topic Re: Latest Advice on how to delete First Premier Bank from credit reports in Rebuilding Your Credit

Latest Advice on how to delete First Premier Bank from credit reports

newscore89 — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 00:03:03 GMT

Hello All

I'm a new member here, my 2nd post! I'm looking for information-advice on clearing up a couple of First Premier Bank charge offs reporting on my credit reports for the last 5 years. One is for $400.00 and its scheduled to fall off 9/2021 the other is for $500.00 and scheduled to fall off my report 10/2021. I previously disputed with the credit bureaus about 4 months ago with no luck, FP verified to the credit bureaus. I then came to this forum and have been reading different posts dating back as far as 2010 how members here used a "623 dispute method" via email and had success in getting FP to delete charge offs from credit reports! These members even stated they "emailed" their disputes to: presref@premierbankcard.com and that they received these type of responses from FP:

"The account was set up for you Aug 5, 2009, after received your internet application on July 18, 2009. On November 30, 2011, the account charged off with a balance of $452.98. Upon review of the specific information you provided in your dispute, First Premier Bank is requesting that the account be deleted by the consumer reporting agencies. Please allow approximately 30 days for the update."

Does anyone know if this method is still a viable option? Is the email address still valid and if so does it makes sense to try that approach? I would greatly appreciate speaking with anyone who has had success in getting First Premier Bank deleted, and what methods were used to get them to delete these dreaded charge offs.

thanks

newscore89

Re: Latest Advice on how to delete First Premier Bank from credit reports

thornback — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 00:29:47 GMT

Hi & Welcome to the forums!

First Premier is extremely difficult to remove. The posts you were reading regarding successful 623 Direct Disputes were mostly for accounts that originated or charged-off during a time when First Premier was notorious for incomplete, innacurrate, or conflicting reporting of the same account across the three (really four, including Innovis) credit bureaus.

Since ~2013 - after a lawsuit, First Premier has greatly improved their account reporting and do not make the same obvious, constant errors they used to. The only way to remove an FP charge-off is to prove they are reporting some part of the tradeline innaccurately -- and even then, it may not result in a removal but rather a correction-- which could end up lowering your score even more because they will also be sure to update the negative payment history of an account with an outstanding balance if they haven't recently updated ---- and it appears your two accounts have not yet been paid so having the payment history updated with additional derogatory status' is a very likely outcome. I, personally, wouldn't disute an account with an outstanding balance that hasn't been updated in a while unless there are significant errors in the reporting - ie. an incorrect balance amount or payment history.

All that said - Yes, the email is still valid and goes to their Business Communications dept. You can also send it via US Mail (they will respond within 2-3 weeks). Yes, a 623 Dispute is viable if you can prove innaccuracies in how they are reporting the tradeline. However -- you stated that you tried disputing with the CRAs once before -- what was the reason for dispute? Note: A Direct Dispute to the creditor that is substantially the same as a prior dispute filed with a CRA may be dismissed as frivolous or irrelevant by the creditor without any requirement for investigation of the dispute. So make sure whatever disputed info noted in your 623 letter is different then whatever you disputed previously through the CRA.

Re: Latest Advice on how to delete First Premier Bank from credit reports

newscore89 — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 04:59:48 GMT

@thornback wrote:
Hi & Welcome to the forums!

First Premier is extremely difficult to remove. The posts you were reading regarding successful 623 Direct Disputes were mostly for accounts that originated or charged-off during a time when First Premier was notorious for incomplete, innacurrate, or conflicting reporting of the same account across the three (really four, including Innovis) credit bureaus.

Since ~2013 - after a lawsuit, First Premier has greatly improved their account reporting and do not make the same obvious, constant errors they used to. The only way to remove an FP charge-off is to prove they are reporting some part of the tradeline innaccurately -- and even then, it may not result in a removal but rather a correction-- which could end up lowering your score even more because they will also be sure to update the negative payment history of an account with an outstanding balance if they haven't recently updated ---- and it appears your two accounts have not yet been paid so having the payment history updated with additional derogatory status' is a very likely outcome. I, personally, wouldn't disute an account with an outstanding balance that hasn't been updated in a while unless there are significant errors in the reporting - ie. an incorrect balance amount or payment history.

All that said - Yes, the email is still valid and goes to their Business Communications dept. You can also send it via US Mail (they will respond within 2-3 weeks). Yes, a 623 Dispute is viable if you can prove innaccuracies in how they are reporting the tradeline. However -- you stated that you tried disputing with the CRAs once before -- what was the reason for dispute? Note: A Direct Dispute to the creditor that is substantially the same as a prior dispute filed with a CRA may be dismissed as frivolous or irrelevant by the creditor without any requirement for investigation of the dispute. So make sure whatever disputed info noted in your 623 letter is different then whatever you disputed previously through the CRA.

Thanks for the reply Thornback,

A collection agency reached out to me regarding one of the "2" FP charged-off accounts(the collection company IS NOT reporting the debt at this time on any of my CR's) I sent a debt validation letter to the collection agency, and I also sent letters disputing the validity of the debt with the 3 CRA's. About 7 days later in the mail, I received a letter from FP along with copies of credit card statements with my name and address printed on them, the letter stated: First Premier Bank is the original creditor and the information is provided as validation of debt. Please retain the enclosed documents and this letter for your records., additional questions can be directed to the Customer service Department at 800- ***-***, etc I also received notification from the CRA's that the 2 FP charge offs were verified and would remain. The additional comment was added to my 3 CR's: CONSUMER DISPUTES THIS ACCOUNT INFORMATION

You mentioned: Yes, a 623 Dispute is viable if you can prove inaccuracies in how they are reporting the tradeline. Here are examples of the inconsistencies I've found on the trade line of one of the two accounts and how it's being reported across the 3 bureaus. Please let me know if you think this will suffice as evidence when I send out a 623 dispute and get them to delete the accounts as they are clearly various reporting taking place in this tradeline. I was also considering sending over to the bureaus this information as well. Im not sure if that is overkill or necessary. Your insight is appreciated. :-)

Equifax

1. The charged-off account states as being opened on Sept. 17, 2014, the 1st delinquency is reported as happening on Nov 1, 2014.

2. The payment history section states: "no data available" for Oct. 2014 & Nov. 2014.

3. The payment history also states that in Dec. 2014, the account was 60 days late...

4. The date of last payment is listed as Feb. 2015

Experian

1. The charged-off account states as being opened in Sept 2014, there is no date listing of 1st delinquency

2. The payment history section for October 2014, November 2014 is listed as: "pays as agreed or never late"

3. The payment history section states that Dec. 2014, the account is listed as: "pays as agreed or never late"

4. The payment history section states the date of last payment was Dec 2014

Transunion

1. The charged-off account states as being opened Sept 17. 2014, no listing of 1st delinquency

2. The payment history-rating section shows the account was paid as agreed-never late for Sept 2014, Oct 2014, & Nov 2014 (there should be no payment history for Sept 2014, as the account was opened on Sept. 17, and is too new to report)

3. The Payment history section states: Dec 2014--30 days late, Jan 2015--60 days late, Feb 2015--90 days late, Mar 2015--charged off

4. The report says the last payment date as 2/27/2015, but the payment history section shows the date of last payment as Nov 2014

newscore89

Re: Latest Advice on how to delete First Premier Bank from credit reports

thornback — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 06:05:34 GMT

@newscore89 wrote:
You mentioned: Yes, a 623 Dispute is viable if you can prove inaccuracies in how they are reporting the tradeline. Here are examples of the inconsistencies I've found on the trade line of one of the two accounts and how it's being reported across the 3 bureaus. Please let me know if you think this will suffice as evidence when I send out a 623 dispute and get them to delete the accounts as they are clearly various reporting taking place in this tradeline. I was also considering sending over to the bureaus this information as well. Im not sure if that is overkill or necessary. Your insight is appreciated. :-)
Equifax
1. The charged-off account states as being opened on Sept. 17, 2014, the 1st delinquency is reported as happening on Nov 1, 2014.
2. The payment history section states: "no data available" for Oct. 2014 & Nov. 2014.
3. The payment history also states that in Dec. 2014, the account was 60 days late...
4. The date of last payment is listed as Feb. 2015

Experian
1. The charged-off account states as being opened in Sept 2014, there is no date listing of 1st delinquency
2. The payment history section for October 2014, November 2014 is listed as: "pays as agreed or never late"
3. The payment history section states that Dec. 2014, the account is listed as: "pays as agreed or never late"
4. The payment history section states the date of last payment was Dec 2014

Transunion
1. The charged-off account states as being opened Sept 17. 2014, no listing of 1st delinquency
2. The payment history-rating section shows the account was paid as agreed-never late for Sept 2014, Oct 2014, & Nov 2014 (there should be no payment history for Sept 2014, as the account was opened on Sept. 17, and is too new to report)
3. The Payment history section states: Dec 2014--30 days late, Jan 2015--60 days late, Feb 2015--90 days late, Mar 2015--charged off
4. The report says the last payment date as 2/27/2015, but the payment history section shows the date of last payment as Nov 2014

newscore89

Yesss.. I think you have a good foundation for a Direct Dispute. My suggestion -- and this is based on my own success with removing my FP charge-off -- is to get your hard-copy (paper) credit report from all 3 bureaus - if you have not already. The hard-copies provide even more information for each tradeline than the web-versions, including Historical ACV data (which is the balance & payment history for the entire time the account was open) -- this is where i found a number of innaccuracies in reporting. The goal is to find as many errors as possible to push them more towards total removal of the tradeline instead of just correcting the tradeline.

With your hard-copy Experian report, you'll also be able to positively confirm that no Date of FirstDelinquency (DOFD) is reported. Go through every one of those billing statements they sent you and make sure the info there lines up with the info on your reports; if it doesn't, point it out. You should be able to determine the DOFD from your billing statments (the first time you were 30-days late past the due date). Then, the account charge-off date should be 180 days after the DOFD. This informaiton should be accurately reflected on your reports -- if not, it's part of your dispute.

****Now -- since it may take more than one dispute, don't list all of your errors in your first dispute -- save a couple for a followup dispute in case they refuse your 1st removal request. You can't dispute the same thing twice so leave a couple of the more minor or 'just misleading' items to dispute later -- this way, followup disputes won't be deemed frivolous - and with each dispute letter, your tone can become a bit more firm. Also -- if they refuse to remove but update your account - the bureaus should send you new, udpated hard-copies of your reports as well -- check them for new errors - if you find any, add them to your follow-up dispute (they made a new mistake everytime they updated my tradeline). In every follow-up dispute, add a new dispute item, but also re-list the old disputed items if they were not corrected properly.

You need to overwhelm them with paper -- I recommend sending your dispute by mail because email makes it too easy to dismiss or skim through. When a person is holding paper in hand, it kinda forces them to actually read through line-by-line. I did mine in an outline form with bullet point explanation for each innacurate notation I was disputing. But you can do it however you wish, just make sure it's clear, detailed, and accurate. List everything that you find to be innacurate or misleading and reference the report to which you are referring (ie. if the error is on Equifax, state that). Then, attach your supporting documentation -- this will be the copies of your credit reports with all of the errors highlighted and old billing statements, if applicable. Add reference numbers or letters to your highlighted errors so you may refer to them with ease in the written portion of your dispute (like Exhibit A, B, C, etc) - and it keeps the reader from getting confused. End your dispute with a request the account removed. Your dispute should start with the following sentence:

This is a Notice of Direct Dispute under the provisions of FCRA §623(a)(8)(D) and 16 CFR 660.4, of the accuracy of information First Premier Bank has reported to my credit file. This correspondence further serves as notice that First Premier Bank is in direct violation of FCRA regulations.

Mail your entire packet to:

Premier Bankcard, LLC

PO Box 5114

Sioux Falls, SD 57117-5114

Attn: Business Communications

I sent mine via USPS 2-day priority mail - but regular mail is fine too. You will receive a response -- and they are pretty quick -- maybe 2 weeks, 3 weeks max. Please understand, a single dispute may not work - you will need patience and determination and you may have to send multiple disputes. It took me a year to get them to remove this account -- BUT, your errors are much more consequential than mine were so you may have better / faster luck. Here's my detailed post about my success... https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/I-won-the-battle-with-First-Premier-Deleted/m-p/5495360#M580147

Good Luck! Please post updates here - I'd love to hear how things go!!

Personal Aphorism:

Re: Latest Advice on how to delete First Premier Bank from credit reports

newscore89 — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 06:48:54 GMT

@thornback wrote:
Here's my detailed post about my success... https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/I-won-the-battle-with-First-Premier-Deleted/m-p/5495360#M580147

Good Luck! Please post updates here - I'd love to hear how things go!!
Thornback, Thank you again, I read your post about your FP success, if I may ask; you mentioned that your score dropped 10 points because of the age of the CO's being deleted and all, ....both of these FP charge offs have been negatively reporting on my 3 credit bureas for over 5 years. In your opinion if I were successful in getting them removed.... would I be doing my FICO score a disservice? I understand that normally the 1st 1-2 years a negative account or charge off can really wreak havoc on your FICO scores.....but I've also read as time passes they cause less damage beacuse the account "ages". I've also read where some say-believe that even though the charge offs are a bad thing....they actually help give your credit reports-files the appearance of being established with "time" " Just wondering if I were successful in deleting these two accounts....would my FICO scores take a hit or would future lenders look at me as not having enough accounts etc? What are your thoughts on that?

Re: Latest Advice on how to delete First Premier Bank from credit reports

thornback — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 07:18:47 GMT

@newscore89 wrote:
Thornback, Thank you again, I read your post about your FP success, if I may ask; you mentioned that your score dropped 10 points because of the age of the CO's being deleted and all, ....both of these FP charge offs have been negatively reporting on my 3 credit bureas for over 5 years. In your opinion if I were successful in getting them removed.... would I be doing my FICO score a disservice? I understand that normally the 1st 1-2 years a negative account or charge off can really wreak havoc on your FICO scores.....but I've also read as time passes they cause less damage beacuse the account "ages". I've also read where some say-believe that even though the charge offs are a bad thing....they actually help give your credit reports-files the appearance of being established with "time" " Just wondering if I were successful in deleting these two accounts....would my FICO scores take a hit or would future lenders look at me as not having enough accounts etc? What are your thoughts on that?

Charge-offs hurt the entire time they remain on your reports-- and unpaid charge-offs hurt more becuase the outstanding balance is factored into your overall utilization and they also run the risk of being randomly updated by the creditor at any point - which will drop your scores. Even if they add age to your reports, the derog notation hurts more -- and gives a reason for creditors to deny you. Besides -- once it falls off at the 7 year mark, you'll lose the age of that account anyway (but generally, the boost from the removal outweighs the drop from age loss).

The removal of a derogatory will almost always result in a score increase -- I was a special, rare case.

Right before mine was removed, I had just opened 5 new accounts. My new accounts didn't really affect my scores at all while the charge-off was present -- but once it was removed, I was 'rebucketed' (moved to a clean FICO scorecard). Clean / non-derogatory reports are much more sensitive to credit factors such as age, utilization, inquiries, and new accounts than dirty / derogatory reports. So the new account penalty hit me hard, the charge-off was also my oldest revolving account - so i lost points for the reduction in credit age as well (I went from my oldest being 5.6 years down to ~1 year, 2 months); I had a bunch of inquiries; and my uiltization was also a bit higher than normal -- the points lost for all of those factors combined outweighed any points gained for the removal of the charge-off, so I ended up with the difference - a 10 point loss.

My current scores are lower than my scores were with the charge-off because my new accounts are just now nearing the 1 year mark and I have to make up for the age I lost when the charge-off was removed. But as I stated in my post - I'd rather have a clean report with lower scores than a dirty report with higher scores. Your score is not everything and a lender will be more willing to take a chance on someone with a lower score but no indication of previous bad behavior.

The only thing I think you should be weary of is if First Premier updates your account throughout the dispute process. Because your balance is still outstanding, they can update the payment history with a new CO derogatory mark for every month from their last update til now -- and that will drop your scores and make the charge-off look more recent. That's why I had stated earlier that I wouldn't friviously dispute an unpaid account. They wouldn't be able to update the payment history of a paid account.

Re: Latest Advice on how to delete First Premier Bank from credit reports

newscore89 — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 07:26:03 GMT

Outstanding!!!

Thank you again for the wisdom, I will definitely update this post.....fingers crossed the outcome is good! ;-)

Re: Latest Advice on how to delete First Premier Bank from credit reports

thornback — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 07:31:46 GMT

You're welcome!! Looking forward to the updates!

Re: Latest Advice on how to delete First Premier Bank from credit reports

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 00:40:00 GMT

60 can they charge off before 180 days? They charged my account of before 60 days

Re: Latest Advice on how to delete First Premier Bank from credit reports

OmarGB9 — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 01:34:17 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
60 can they charge off before 180 days? They charged my account of before 60 days

@Anonymous, I would start a new thread with your question, as this thread is over a year old and the OP may or may not still be around.