propelled by an
entrepreneurial desire held by many Americans.
But this eager
class of risk-takers is discovering that the challenges can be
greater than they ever imagined.
To all the
normal bedevilments of small business�tight financing, uncertain
markets, strong rivals�add another: a new breed of unscrupulous
moneymen who prey on entrepreneurs.
Con artists
have been around for ages, of course. But the fatal combination of
entrepreneurial fervor, financial need and naivet� makes fledgling
business owners these days easy marks for a new variety of scamsters.
Filled with enthusiasm for their own ideas, they can be startlingly
inexperienced in finance.
�Technical
entrepreneurs, especially, think what they do is important, but that
the business side is trivial,� revealed Brad Bertash, director of a
Salt Lake City nonprofit venture-capital consulting firm.
Above all, what
makes emerging companies ripe for scammers is their often desperate
thirst for capital, and the historical difficulty in obtaining
funding for start-ups.
So
entrepreneurs are left to swim in shark-infested waters. Well
intentioned efforts by the government, to make it easier for small
businesses to raise capital, have paradoxically created hotbeds of
abuse.
In fact, many
of the schemes used to squeeze money from unsuspecting entrepreneurs
are technically legal. Operating just this side of the law, many
sophisticated promoters take advantage of loose regulation.
�These guys are
like tax attorneys�always looking out for a new loophole,� explained
Howard Sirota a former securities dealer investigator. �They know
exactly how far they can go, and still avoid trouble.�