A Warning on Small-Business Credit Cards

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You know all those new protections that come along with consumer credit cards? Well, they don't apply to cards marketed to small businesses and sole proprietors—a fact that the Pew Charitable Trust is trying to draw attention to.

The organization is "is urging policymakers to extend the protections of the Credit Card Act whenever a credit-card account can hold a person individually liable," according to a video featuring Nick Bourke, director of Pew’s Safe Credit Cards Project and the report's chief author.

At issue is the ability for banks to raise interest rates and impose penalty fees effectively at will, practices that Congress said could not happen with consumer cards.

For more information, download a PDF of the report from Pew.

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