Applying for a business card?
 

Hello guys,

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, I haven't been able to find it with several searches: can anyone apply for a business card? Do you have to have a legally registered business in order to apply for a business MC with Citi, for example, or not? If not, how do they do a credit check?


Thanks!

Yes anyone can since they will check personal credit and you will be liable if you default just like a personal card. Just out your name llc and put your social where it asks for tax id. Finally list your business as sole proprietorship.

My "business" has quite a few cards. Issuers don't seem to care very much, even if you just put in your SSN and list as a sole proprietorship.

Sithlord! You should know better than this. To put LLC at the end of your name is just like putting Inc. at the end. It is fraud unless you are truly registered as a corporation with the state. It is a Felony offense. You can however put "Sithlord and ASSOCIATES" adding associates at the end of your name and use your SSN.

Great, thanks for the answers everyone!

drbond, every business card application that I have read requires the applicant to agree to use the card "for business purposes". If one has no business, is this also fraud? Do card issuers actually care or check? Some applications caution that business cards are excluded from some consumer protections, but I have not seen specifics. Anyone know?

It would be fraud. However, it is not covered under any criminal statute and would not carry any criminal penalty. It would however be a violation of the cardholder agreement and subject to cancellation or any other action available to the issuer. It could be prosecuted civilly as breach of contract.

OPINION: I don't know of any card issuers that actively search out non business users and I doubt that they do. But that could change at any time. There have been instances where cards have been cancelled due to improper usage or violation of cardholder agreement. This has been a result of claimed chargebacks or other loss of revenue for the issuer or high service maintenance.

A business cannot use a lack of understanding for a defense or a three day waiting period in most states if not all. Card issuers do not allow all chargeback codes on business cards and some do not allow any. There is a long list of things associated with personal cards that do not apply to business cards.

I hope you find this of some interest.

My bad.:D

I rather like the sound of "Sithlord and Associates". I wonder what services or products would be offered.

Cool, so I could be ET and Associates :D

"For business purposes" would surely include charging business travel to the card and then expensing that to you employer. So if you do that, then it seems to me that you are within the letter of what you are signing on the agreement.

My employer gives me an Amex corp card, but I am fed up with paying the linkage fee to get MR points. Having read this I'm going to get a couple of the business cards I am always getting invitatiosn for, unlink the Amex corp card and never use it again.

Jedi mind tricks ,the force of course.:cool:

I agree that using a card to segregate employer reimburseable expenses is easily defensible as "business" usage, and Citi markets the Citi Professional cards specifically for this purpose...

http://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/ca...o?screenID=913

However, I am thinking more about the situation where someone uses a business card for a full range of personal transactions with no pretext or pattern of "business" use.

Why would someone want a business card if they don't have a business? I use business cards as a way to keep my accounting separate. But from an actual usable card scenario I find that Business cards for the most part offer the same features and benefits as the person card, EXCEPT, the limit is usually 1/2 to 1/3 of a similar personal card.

From what I've read there's also a big difference between small business credit (most based on the guarantor's credit rating) and medium to large business credit, which seems to be based on getting credit history established to a DUNS number.

1. Typically these cards do not appear on your personal credit report unless you pay late. This can be useful to someone who is applying for a number of cards to earn bonuses or other rewards.

2. In the case of American Express the Business Gold Rewards Card is currently much more attractive than any other Membership Rewards card because there is a substantial activation bonus, threshold bonuses at $20,000 and $50,000 calendar year spending, and a renewal bonus. Moving spending from a personal card would net many more points than continuing to use a personal card.

Using a business card for an employers business expenses is perfectly acceptable as long as the business card is in the name of the employer and not some fake made up business name.

Using a professional card for employee business expenses is perfectly acceptable as well.

OPINION: Don't do anything stupid and they will never check most likely.

Business cards are not as safe for everyday use a personal cards.

Why aren't they as safe to use ?

I can see point number two working in your favor to extend caps and take advantage of certain promo's. But your point about credit reports has never been the case for me. Business cards from Citi, Chase, and capital all appear on my report.

The only thing I've had not appear on my report was Amex corporate cards.

Thank you. I have read about users who were forced to change from personal to business American Express products, but not the reverse. I imagine the issuer would be hard pressed to assert "fraud" if we had responded to an invitation for a business card that they sent (repeatedly) to our home address.

Sorry, but I don't understand the reference to "three day waiting period", but otherwise I take your reply to mean that the card issuer will be less likely to reverse "disputed" charges made with a business card, is that correct? This is not an important consideration for me, but I can see that it might be for people who buy fenced merchandise on eBay ;) .

dennis

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

To get the sign-up mileage bonus, of course.

For a moment there, I thought I must be reading a forum other than FT.

I think you have to draw a line between Business Cards and Corporate cards. From a merchant standpoint there's nothing special I have to do to accept Amex Business Cards. However, I did have to make a special request to be able to process Amex Corporate cards.

I do know of one case where a corporate card holder was forced onto a personal account. Back in the late 80's my father was forced to pay off the balance of his corporate card. The owner of the company he worked for skipped town (actually, he skipped out all the way to Korea). Amex set up a new personal account and a payment plan. Lucky for us we were only responsible for the charges made on the single card. I wonder if the same thing happened to any Enron employees when they went under.

On a side note, we did find out that if you skip town on Amex for enough money they'll send a Private Investigator out to interview all the employee card holders. They don't mess around when they want their money!

I could see where this would be true if you were conducting business as a corporation, whether Inc or LLC, and in fact your business is neither, but I fail to see how getting it on a credit card constitutes fraud. Who is the victim? You are not receiving any special tax exemptions or a different tax status.

Maybe I'm missing something.

[QUOTE=motytrah;7287672]Why would someone want a business card if they don't have a business?


Citi Bus AA card pays double miles on AA tickets, citt AA card only pays single.. thats one example. (and of course the 20k sign up bonus doesnt hurt)

If you violate your card holder agreement which states that you must be a business, then you are committing a contract violation and that is fraud. Fraud by definition is not always a criminal matter or covered by a legal statute. It is fraud because you used deception in your application. You stated that you were a business and in fact were not. That induced the bank to issue you a credit card and any benefits that accompanied it under false pretenses.

OPINION: I don't really care if someone is a business or not, I would just want their business and think most would feel the same way. Currently their is no witch hunt in progress to find out who has committed fraud in their application. However if you do something that costs the bank money or become a financial burden or loss (don't make them a profit) then any excuse will be used to close your account and take away anything you would have built up.

If you put , Inc. or , LLC. or Corp. or any other derivative thereof on your application or card, you will have now committed a criminal act that the "state" would take up, not just the bank.

IMHO, this is not correct. The business cards, if they are issued in reliance on your personal info, e.g., use your SSN as the EIN, will most certainly show up on your credit report, be the reported info postive or negative.

By the way, all the talk about fraud above is a little too hardline. Not following a contract is not fraud. If it were just about every credit card company in the country would be in jail!

This isn't a matter of opinion, it's an observation. American Express does not report my business charge or credit cards. Citi does not report my Diners Club. All accounts are based on my personal credit, and they did pull credit checks when I applied.

Mia's post reminded me a real issue one might have creating a fake business for the purposes of getting a credit card. Although in some cases those cards don't show up on a personal credit report, the name and address "get in the system".

Companies that do business credit and information collection will start to create a porfolio on your fake company. Why does this matter? Because one day someone might inquiry with your State's Secretary Of State office about your company status. In many states doing business under an unregistered name is a big no-no. And could mean $$$ or $$$$ fine.

At the very least you should look into having a "Doing Business As" registered back to your name.

I disagree, and here's how I see it:

After having the idea for a possible future business - "Your Name Here Consulting", for instance, - the first thing one should do is establish a line of credit for that possible, potential, germ-of-a-seed-of-an-idea-of-a-business. That's the first step. Ya gotta have a line of credit to get your idea off the ground, you know. That's a fact. Without a line of credit, any ideas for a possible future business venture are doomed to failure.

And if your idea for a business doesn't materialize? Well, at least you gave it your best shot, and you can always close that line of credit.

That's how I see it.

Be that as it may, the problem is it's all based on how the state SOS office sees it. Not you. Not your credit card company. I've seen people get nailed for things like office leases and web sites before the register with the SOS. Which essentially is the same line of logic you had. You're just saving a space for a potential business.

However, in most states you could bypass those issues if you had a card registered in your legal name as a sole proprietor.

Mia, I looked at my credit reports and I THINK you are correct, but, I can't really tell. The credit bureaus have kindly "masked" my actual account numbers and I have a lot of accounts. So, can't tell precisely which might be personal and which might be business accounts.

But, after staring at the reports for quite a while and comparing with other records, I concluded that at least some of the business accounts were probably not showing on my credit reports.

Wonder if I don't pay what would happen? :)

Because business cards do not have the consumer protections provided under the Fair Credit Billing Act thanks to an U.S. Supreme Court decision which says so. see http://supreme.justia.com/us/452/233/case.html. Case is American Express v. Koerner, 452 U.S. 233 (1981)

There are also threads about getting initial 20 or 25 thousand miles.