Has anyone heard of the “CSBA” credential (Certified Small Business Appraiser), provided by the “ACSBA”—Association of Certified Small Business Appraisers? 

Neither have we—but we’ve recently run across two different sites professing to issue business appraisals in conformity with the so-called credential: The first, simply called Business Appraisal (and bound to show up on Google searches) offers $399 appraisals in three days by a Damien Lepage, who lists the CSBA designation among an MBA and MAcc degrees from UCLA.  Likewise, Arrow Appraisers offers a sample appraisal that’s CSBA “certified.”  Emails to both sites requesting more information have not been answered.

What we found: In the meantime, we searched for the ACSBA, and found—interestingly—that the owner of Arrow Appraisers, Robert Malt (Palm Beach, FL), has reserved the domain name for both acsba.org and acsba.com.  And where is Damien Lepage?  In Queensland, Australia, which—no disrespect to the Land Down Under—may not be the most pertinent locale from which to conduct appraisals of U.S. businesses.

“Let’s work to more broadly expose these fakes,” says Ron Seigneur (Seigneur Gustafson & Knight, LLP, Denver), “as consumers of our work product continue to be confused by them.”  Fortunately, there are online resources available, such as “Selecting a Qualified Business Appraiser,” by Roger Birong (Birong Consultants, Jacksonville, FL), published on SBRN, the Small Business Resource Network.