Answering a Business Advance Team LLC Complaint: 5 Things to Check First

If Business Advance Team is suing you, the first job is to work out who owns the debt and whether you owe it, whether the Yellowstone settlement canceled the debt, whether a judgment has already been entered, the number of days in the deadline, and whether the papers match your records. You may have received a collection email from a solicitor for Business Advance Team. Or a mailed letter saying you “must pay”. These pieces of paper are not a filed lawsuit. A judgment is issued at a later stage.

1. Check who is really suing

Suppose your complaint names Business Advance Team. The New York Attorney General’s office, in the complaint it filed, listed Business Advance Team LLC as a Yellowstone subsidiary. Also, Business Advance Team’s paperwork may include names other than the names on the checks or complaints, such as Accel Funding, Everyday Capital or BRC. Any of those names in your papers may be a Yellowstone-owned company.

Make a quick check against documents you kept. Look at your agreement’s first paragraph. Check your bank for any debits taken. In some transactions, you dealt with a broker, who claimed to be helping find a funder, and you must look to the contract to learn the funder’s name.

2. Check the Yellowstone settlement

If your complaint names Business Advance Team LLC, that company is on the state’s list of those who agreed to cancel debts as part of the Yellowstone settlement. If the paperwork lists one of those names, you may have a much simpler resolution. In the settlement between the attorney general’s office and Yellowstone, the companies agreed to automatically cancel about $534 million in charges that merchants owed. The cancellation also includes the personal guarantors listed on the complaint. So the lender is saying you owe money, but the attorney general of New York says that debt is canceled and no longer exists. Yellowstone is a party to the attorney general’s agreement, and so it is not allowed to collect that debt or sell it to another. Other businesses, such as Delta Bridge Funding and Cloudfund, were not part of the settlement. They took over Yellowstone’s funding business in May 2021. The attorney general’s case against Delta Bridge and Cloudfund continues to move through a New York court. A court denied their motion to dismiss on March 4, 2026.

3. Check your deadline and the court

Regardless of the name on the complaint, make sure your deadline for answering does not pass. After a plaintiff files a summons and complaint in court, the defendant usually has 20 days to respond if served in person in New York state court, or 30 days if the papers were left with someone other than the defendant in the action or served through a state official. Also, be aware of which court system the complaint is filed in. If the complaint is in New York’s Supreme Court, and the defendant is a business, such as a corporation, the business can not represent itself through an officer, owner or employee. It must appear through an attorney.

Several mistakes can lead to a business or individual losing its chance to object to a fact or a procedure in court. One mistake is to assume the legal deadline is extended because you called the plaintiff, applied for new financing, or are in the middle of settlement talks. Keep track of the date, time, and other details of when the summons and complaint arrived and write it down. Also, if you were not personally served, write down the name of the person who accepted service. If you think the service might be invalid, reach an attorney immediately.

4. Check the papers against your records

Check the company’s balance against your own records, to see if payments and credits are correct and to see whether any late fees are accurate. The company saying it is due the amount does not make it so. If you can, find the agreement and get a complete accounting of all advances and debits collected.

Also, look into whether revenue fell. Did you request a reconciliation, and how did the funder respond? The label on the agreement - advance or loan - doesn’t necessarily control. In New York, it’s a felony to knowingly make a loan that charges more than 25% a year in interest. Courts typically look at how the loan was structured to decide whether it’s a loan, and so it may not apply to advances. Look at your agreement. Have you signed a personal guarantee? Does the agreement contain an arbitration clause, under which both sides must take the dispute to an arbitrator rather than to court? Does the agreement say a dispute must be litigated in a particular state or at a particular location?

5. Check for a judgment

If the defendant does not respond, the court may grant a default judgment. If you believe the judgment was wrongly entered, a court may lift the judgment and let the defendant respond. New York’s Civil Practice Law and Rules sets a deadline for the defendant to ask the court to set aside a judgment or order for failure to answer, respond or appear. State law says a motion to vacate based on excusable default must be made within one year after the defendant is served with the judgment and written notice of its entry.

Confessions of judgment allow a lender to obtain a judgment without having a contested lawsuit. State laws differ on whether they are enforceable and to what extent.

If a bank or payments processor has withheld or frozen your funds, that could mean several different things, so get the actual document. It could be a UCC financing statement, a subpoena or a court restraint. Each is different and allows for different responses. Changing bank accounts, redirecting receipts or moving assets are choices that could affect your business down the road. Get advice before making moves. Hiring a lawyer, or responding to the complaint or answering the complaint, also doesn’t automatically release the frozen funds.

In any settlement, be sure to have a written agreement. It should state the total to be paid, the number of payments and their dates, which companies the settlement includes and whether the personal guarantor is included. It should also state how the lawsuit is concluded and what happens if a payment is missed.

An agreement with one funder to settle what you owe does not cancel every other amount outstanding to other funders. Each contract is a separate obligation. You must keep records for each contract and each case.

A free contract review costs nothing and takes a day or two. Call (888) 837-7053, or send the agreements to Delancey Street for a straight read on your options.