12 Days of Giving Day 8: From $1.5M in Predatory Debt to Breathing Room in 4 Days

This isn’t a cute budgeting episode. This is a $14 million revenue business buried under $1.5 million in stacked merchant cash advances, with money ripped out of the account every single day. The owner wasn’t reckless. He had a 740 credit score and solid bank statements. He just got sold the wrong “solution” over and over.

In this 12 Days of Giving episode, I sit down with Sara Weldon of TruFinCo to walk through exactly how this happened — and how she helped pull him out. We break down how MCAs are really structured, why the payments feel fine at first and then choke your cash flow, and how these things get layered until your business exists to feed lenders, not you.

Then we get into the turnaround: how Sara and her team stepped in, worked with the right legal support, and restructured the full $1.5M, giving the owner roughly $45,000 a month in breathing room in about four days. From there, they rebuilt his capital strategy using lines of credit, term loans, and 0% business credit through capital stacking instead of more toxic “fast money.”

If you’re a business owner staring at debt, stressed about cash, or being pitched “quick funding,” you need to understand this playbook. This series is about real people, real numbers, and what it actually takes to get free — not the fantasy Instagram finance tries to sell you.

🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FDb4tVqGSOM

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why this $14M debt story matters
• 0:42 Meet “George”: strong revenue, still broke and stressed
• 2:58 How merchant cash advances hook good business owners
• 5:37 Daily payments and the slow MCA cash flow choke
• 8:21 Lines of credit vs term loans: real talk for owners
• 10:46 Capital stacking and 0% business credit explained
• 13:09 Ten stacked loans and $1.5M in predatory debt
• 14:26 How Sara’s team freed up $45K/month in 4 days
• 16:03 The commission problem: why bad loans get pushed
• 16:22 What to do next if you’re already in MCA trouble

Transcript

Stoy Hall: 0:10

Happy holidays, everyone. Sarah's back. Woo. She has not been busy at all. Uh, just really Netflix and chilling. Um, so I'm happy to her on with her not tight schedule, but she is back for another 12 days of giving. And this one, uh, we literally talked about last week and this one was kind of crazy to me on multiple levels, so I'm glad she's gonna be talking about that one specifically. So, tune in, sit back, relax a little bit. I think this one's gonna touch you or someone that you know. Uh, relatively deeply. So, Sarah, without further ado, tell us the story, what was going on and how you helped.

Sara Weldon: 0:45

Thank you and thank you for having me. Story. I am very excited to be here and hopefully this will get me into the holiday spirit because right now I have no idea that we're getting close to Christmas. So thank you. Um, this was a cool story. So I run Tru and with, with Rick, uh, the two of us run it and. You know, the past several years we've stepped into kind of a different role of, I'm not on the phones every day as much. I'm not so client facing. I'm, you know, managing from above and doing the marketing and the videos and all that stuff, which is fun. Um, but I've really missed the day to day interaction and I. Gosh, a few weeks ago I had a close friend reach out and asked, Hey, Sarah, I've got, I've got someone that needs, needs your help. Would you be willing to take them on? And I was like, absolutely. Of course. So in my very free schedule, I, uh, I fit them in and, um, it was really evident right away. Like, this is someone that needs our help. Um, it was a, I'm gonna call him George. His name was George and he had, um. An amazing business. That's the thing here. He had an amazing business, but he was in financial trouble. See, a lot of people assume, you know, people that are in financial trouble are, you know, not good with their money or they don't, they don't know how to manage things, not the reality at all. This guy makes$14 million a year between his two businesses. An astounding number. But the problem was the world of lending. There's some very not so, uh. Amazing people in it. And so 10 years ago, 10 years ago, he had a friend convince him that he needed to get some merchant cash advances. And for those of you that don't know what those are, uh, I won't use the actual term. I'll keep my language clean. But basically it's a, um, we call'em a poop sandwich, really is what we call them, um, because it's, it's a, it's a dangerous loan. It's extremely high interest daily or weekly payments. Um, and it's, it's. Almost financial suicide for most businesses that get into'em, I'll be quite honest, because they get into'em and they just cannot breathe to get out. And those same lenders will pile loan upon loan upon loan and they keep thinking, okay, I'll just take this one and it'll get me out. Well, unfortunately George, um, over the years had taken on more and more and more, and he was even 10 years later, he was a million and a half in debt on these loans and just felt like. He's working so hard, but all his money every month was going towards paying these loans and this interest, and he's like, Sarah, I don't even know what to do. Um, and I will be honest, it was, it was such an emotional conversation because a, I, I really praised him because here's this man that is working his tail off. But yet he had been taken advantage of, was drowning in debt, but he still had such a good attitude about it. Like a lot of people could be very negative and hateful and spiteful. Like poor me, he was not the victim. He's like, look, is there anything you can do to help? And, and I got to. I got to put on my superhero cape and I got to help him. And really, you know, I dove in. I figured out a situation. He's got a great credit score, a seven 40 credit score, great bank statements. So that alone astounded me that he was put into these loans and, um. We got to find relief together. So I was able to help him restructure that debt. Um, because with, with all those loans, there is a little escape hatch that lawyers know how to find. Um, us, us regular people don't know it's, it exists, so we think we're stuck. But the lawyers can do their legal mumbo jumbo and essentially restructure the whole debt. So we did. Um, so I talked to him and I believe it was. Within four days, he had breathing room again. We restructured a million and a half in debt. We are saving him$45,000 a month.$45,000 a month. I mean, that's a huge amount. And with that money, he's going to be able to get things under control again. You know, he's not going to feel like. Okay, I'm, I've got this great business, but it's all going to, paying off this loan. Um, his whole financial situation drastically turned the other way with just doing that. And he was so grateful and it felt, it felt really good. Like I was able to do what's right. And, and that's what's rare in the lending world because most people look at it as, I don't care what's right, what's gonna put the most money in my pocket, you know, because those, those loans. Uh, there's no lie, I am not hiding it. Those loans, they pay tremendous commission. So people love pushing them because they make oodles of money much more than a standard good loan. They make like three, four times the commission. Um, and it just felt great and, and just hearing that relief in his voice, knowing like, okay, I see an end to this because we, we were able to cut down the total principle owed, cut down his payments. To where he knows they'll, this will end. And, and then on top of it, it was, it, we started working together because I, I'm not someone that just goes, okay, let's fix this and goodbye. We had a long conversation about business credit. I explained what it was and why that type of funding was so much more sustainable for him, and my ultimate goal was to get him to start building. Capital, doing capital stacking because he has multiple businesses and he's always needing working capital. He's the perfect candidate for that. Um, so we've come up with a structured plan. I kind of, and it was great because he's gotta pay down a couple things to be able to do capital stacking and now he can because he's got that extra money. Um, so it was kind of like this, this total approach, total redo and damn it felt good. It really did. Um, just. You know, I've been, I've been out of the loop for a little while, so to come in on like such a power case like that felt really good. So

Stoy Hall: 6:37

you mean there's your holiday spirit right there. I know, yep. Um, talk us through, so for those, what we're talking about is, is, is the merchant ones orcas. For short, which is, you hear a lot, we hear, uh, mca, we hear lines of credit, we heard term loans and we hear capital stacking. Can you briefly run through each one of those? Yep. And I don't need a pro con list of each one of'em, but why you don't prefer MM Cs. We don't either, by the way. Um, and you guide everyone around to the others.

Sara Weldon: 7:11

Sure. So, uh, an MCA, let's start with that merchant cash advance. Reason why these are so appealing and why so many businesses get into'em is they're quick. You essentially could have money within 24 hours. Um, it requires very minimal documentation. No. Financials in terms of you don't need tax, state, uh, taxes, nothing like that. They're just simply looking at your bank statements. That's it. Um, it is, they do look at your credit score, and yes, for some people that's all you can qualify for. If you have a low credit score, if you have bank statements that look like Swiss cheese because of all the holes in there, you know, all the negative days, then yes, that is your only option. But the problem with those obviously, is it's a daily or a weekly payment that gets automatically taken out of your bank account. The interest is astronomical, like sickening. It's way more than the loan itself, and so you never can get out of it and out of desperation. So many business owners take it because. A lot of times they're convinced this is the quickest, fastest solution. This is all I can qualify for. I gotta do it. Sure. I'll figure it out. And they never figure it out. I, I've, I've personally witnessed so many business owners going outta business because of those. Um, so those are merchant cash advances. Um, do we have clients going into them? Yes. It is a last resort and only if I. Really strongly recommend to a client. Do you have a clear path to get out? You know, is this something where you're a builder and you're gonna suddenly have that influx of capital once that project sells that you can turn around and pay this off? Fine. That makes sense. This is not a long-term sustainable solution for you to make payroll. Everyday expenses. It's, it's a very dangerous solution. Um, that's a merchant cash advance. As you can tell. I don't love them, and I, I'm so open about it. I just, I hate them. Um, whereas a true line of credit is a revolving line of credit. So those can also be done quickly. Those can also be done on bank statement only. Um, for that, basically it's revolving. So let's say you get a line of credit for 50,000, you only pay on what you're spending. So. You spend 20,000, you only pay on that. Once that's paid off, it's available again. So I do like lines of credit. I've, I feel like a lot of business owners get them. And if you've got decent credit, good bank statements, good, positive cash flow. Great. That makes a lot of sense for you. Um, term loan on the other hand, is going to be a chunk of money. So for example, a term loan would be like, I'm getting a$200,000 term loan. I get that 200,000. It's for a set term. So let's say maybe it's five year term loan, so they split up the payments. You do have interest on that. You, once that's paid off, it's done. It's not revolving. You don't get to reuse that money. That's the money. That's it. You know, for some people that does make sense. You know, I've had clients take those to restructure and pay off credit cards. Um, so those. Those typically take a little bit longer to get, and there is a little bit more financials required. Not a, not heavy, not like an SBA, but, but definitely a little bit more than just your straight line of credit. Other types. Let's see. Capital stacking. I could talk about this one forever. This is definitely my favorite type of funding. Um, with this, it's stacking business credit. Business credit doesn't show up on your personal credit with capital stacking, uh. We're stacking business credit cards, so everything comes in the name of your business. It comes at 0% for up to 18 months. Beautiful part about that you only pay on what you use. Once it's paid off, it's available again, very similar to a line of credit, exactly like revolving line of credit, except it comes in the form of a business. Credit card, same thing. No financials needed. No bank statements, no tax returns. No nothing. Um. So for me, I always like that it's a great choice, especially for startups when you've made nothing and you still are able to access that capital. So in a nutshell, I think those are all of, all of the kind of types of, of loans that we talk about on a continuous basis. Um, I think you, you could figure out which one I like the best, but.

Stoy Hall: 11:21

Yeah, you could definitely layer like what's your top, what's your least? And

Sara Weldon: 11:25

I know I kind of did it that way, didn't I?

Stoy Hall: 11:27

Well, I, it's important for everyone to know no matter what. I don't wanna say no matter what,'cause there's some situations you can't do anything about. Right? There's just literally situations that you're so deep in that, um, more of a, you know, a foreclosure or bankruptcy is the route to go.

Sara Weldon: 11:42

Yep.

Stoy Hall: 11:42

Besides them, right? Being able to do any of these and have that flexibility and have that conversation. With a team to understand where you're at, to get you either out of your situation or to prepare yourself for a better one. Mm-hmm. Is so paramount because Yeah. Yep. No, we're not going the MCA route, however, yeah, you could capital stack, you could also line of credit if you're available too and a term, and having those three. Could provide different flexibility for different purposes tied to different things. Obviously, capital stack has a 0% for 18 months, but then its credit card rates after that line of credit's always gonna be a little higher. 12 thirteens, depending on the market. However, you're not gonna have the 26 20 nines like the credit card would, and then your term loans are gonna be. Well, right now they're probably what, in the sevens, eights, depending on stuff. Yep. Right. So you're gonna have different interest rates, different repayment schedules for different purposes. And the most important piece is that they're talking to a team like you, like us, our collective, to get a game plan around, no matter what they choose to do. So they don't get stuck thinking last resorts mca. And then they have to double down on that. Because I think you had said. Not only was it like 1.5 million in, but like didn't you have like 10 of'em or something stacked on top of each other? Yep. And everyone think about that. If you had 10 loans stacked on top of each other with daily payments, with interest rates that are just unheard of, it does a couple things. One, interest rates are through the roof, so you're already gonna lose on interest. In general, if you're paying something daily, it's hurting your cash flow, which means then your bills that go up and down. Won't get paid or you get behind on, and now it's a trickle effect for the entire business, and that's what was happening. So everybody listening there is a way out of your situation or there's a better way to prepare your situation. Ultimately, you need to talk to a team and think about all of the avenues and not just what your local bank says. Not with the person who's selling you this hot fa fast cash is selling, but look at at it as a bigger picture. Otherwise, you are gonna run into bigger issues that maybe we can't help with.

Sara Weldon: 13:37

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. You said that so much better than me. That's why we work well together. You just say it so much better. But no, I, I very much agree and, and I think you hit it the nail on the head. You have to have a team to talk to. And that's where so many people miss the boat is they're operating. On their own because they think that's the only thing to do, and they're operating out of fear and out of panic, and they're, it's reactive. It's not being proactive. And, and the problem with being in that place is all those unscrupulous lenders prey on that. They know so many people are in that situation. You know, if you were to tell them, wait a second, I gotta take a step back. I need to talk to my financial advisor, they'll panic because they'll know you're gonna, you know. They'll be talked out of it because it's not a logical decision. And that's why I love what you and I both do, because we come from a place of logic and what makes sense, not how are we gonna make a buck that doesn't play in either of our strategies. And you know, my. My team, I, I, I praise them a lot. I joke that they're me just in a male form, but they really do. They talk it through with the client and they'll talk someone out of funding because it makes no sense. And that's what I love. And that's, I mean, that's a whole other podcast. I wish we could restructure the world of lending because that's truly what it should be, because otherwise we're just, we're. Putting people in such dangerous situations. It, it, it's, it's horrible. And I don't know how they sleep at night, to be quite honest. But

Stoy Hall: 15:08

yeah, I mean, that's a whole thing, such as it

Sara Weldon: 15:09

is

Stoy Hall: 15:10

of getting commissions and everything. And don't get us wrong people, we, you, you pay us. Sure. Right. Our mind's not on commission. Sarah's and true FinCo is, but like, they're gonna be transparent with what that is. Right. A lot of these won't, or it'll be so intertwined with the product that you couldn't figure it out if you tried to, unless you were or someone looking at that. So just be careful out there it is. The holiday season. There are a lot of emotions going on your business, whether it's going into 2026 and you're launching one, or it's going into the new year and you're freaking out trying to figure things out, talk to somebody, right? Mm-hmm. Just talk to us, come to us, come to our collective, allow us to help you as much as possible. And then you can go from there. But if you don't talk to someone and you just make a rash decision, more times than not, it's going to hurt you and bury you deeper. Yep. Sarah, I appreciate your time, um, and bringing that story to us.'cause it's one that we really haven't talked about, um, much and I'm glad we were able to. So without that, have a very happy holidays. Thank you. And all those listening, by the way, there is a Sarah. Episode two coming out, and we're gonna talk about nonprofits, so stay tuned.