Complaint Review: FIRST PREMIER BANK

I've recently become a customer of First Premier and I wish that I had done my research prior to taking the card with them. I received my Master Card with a 300.00 limit, of that $300.00 limit I was already into the company for $178.00 in fees. Employees please don't respond and tell me that I should have read the discloser statement because I read it fully. Any way, the day that I got the card I went to the web site and made a payment of 100.00 plus the $7.00 fee to submit the payment online. I made two charges on the card simply to show activity and payment on the card prior to my putting it away.

Within a week of the two charges I went back to the website and attempted to make payment for the charges that I had placed. The web site would not allow me to pay for the charges because it was saying that I would end up with a credit balance. Therefore it did not take the payment. I went ahead and made a payment for the balance that was showing on the card and came back the next day when the other charge had posted and submitted another payment. Mind you each of these payment was charged $7.00 for my submitted them via the internet.

Yesterday I received a notice in the mail from First Premier advising me that my credit privileges had been suspended for Fraudulent Payment Activity and to please call them. Okay, first you have to securely log into there web site and submit the payment and give them your checking account information.

Secondly who in their right mind would make a payment on my credit card other than me? So I call them to verify that it was me that made the payments and they would not reinstate the credit card. They advised me that they were going to call my back and verify the checking account. I'm sure that reads and going to think that this is crazy, but it's the truth.

They have suspended my credit privileges for making payments on my account and I was not allowed to verify that it was me that made the payment. This is absolutely nuts! I argued with the supervisor over and over and she continued to tell me it was for my safety to keep things from bouncing off my checking account.

Now I'll be honest with you at this point I really lost time temper. Who are they to assume that I don't have enough money in my checking account to cover payment I'm submitting? I asked about closing the account only to be informed that I'll still be responsible for all of the start up fees associated with this credit card. So now it's cost me $178.00 in startup fees and $21.00 in fees for submitting my payments via the web only to have a credit privileges suspended. I'm closing this account.

I'll pay the fees to keep from going any further with the crooked company. I want to rebuild my credit, but this company obviously isn't the one is use to accomplish that. Consumers beware; it's bad enough to have suffered through bad credit and bankruptcy then to have a company like this blatantly take advantage of you.

I've been using First Premier for about four months now and have been a useful tool to re-establishing other forms of credit. Like you, I've often paid in lump sums in order to avoid interest rates(which, with First Premier, are reasonable). But unlike you, I decided to use Western Union Quick collect to make the payment as opposed to sending a check and depending on the pony express. It is, after all, going to South Dakota.

The 12.95 for Quick Collect is worth the piece of mind when you are dealing with big payments.

For a company nearing 4 million cardholders, 1200 upset customers is common with likely an business offering a service. Not everyone will realize you are protecing them as well as the Bank. To avoid not knowing about fees and other terms and avoid problems with credit card please READ applications and also READ terms and conditions when applying and/or recieving credit card. Maybe the reason people are truthfully upset is they are mad at themselves for not going through the material when it was orginally given to them.

I have checked with the Better Businsess Bureau and I was unable to obtain any reports against First Premier. I will continue to researh regarding this company, however, I think that if 1,200 people are disatisfied with the company these reports should be forward to the Better Business Bureau as well as any other consumer agencies that will prevent the bad business practices that all 1,200 people are complaining of regarding this company.

First of all, First PREMIER is a sub-prime credit card issuer. This means that they provide credit rebuilder cards for individuals who have had problems with credit such as bankruptcy, divorce, repossessions and the like.

This scenario changes many of the rules of building, having, and using credit. Thus the need for funds verification on large payments. IF a payment is sent in, but not verified by the Security deparment, several things may happen, which may cause the funds to be reversed as a payment to an account.

This would then cause astronomical overlimit and late charges, which were disclosed to the account holder at the time of application. This would also cost the account holder credit priviledges and hurt the scoring that qualifies that account holder for future benefits on the account, such as credit limit increases.

PREMIER does take into consideration previous payment history and amount of prior payments as well. So, in short, this method of payment verification is put in place to protect both the bank and the consumer.

The long waiting period may be a result of high volumes, as I can attest that several hundred thousand payments are posted daily.

Individual customer support is priority at First PREMIER. But, everyone makes the mistake of overlooking one payment now and again. Be patient. Maybe this isn't the right KIND of credit card or credit card company for everyone...maybe not for you!