topic Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww in Credit Cards

First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

glamchick — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:40:47 GMT

I made a payment to FPB on feb 5th to pay the card down to 10% utl and its still saying available balance $23.00 So I called them and asked them whats going on??? They told me when you send a check for payment it takes 20 days to clear!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe this?

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:45:21 GMT

glamchick wrote:
I made a payment to FPB on feb 5th to pay the card down to 10% utl and its still saying available balance $23.00 So I called them and asked them whats going on??? They told me when you send a check for payment it takes 20 days to clear!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe this?

They are required by law to post your payment to your account on the day they receive the funds.

I'm not sure what you mean by "available balance." Is that available credit, or is that balance? Are you saying they are holding your payment and not applying it to the balance, or are they just not releasing your available credit right away? There is an enormous difference.

If it's the latter, they're allowed to do that, and unfortunately it's a common tactic among lenders like the one you mentioned.

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

Red1Blue — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:47:06 GMT

You should look into setting up billpay through your bank and let the funds deposit to CC account as soon as possible. Check with your bank about billpay. It is a free service and there is no charge for the service.

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

glamchick — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:54:38 GMT

It says payment received $227 on FEb 4th sorry... Available balance $23.00. Once the balance applies the balance should be $50.00. They have already cashed the check, I check my bank account. But they said it will take 20 days??? I will never pay by check again

They report to the CB's on the 14th of every month. What do you think my credit report will say?

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:59:16 GMT

glamchick wrote:
It says payment received $227 on FEb 4th sorry... Available balance $23.00. Once the balance applies the balance should be $50.00. They have already cashed the check, I check my bank account. But they said it will take 20 days??? I will never pay by check again

They report to the CB's on the 14th of every month. What do you think my credit report will say?

I'm sorry, I still don't understand. I don't know what "available balance" means.

Is it "balance" or is it "available credit?"

Has the payment actually been applied to your current balance? I don't mean your available credit, I mean the balance that you see on the website right now.

Message Edited by cheddar on 02-13-2008 08:59 AM

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

Red1Blue — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:02:12 GMT

Some times credit card companies put a hold on the payments for 10-15 days. This could happen for the credit cards that are in early stage of issual. This is to prevent if there were any problems with the payment. After few months of usage and ontime payment, they would remove that restriction. FPB is one of those low limit starter card issuer, probably they are enforcing on you.

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

glamchick — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:04:21 GMT

yeah ive very confused to

Online it says

Current Balance $35.00

Available Credit 23.00

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

glamchick — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:06:57 GMT

ahhh I see. They didnt mention that on the phone.

The credit card had some missed payments back in 2004. I was unable to pay due to job loss so I called and asked them to reinactivate the card for full payment in 2005. On my credit report its under revoloving credit but will remain under bad accounts until 2012. So maybe thats why.

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:08:40 GMT

glamchick wrote:
yeah ive very confused to

Online it says

Current Balance $35.00

Available Credit 23.00

OK, there you go. Current Balance is $35. Which means your payment has been applied to your current balance, which they are required by law to do once they receive the funds.

Available credit is $23. That means that even though they have applied your payment to your balance, they are placing a hold on releasing the available credit back to you for 20 days. This is a crappy practice, but unfortunately is completely legal. It's also not uncommon among lenders like this one.

Sorry. But there's not much you can do about this except ditch them as soon as you are able to.

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

glamchick — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:14:13 GMT

Will do. Thanks!

But what do you think will happen when they report to the CB's? I really wanted my score to go up I started with a score of 601 when I started reading and doing the suggestions on here and now im down to 577

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:16:16 GMT

glamchick wrote:
Will do. Thanks!

But what do you think will happen when they report to the CB's? I really wanted my score to go up I started with a score of 601 when I started reading and doing the suggestions on here and now im down to 577

They will probably report that $35 balance, unless you use the card again before they report.

Holding available credit doesn't affect the actual balance on the card, and it's the balance that's reported.

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

glamchick — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:21:10 GMT

I also did not use it last month. So far what I've read on here you have to use it every month for them to report to the CB's.

I hope they do report the $35 balance and not the available credit. I thought I couldnt use the card since the available credit is $23. I was waiting until it cleared.

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

Red1Blue — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:36:00 GMT

Setup billpay with your bank and pay it electronically. That way they dont have to say wait till the check cleared. That might help you. Try it and see.

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

glamchick — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:38:12 GMT

THANKS SO MUCH EVERYONE FOR THE ADVICE : )

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

ficonovice — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:44:23 GMT

First Premier reports for me every month regardless if a payment is made or balance due. I paid the account off in November and on the 7th of every month my reports are updated. I just closed the account last month because they wouldn't waive the monthly account maintenance charges and they updated the bureaus promptly as well...

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

solid07 — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:09:24 GMT

I had two first premier cards and I never paid late on them but I closed them and my score went up 15 points, I just hated the service period!!!

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:45:17 GMT

they gave me 300 and 178 in fees. closed it the same day. try orchard--much better rebuilder. yes set up bill pay so they can't pull that crap on you. They are by far the worst card out there and that includes tribute.

Re: First Premier Bank - Payment Slowwww

designated_knitter — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:17:37 GMT

Orchard Bank will do the same thing. It doesn't matter whether you have ever bounced a check or failed to pay on time. I believe it is correllated to the size of the payment. I have an OB account for several years. Whenever I have done "the responsible thing" and payed off the entire balance, they would apply an offsetting "pending charges" to keep you from using that credit. I had a 900 CL on one card and it was close to the limit so I paid it off and they have the available credit frozen for 14 days. So I had that much less liquidity AND I didn't have the credit cushion if I had needed it.

I called and complained and asked to speak to the supervisor and told her to close my account. She offered me a 200.00 CL to give me a little bit more "wiggle room" until the other payment had "cleared" (never mind the fact that my bank showed it cleared over a week ago.

So while OB isn't quite as bad as First Premier, if you make too big a payment -- regardless of your history, they'll put a hold on your available credit.

He who has the gold makes the rules ... and unfortunately, they have the gold :-{