What business owners can do about their credit

Since the collapse of the financial market in 2008, regulators have enacted a slew of reforms intended to protect consumers and small business owners from unfair banking practices. While consumer credit fell in August, it continues to rack confidence and spending activity - a trend that has stalled the overall economic recovery. The 2009 Credit CARD Act includes a number of provisions designed to protect consumers from credit lending practices, such as undisclosed rate hikes and fees, but that bill was never extended to business credit cards. Accordingly, small business owners have been faced with a difficult credit situation. Before making any sudden credit decisions, business owners should first get a free score, which they are entitled to under the 2003 The Fair Access to Credit Transactions Act. "Make a note of anything that may be incorrect," writes Bob Dahms for the Bellingham Herald. "Consider this: The credit reporting agencies process around five billion pieces of data per month. If they do so with an error rate of one-tenth of one percent (pretty good!), then they are entering five million errors every month. It's likely you will find some errors in your report."