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I own a small, sucessful software consulting company (LLC), and have been in business for about 15 years.
Neither myself or the LLC has any short term or long term debt, aside from credit cards that are PIF every month, and I have a FICO score over 800.
Despite all this, I'm unable to locate a business credit card that doesn't require a personal guarantee. Do these things exist or am I wasting my time looking?
Being personally liable for business debt seems to defeat one of the purposes of having an LLC in the first place. Anybody have any suggestions?
Terry
Update for everyone since last week:
Never go by what was happening a year ago, especially now.
Keybank is officially backed by Elan as of last week, it's been coming down the pike for months that they would no longer by Citi backed and people were told to plan accordingly. If you go to the Key Bank website, they are no longer offering the .pdf download so you can fax in; you have to call or visit a local branch. There are reports elsewhere that the applications already have the ELAN name on it and it doesn't ask for EIN (I haven't applied for a while, so I can't vouch for that one personally).
Poster CCS901 created a new thread over at 'the other board' to deal with the KeyBank changes that are now official and not just rumor. As Greywolf (who is a great font of wisdom for real business owners and not the utilization hiders) said, "It is not good at all, because Elan has always required a PG and is based on the individual's credit, not the business's."
BigTime Charlie in the same thread states, "Your right Greywolf! I found a Elan Business App online and it did not even ask for EIN."
What that means for me is that if Elan is not asking for EIN..................................it's no longer a 'real' business card; it's a personal card. Or, in the parlance of Citi and Capital One, a 'professional card'. And what THAT means is that people applying now may have to watch for these cards showing up on their personal business credit. (I have received no official notice by email or snail mail about what is happening and the change in backers. I have to get all my news from online.) I say that because under Citi, my Key Bank card is listed under my business EIN. Citi has never been able to find my account under my SSN. I was ok with that. On the other hand, giving out one's EIN is no guarantee that these cards won't show up on personal anyway (see also: Discover, Capital One, Nationwide 'business' cards).
We'll see what happens as new reports come in as people apply after the changeover.
PizzaGuy, how does your credit look on the business side of things? Does your business have a DUNS number/Paydex/rating? Is any business credit reporting on Experian Business?
I think a NO PG bank card is going to be tough, if not impossible, to find anymore. But if any even exist, the issuer would be looking at DNB, etc. to see how things stand with your business, credit wise and sales volume wise.
(I'm hoping someone will jump in here with some info on a NO PG bank biz card, I could use one, too... )
I've got NO PG cards from places like Lowe's, Staples, etc. with good lines of credit, but I've had them a while, so I don't know if things have changed in the last couple of years with those.
Sorry I couldn't be more help, PizzaGuy!
Well i called the Key bank and yeah as of 8/23/2013 @ 742pm EST they will not issue a line of credit for any business without a persoanl
guarantee (PG). I have a pretty good D&B rating of 80 and we have had a d&b since 2007. We are also finding obtaining bsuiness credit impossible without holding $400,000/year revenue and being an (INC.) this has been the only way we have found we can get it unsured with no PG.
@CandyMan wrote:@Anonymous i called the Key bank and yeah as of 8/23/2013 @ 742pm EST they will not issue a line of credit for any business without a persoanl
guarantee (PG). I have a pretty good D&B rating of 80 and we have had a d&b since 2007. We are also finding obtaining bsuiness credit impossible without holding $400,000/year revenue and being an (INC.) this has been the only way we have found we can get it unsured with no PG.
Yes you won't find any w/o PG's unless you are a large Corp with high deposits
I found a few Business cards with No personal guarantee , however you do need a paydex score of at least 75 , try American chartered bank, belmont savings, bremer bank, wsfs bank. Us bank also has a business card but you need annual revenues of at least 1 million dollars . Good luck