Money makers

Tami Wankoff admits when she sells her company's niche services to potential clients, it often has an air of way too good to be true.

Wankoff, through her company, CTA Deposit Recovery Services, gets clients money — sometimes thousands of dollars — from phone bill mistakes and overcharges and/or unreturned deposits from past purchases. The details of how CTA does this are complex, and create a high barrier to entry for competitors, which is why Wankoff rests her pitch on CTA's solid track record: The company, she says, has obtained $6 million for clients since 2010.

“We recover assets all the time,” Wankoff says. “That's why I get so psyched about this business.”