If a company you have never heard of contacts you about a payment and asks you to enroll in something before you can receive it, it’s understandable that you may feel skeptical.
The same instinct that protects small business owners from actual payment scams is a reasonable instinct to apply to any unfamiliar outreach, including outreach from BillGO.
What separates a legitimate fintech company from a fraudulent one is evidence. Verifiable, third-party, independently confirmable evidence that the company is what it says it is.
This piece is a practical guide to how small business owners can evaluate that evidence, and what BillGO’s credentials actually look like when examined.
Start With Independent Verification
The first and most important step in evaluating any company that contacts you about payments is to verify them independently, using information you find yourself.
Search for the company name online and navigate to their official website directly. Look for contact information listed there and use that to initiate a callback if you have questions.
A company that is legitimate will have a stable web presence, verifiable contact information and no reason to discourage you from doing your own research.
For BillGO, that independent starting point is billgo.com.
The company’s background, network information and contact details are available there without any obligation to enroll.
If you call BillGO back on a number you find there and the information you receive is consistent with what the original caller told you, that consistency is itself a meaningful signal.
Fraudulent companies rarely hold up under independent verification. Legitimate ones welcome it.
Look for Institutional Relationships
Legitimate fintech companies operating in the payment space do not work in isolation. They have formal relationships with the financial institutions and payment networks that make the US payment system function.
Those relationships require the fintech to meet compliance standards, security requirements and contractual obligations set by highly regulated institutions that conduct extensive due diligence about their partners.
A company that has earned and maintained those relationships has been vetted by parties with far more resources and regulatory expertise than any individual small business owner.
The existence of those relationships is meaningful evidence of legitimacy, because maintaining them requires ongoing compliance with standards that fraudulent companies cannot meet.
BillGO partners with financial institutions and payment providers across the United States to deliver payments to small businesses digitally.
Those partnerships are the foundation of how BillGO’s network operates.
They are formal agreements that require BillGO to meet the standards its financial institution partners set and maintain.
When BillGO contacts a small business about a pending payment, it is doing so as as service provider to the financial institution or payment provider whose customer initiated that payment, not as an independent actor operating outside the regulated payment system. Federal banking regulators require financial institutions to vet and continuously monitor the technology companies they work with, so BillGO undergoes due diligence before any partnership begins and along with ongoing oversight. When BillGO contacts you about a payment, it does so as part of that overseen relationship, not as a separate, unregulated channel.
Understand What Legitimate Enrollment Looks Like
One of the clearest signals of a fraudulent payment scheme is what the company asks you to do.
Legitimate fintech companies that facilitate payment delivery do not ask you to send money, share your online banking login or password your Social Security number, or pay an upfront fee to receive funds that are already owed to you.
BillGO asks for none of those things.
Enrollment in BillGO Exchange, BillGO’s biller network, is at no additional cost to the business.
The business does not pay to join the network, and it does not provide sensitive financial credentials as part of the enrollment process.
BillGO partners with financial institutions and payment providers to offer this service.
If any company contacting you about a pending payment asks for money, credentials or personal financial information as a condition of receiving that payment, that is a red flag. The request itself is the signal to stop and investigate further.
What BillGO’s Credentials Actually Look Like
BillGO is a financial technology company with deep roots in the U.S. payment ecosystem. It operates one of the largest open small business payments networks in the United States and works with financial institutions and payment providers across the country to deliver same-day payments to enrolled small businesses, rather than through the mail.
The company’s network connects to financial institutions reaching virtually every bank and credit union in the United States, either directly or through channel partners.
Tens of thousands of small businesses rely on BillGO to receive payments from their customers.
The company has been operating in this space for years, building and maintaining the institutional relationships that make its network function.
None of that is information BillGO asks you to take on faith. It is verifiable through the company’s public-facing information, its website and the institutional relationships that underpin how its network operates.
BillGO’s credentials are also a matter of public record through several sources. The company holds money transmitter licenses in 45 states and the District of Columbia. Each license is issued and supervised by that state’s financial regulator. You can confirm those credentials yourself in these public registries:
The Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS) provides a NMLS consumer access site where license records are published at www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org. You can search NMLS ID 2005089 or “BillGO MT, Inc.” to see each state license, its status and the issuing regulator.
The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) lists companies registered as money services businesses under federal anti-money laundering rules. Search the legal name “BillGO MT, Inc.”: www.fincen.gov/msb-registrant-search
State Secretary of State websites, such as the Colorado Secretary of State business database are available to tpublish. BillGO is headquartered in Fort Collins, Colorado. Search “BillGO” to confirm the company’s registration and standing at www.coloradosos.gov. The same can be found within other states. BillGO publishes its full list of state licenses, with license numbers and regulator contact information, at billgo.com/licenses-new.
How to Tell the Difference Between BillGO and an Actual Scam
The simplest framework for evaluating any unsolicited payment-related outreach is to ask three questions.
First: does the company ask you for money or sensitive credentials to receive a payment? Legitimate companies do not. BillGO does not.
Second: can you verify the company independently using information you find yourself, without relying on what the caller told you? Legitimate companies can be verified. BillGO can be verified at billgo.com and through the state and federal registries listed above.
Third: is the company’s story internally consistent? Does what they say about who they are and how they operate match what you can confirm through independent research? BillGO’s story is consistent because it is accurate.
The confidentiality constraint that prevents a BillGO representative from naming the specific bank or customer associated with a pending payment is a standard feature of how financial services partnerships work. It applies to BillGO precisely because those partnerships are real and governed by terms that include those restrictions.
Do the Work, Then Decide
No small business owner should enroll in anything without doing their homework first. BillGO is not asking for blind trust.
It is asking for the same reasonable evaluation that any legitimate company should be willing to submit to.
Look up the company. Verify the contact information. Ask questions. Understand what enrollment involves and what it does not require. Then make an informed decision about whether the service is right for your business.
For the more than 100 thousand small businesses already enrolled in BillGO Exchange, that process ended with faster payments, a clearer view of incoming funds, and less time spent waiting on the mail. The credentials held up because the company is what it says it is. The scrutiny was welcome because the answer to every reasonable question was a straight one.
