Worst Credit Card Company Ever! First Premier Bank

Although my credit used to be decent, years ago, prior to my Brain Aneurysm, spending three months in a coma (11-28-99 through mid 1-2000) plus a month after that in emergency rehab then about a year and a half in a nursing home after that (I only essentially got back on my feet early in 2002) my credit suffered sort of badly. Then, when you understand that my only income from that point forward was Social Security Disability, you can probably understand why I had to make a lot of changes in my lifestyle, financially.

This meant getting all my old credit accounts eventually paid off, and applying for new credit which I have done with Cap One, Household and a couple of other low spending limit/high cost credit cards. They have all been decent with me, even if sort of expensive on membership fees, 'participation fees', over limit fees and such. Knowing they are very expensive to use, I generally limit myself to the bare necesseties, using them for small purchases in mid-month and generally either paying them off automatically each month when my SSI check arrives, or at least paying a sizeable portion of them. After all, I do not expect to get an American Express card or any card with an open-ended credit limit, etc. Mostly I use my VISA debit card from the local bank, and I have a set routine where when SSI arrives, always on the fourth Wednesday of each month for the previous month's allowance, I have it go direct to my bank, then using my computer I pay the bills automatically. Unless something goes dramatically wrong in the next several hours, by this time tomorrow night the bank will have credited me for the SSI for this month, I will have paid the mortgage, all the utility bills for the month, all my credit cards, etc.

Although I will wake up in the morning, check the bank balance and find my usual thousand-some dollars there for the December payout from SSI, all that money will vanish during the course of the day as the bank pays all my bills. None the less, I am able to 'stay regular' and 'current' on mortgage, utilities, cable and phone, etc.

Now my complaint: for some reason I used my credit card from First Premier Bank of Sioux Falls, SD a Master Card by brand name, to pay my City of Independence water/trash pickup/maintainence bill last month. For some reason, I had been expecting an extra fifty dollars or so for a job I did, it came in and I put it in the bank I use, but it had not gotten credited yet (so was not available on my debit card). The result was it put my First Premier Bank account about $25.00 over limit. Well, okay, so now I know I am going to get an 'overlimit charge' from those pirates. but that's life. I paid the water bill, put the card back in my pocket and quit worrying about it.

On January 18 (but it was mailed January 10) I got an _incredibly snotty_ letter from First Premier Bank telling me my account had been revoked due to its overlimit and delinquent status. Delinquent? Well that's what they said. 'Overlimit' by $25 or so, which mainly came about because on the same billing cycle they charged, in addition to the monthly participation fee, an 'annual fee' to renew me for another year and some other minor fee. In other words, I quit deliberatly charging after I paid my water bill (which admittedly cut it very close to the credit limit) and I intended to not use that card any further this month or until it got paid off, one or the other.

First Premier Bank has since called me twice within the same month and even before the next payment is due on February 6 I think) demanding to know when I was intending to pay their bill. In their snotty letter First Premier hastened to let me know that future purchases would be declined and that if I attempted to use the card it would be confiscated. All that for about $25.00 overdue, no missed payments (just the current payment due) after I had had that card for about a year (never any missed payments, always monthly payments if not in full then in great excess of any 'minimum payment due'.) Their snotty letter was signed by the name "F. Dobson" of their collections department, with a phone number where that person can never be reached. I doubt "F. Dobson" even exists, it is probably just a phone name or alias they use on their collection letters. Those people are all so precious to say the least. I am going to forward a copy of this letter to the Commissioner of Banks in South Dakota, and the consumer affairs people also.

I quite agree that I had lousy credit over two or three years as a result of my hospital stay, and I quite understand that the best I am going to be able to do for now is survive with the shoddy, very expensive credit cards, but something really needs to be done about the phone call habits and letters written by anonymous people at First Premier Bank in Sioux Falls, SD .