In addition to displaying his Visa card, the ad names three retail shops at which Mr. Karl charged purchases.

Without the ability to charge purchases, Byron said, "the last few Christmases have been terrible."

It also offers a nationwide credit system so truckers can charge purchases on company accounts, cash checks, wire for money, or use major credit cards, enabling them to buy fuel with one credit card in several states.

Russel Kinnel, director of mutual fund research at Morningstar, compared the new funds to affinity credit cards that make small donations to causes when cardholders charge purchases.

A spokesman said tests had indicated that Sears could attract additional sales by allowing catalogue customers to charge purchases to Visa and Mastercard.

Consumers have charged purchases and calls totaling $2.2 billion to the Universal card, and owe $1 billion, said Bruce E. Reid, a company spokesman.

It would also be less attractice to charge purchases.

Addressing Representative Owens, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Select Education, Mr. Stancik detailed how school custodians charged purchases of personal equipment to school accounts.

The trouble, he said, may stem from the fact that employees holding the corporate cards are also permitted to charge personal purchases as well as those for state business.

The investigators uncovered transactions in which Mrs. Fredrickson intervened in the institute's work, established an unauthorized institute account at a furniture store and charged personal purchases to it, according to institute trustees.