July 7, 2026 Elliot Richardson and Sam McLain
On June 25th, Governor Pritzker signed four pieces of legislation aimed at protecting consumers from exploitative practices. These bills will impact small businesses and raise the question: Why aren’t small businesses also being protected from predatory lending?
Ticket Resales
House Bill 4984 protects consumers of event tickets from unreliable resellers who sell “ghost tickets” through new requirements for the ticket resale market. Resellers can no longer sell any ticket that they do not own at the time of listing or advertising for sale. Resale marketplaces must ensure that their users comply with this rule. The bill is effective immediately.
Senate Bill 318 seeks to make tickets more accessible and competitively priced. Venues and ticket-sale sites place limits on the number of tickets an individual consumer can purchase, but these limits have been circumvented by people using automated bots to purchase the maximum number of tickets multiple times. This bill makes the bot loophole illegal. The bill goes into effect on January 1st next year.
Hidden Fees
House Bill 228 addresses the issue of hidden fees by banning businesses from advertising products and services with prices that do not include mandatory fees or surcharges. The bill goes into effect on January 1st next year.
Lender Oversight
Senate Bill 3561 helps consumers who use buy-now-pay-later loans make well-informed financial decisions by providing oversight over potentially predatory lenders. Buy-now-pay-later loans (BNPL loans) are financing options used at the time of purchase that split a purchase into four or fewer payments and require all payments to be made in full within 120 days or fewer. This bill requires that any lender providing BNPL loans must register for a license with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Under this license, they must fully disclose to the consumer all information about their repayment terms, interest rates, and potential fees, while maintaining a fair and transparent dispute or refund process. They must also not enter into BNPL loan agreements with any loan recipient who is unable or unlikely to pay back the loan promptly. Lenders have until January 1st, 2028, to comply with this bill.
The Impact on Small Business
Ticket resale practices, like mass bot purchases and “ghost tickets,” harm local event venues. They create confusion when customers are unable to use purchased tickets and hurt venues’ reputations. House Bill 4984 and Senate Bill 318 are good for small businesses. Businesses should understand the requirements established by House Bill 228 and make any necessary adjustments. Senate Bill 3561 is intended to help protect everyday consumers from BNPL loans with unclear and predatory clauses. Indirectly, this bill may help small business owners and sole proprietors who use short-term financing to procure capital investments.
There is a crucial question policymakers should consider: Why don’t the same transparency rules that apply to consumers also apply to small businesses? Legislation known as the Small Business Financing Transparency Act has been filed in the Illinois House that would require non-bank lenders to disclose the most important terms of a loan and not hide the ball when it comes to commercial financing. This legislation should be passed immediately to protect small businesses in the same way as consumers.
Sam McLain is a Policy Research Intern at the SBAC and a rising senior at Northwestern University studying Philosophy and Political Science.