The fear on these forums is palpable and I think it's very easy...

The fear on these forums is palpable and I think it's very easy to shake down a stock like BIG with low sophisticated ownership and high retail ownership.

Let's identify all the facts objectively:

"FC Capital chief executive Brad Prout confirmed that FC Capital held a "General Security Agreement which secures the performance obligations of BIG Un under the sponsorship agreement."

He said it did not secure the payment obligation of Big's customers and had who have received video content and agreed to pay by installments.

"That SME customer payment/credit risk is then ours – which is our core business."

We probably need to get more details about the performance obligations of the deal. However, BIG does not assume credit risk for its credit sales through FCC and FCC paid for its BIG shares at a premium in late 2016, with no further shares being issued to FCC.

"Richard Evertz, the chief executive officer of Big, said the company is not dependent on the arrangement for achieving future growth on a sustainable basis"

I really think this is key. If you want proof of this look at BIG's US growth trajectory ($2.2m last quarter and growing at 100%+ QoQ) which is purely cash SaaS revenue recognised monthly and has no credit component.

The next part of the story about calling SME BIG customers clearly has a negative slant to it. No mention of positive customer feedback but purely the negatives. If you go fishing for a while it's always possible to find a few disgruntled customers. However, I think some important issues have been adequately raised.

"Two businesses, a leisure company in Sydney and a café in Melbourne, were signed up for a Finstro account, but were never contacted again to arrange filming.

Both businesses were not aware at the time that they had signed up for a Finstro account, but both confirmed that upon searching their emails, they did indeed have active Finstro accounts."

Not entirely sure what this is eluding to. It is impossible to just give someone a credit facility without any indication of intent not to mention the information that would have to be provided. Regulations in Australia are quite tough on this, particularly post GFC. It sounds like there was potentially a mis-communication here between the customer and sales but the company definitely needs to clarify this.

"In one instance, the salesman, Samuel, only asked for the ABN number in another the client signed a digital contract with terms and conditions contained in a link."

If someone clicks a link and signs digitally I see no problem with this. We probably need confirmation that the ABN was the only piece of info that the salesman received but there still would've been genuine purchasing intent there so I'm not overly concerned about that.

"Another small business operator, a spa in Sydney, said Big Review filmed a video of their business, but they were not happy and asked for a re-shoot."

"She said she was not aware the video was uploaded on their website until after the Financial Review sent a link."

If a potential customer gets a free shoot and wants a re-shoot I think its fair enough that BIG desires some form of compensation first. All BIG videos end up on their site, that's a part of the whole deal. Not sure how this customer was unaware of this but again it seems like a communication issue with sales/production. Nothing to see here IMO.

"She was also not aware she had an active Finstro account, that was created on June 28, 2017. The balance on the Finstro account as of Sunday was $15,000 as no funds were reported as being drawn.

The Financial Review is aware that an invoice for this account was created and $10,032 was recorded as "payment received" on 29 June 2017. A value of $12,000 appeared in the field "aggregator funding amount" on Big Review's internal system. She did not recall agreeing to sign up to Finstro but located an email dated June 28 in which she provided her ABN to a Big sales person."

Okay so she had a Finstro account that was undrawn and created following an email exchange with a BIG salesman. I am concerned that this account was opened without her knowledge, BIG definitely needs to clarify this. However, I've seen this across many businesses and it's not a specific BIG-FCC problem but a wider aggressive credit offering tactic by firms like FCC.

"The impressive sales have boosted its cash balance from $2.6 million at 31 December 2016 to over $31.4 million a year later.

However Big's filings show it has only collected $10,500 of interest income over that period, with most of that income earned in the quarters preceding full and half year results.

By comparison, a bank account with a balance of $10 million that is earning the Reserve Bank overnight cash rate of 1.5 per cent will receive $10,500 of interest in less than four weeks."

This is a fair point and we definitely need clarification on this.

Overall, some good points were raised in the article but it was quite clearly written with a negative under-tone and an attitude of assumed guilt rather than innocent before proven otherwise.

The company's response on Wednesday will be critical to putting these issues to bed but I remain optimistic that the underlying fundamentals of the business remain strong.