New York Massage Parlors: Is It Really That Tough to Get Credit?
January 30, 2010, 3:59 pm
Is It Really That Tough to Get Credit?
The Times just published a story about small businesses, desperate for credit, who turn to purchase-order financing to keep their operations running. In the article, reporter Andrew Martin talks to business owners who pay interest rates of as much as 40 percent on an annualized basis to borrow money from a purchase-order lender, Hartsko Financial Services, whose New York City offices are in Queens, right above an acupuncture clinic that used to be a massage parlor. Richard Eitelberg, Hartsko’s founder and president, says his business was up 80 percent in 2009.
“For lack of a better word,” the piece quotes one of Mr. Eitelberg’s small-business clients, “it’s almost like loan sharking. But, there’s a need. I had no choice. It’s the only way I was going to get the business. I know I paid them a lot, but without them, I would have been home watching cartoons.”