MikeR397 said:One thing I'll add (and I'll update my other business thread as well) is that it appears the companies are not being so generous with the 0 years in business/$0 revenue Sole Prop anymore. I'm only basing this on my roomates very recent experience of getting denied from all business cards so far (few pending) b/c "Unable to verify business." This is with 810 FICO and $200+ HHI.

This occured 6 months after I was able to get $100k plus for my mom with $0 revenue and 0 years in business with the same cards.. (see quick summary). Perhaps it is another credit crunch change.

For myself, I put 2 years in business with about $1k in eBay sales (which is accurate), and was able to get about $50k of business credit. I attribute my lower amount due to my short and limited individual credit history, which is why I strongly believe(d) that busienss credit is still heavily reliant on your personal credit reports, maybe more so than your business reports. This seems to maybe be changing now.

Good post lhendricks, I'll be watching when I can squeeze in some FWF time away from the studies.
Just FYI, my wife just got the AMEX simplycash 2 weeks ago with with $0 revenue and 0 years in business. Her credit profile: She has no job, and put my income as HHI in application. She has been the authorized user on a couple of my credit cards for about 4 years. She just got her SSN last October and has got 1 personal cc since then. AMEX did take some time to verify her ssn.

EugeneV said:win333 said:The TRADE CREDIT starts EQ and EXP.

WTF is the "TRADE CREDIT"?

Office supply, shipping, computers, Gas cards, business wharehouses like Sams club or Costco, WalMart, there are others. I didn't name it that.

Tradecredit= purchasing a companies TRADE from them, I guess.

For Example, Staples and Office Depot approve pretty easy if your listed in 411 and have a duns number. Then they will report to Duns, EQ and EXP biz reports. Those are provided by CITI and will get you many more CITI type accounts.

If you have no personal credit history, is it possible to build business credit history first? If you have strong business credit and little to no personal credit history (assuming this is possible) will this help your personal credit? Or is this just a one way street where personal credit helps business credit?

MikeR397 said:Tom9999 said:I have Citi Business w/ TYN and Citi Business Premier Pass and neither shows on my report, except for the inquiries - which got combined into one since I applied the same day. Citi Professional DOES report.Thanks. This is a well known that the Professional reports on your personal lines.

Also, did you get a higher CL with the professional than the other business cards? Traditioanlly I think the Professional gives large lines, and I'm wondering if that is still true.

I got $10k on CitiBus and $9k on my CitiProf: brianLp518's business AOR

CitiBusiness (or any business card for that matter) do not report to personal credit files. Professional cards do report.

When I applied for Office Depot they said they needed a personal guarantor. I think they want to use my personal credit as collateral at first, is that right? I want to keep everything separate so should I not do that?

I don't have my biz phone listed in 411 yet so that must be why. How do I set that up? TIA

ColbyS said:Tom9999 said:I have Citi Business w/ TYN and Citi Business Premier Pass and neither shows on my report, except for the inquiries - which got combined into one since I applied the same day. Citi Professional DOES report.

Would it be advantageous (i.e. higher CL) with Citi Business if I pay down all my personal Citi cards?

The current offer is really sweet (0% till May 09) so I'm willing to lose the remaining 4-6 months on my (personal) 0% if it will benefit the business line. However, I'd hate to lose it if the benefit is negligible. Can anyone shed some light?

Found out yesterday I was approved for this card with a starting CL of 25K. I need to check some of the BAORs and see if that's good for a starting Citi Biz line.

The benes seem good: no annual fee, $50 BT fee cap, $100 in Money-Back Certificates, 0% APR on BTs until May 1, 2009.

The invitation says because it's "issued only to businesses with a proven track record, it offers many benefits not available from ordinary business cards"

Haven't received the welcome packet yet so I'm not sure what "24 hour access to a small business representative" or "a first-rate Personal Business Assistant" is

(The fine print says that the invite was "based on [the] credit record mainained at commercial credit bureaus-- but doesn't say which one)

Another data point on the Citi business offer. I got that offer for my 6 month old LLC. The LLC had no credit before I applied. By the way, I started getting credit card solicitations for the LLC almost immediately after I filed my articles of organization with the state.

Anyway, my personal FAKOs are in the 780 range and I put my LLC EIN and SSN on the app. HHI is 170k. I had no recent inquiries. I was approved for $25k. This is my second copy of this card. I got my first copy during my A0R a little over a year ago. I think I got about the same credit limit the first time around. On that one, I put my SSN and EIN for my C corp on the app.

Bottom line for me: Citi loves my businesses but doesn't like me as a citizen. In my A0R, Citi gave me two $3000 credit lines as a citizen. Citi gave me only $7300 CL yesterday on the 5% card for 3 months. (I got that one to pay the IRS.) Chase, on the other hand, was quite generous. But I have a relationship with Chase going back to 93. My first contact with Citi was during my A0R.

Hope that helps and sorry for being off topic. Just seemed to be a lot of interest in the Citi offer.

EugeneV said:Does wishing that win333 took his 6 months of "contributions" elsewhere make me a hater?
It wouldn't be so bad if half of them had whole thoughts typed into them and they weren't as adversarial as they are.

win333, what you don't get is that your "contributions" are not just typically worthless but they actually decrease the quality of this forum. You rarely understand what other people are discussing and what you post rarely makes sense. You have enough energy and spare time to leave your mark on many interesting discussions. I am not the only one of this opinion.

Why don't you start your own threads and try to stick to them? Everyone will be happier.