Foundational pillar / check financing-approval-claims
Guaranteed approval or funding claims
Screens financing pages for guaranteed-approval or unconditional-funding promises that underwriting may not honor.
By Shimon Carroll, Founder, SEO for AI Agents · Last updated
What this check measures
Phrases such as "guaranteed approval", "guaranteed funding", "100% approval", "everyone is approved", or "no one is turned down", quoted as evidence.
Why it matters
Section 5 of the FTC Act prohibits deceptive acts or practices, and approval promises that underwriting does not honor are a recurring issue in small-business financing marketing. State commercial-financing laws add disclosure duties at the offer stage.
How we score it
A review prompt, not a legal verdict. Runs only on merchant cash advance audits. When the cue is missing the finding is medium severity at medium confidence, which lowers the foundational pillar by about 2.4 points. A pass is informational and never scores. Each finding names who should review it, quotes what we saw on the page, and cites the primary source. Where the page shows a US address we name the inferred state; otherwise the wording is state-agnostic.
Confidence-flag rules
MEDIUM: the check reads the visible page text, links, and JSON-LD directly, so what it quotes is exact, but wording can carry the same meaning in phrasing we do not recognise, and one page does not show the whole site.
Common mistakes
- Lead-generation landing pages with approval guarantees.
- Speed claims ("approved in minutes") that read as approval promises.
- Copy that contradicts the eligibility criteria in the application.
How to fix it
Remove approval or funding guarantees, or qualify them accurately against your real underwriting, and have counsel review financing advertising.
Primary sources
- 15 U.S.C. 45, Unfair methods of competition; unfair or deceptive acts or practices
Legal Information Institute (U.S. Code)
- 23 NYCRR 600.1, New York Commercial Finance Disclosure, Definitions
Legal Information Institute (New York Codes, Rules and Regulations)
Changelog
- · New. This rule used to live only in the vertical configuration and never ran. It is now a registered review check with a cited primary source, framed as a prompt to review with a professional rather than a pass or fail legal verdict.