Consumer complaint received 2023-02-24
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Getting a credit card — Application denied
Company: FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF OMAHA (OR)

Complaint:
I applied for a credit card from First National Bank of Omaha but was turned down for reasons that make no sense at all. The reasons listed were : 1. Number of recent inquiries on credit bureau report. Inquiries can be either hard ( I requested them, via some application for credit ) or soft ( initiated by some inquiring agency, through NO ACTION of mine ; I have no control over this and dont know what would have caused them ). I have had no hard inquiries on my XXXX credit report. I have several soft inquiries : two from XXXX and XXXX from XXXX. I have no idea why XXXX made these inquiries. I have a credit account with XXXX, which I have had since XXXX, but I have not used this account in the calendar year XXXX. I cant remember when I last used it, in fact, although I could look through my records and find out. Maybe they were wondering whether they should keep the account open because I have not used it for so long. But I do not see any reason why this should count against me in any way. As for the XXXX inquiry, I did initiate that, indirectly, because the IRS had sent me a letter telling me that they had a concern that my XXXX income tax return might have been fraudulently filed. It was not, and I was trying to verify my identity to them, online. I was not successful in doing that, and had to seek help from my XXXX. XXXX, XXXX XXXX. His office informed me that there had been a lot of fraudulent claims in XXXX and XXXX because of the Covid relief payments, and many people experienced these inquiries. XXXX XXXX office did investigate, and found that in fact the IRS had cleared my account and closed my case. 

There was also an inquiry listed as being from XXXX itself, which evidently was my own request for my credit report, which in fact I did request on XX/XX/XXXX. 

2. Available credit on open bankcard accounts. I have only two credit accounts : the one with XXXX, which I mentioned above, which has a credit limit ( unused ) of {$750.00}, and a Visa card with XXXX XXXX XXXX, which has a credit limit of {$5000.00}. It does not seem to me that {$5700.00} is a very high total credit limit, although I am not sure whether this complaint from First National Bank of Omaha is that the limits were too high or too low. Perhaps this is too low, although I do not know why that would be a negative item on my credit report. 

3. Number of real property accounts. Its true, I have no real estate loans. So what? Why is this negative item on my credit report? 

Furthermore, there is a statement that I did not score well compared with other applicants. This makes no sense when I am applying for a credit card ; each applicant, it seems to me, should be considered entirely on their own individual credit worthiness. Im not applying for a limited resource such as housing, where applicants would be competing for an asset. 

There is some additional information in this letter explaining things that adversely affected my credit score. I am not sure whether this information is from XXXX or from First National Bank of Omaha, but in either case, these also make no sense. They are as follows : 4. Too few accounts currently paid as agreed. I have, as I stated above, only two open accounts, and they are both being paid as agreed and have been for the entire time being reported by XXXX, since XXXX XXXXthe last seven years. This complaint sounds as if my score might be higher if I had more accounts, but I have no need of any more. 

5. Lack of recent installment loan information. Its true, I have no installment loans. I have no need of any ; there is nothing that I need to buy that I could not pay for out of my current assets. 

6. Too may inquiries last 12 months. I have addressed this issue above ( # 1 ).

7. Too many accounts with balances. I dont know what this means. I have ONE account that could be said to have a balance because I use it fairly often. But I always pay the full amount due, every month, so even if there is a balance, it is never an overdue balance and is never more than 60 days old, at the most ( e.g., if I charged something immediately after the last account cut-off date and didnt pay it until the last possible day before the required payment date. I dont think there is anything that actually falls into such a 60-day time period ; most balances would be about 30-45 days old ). There is one other account that shows up on my XXXX credit report, from XXXX XXXX XXXX. ( For some reason this is listed twice on my report, although it is really only XXXX account ; the information is identical. I think maybe XXXX XXXX XXXX re-issued the card with a different account number because their system had been hacked into ; I seem to recall there was a problem like that. This, again, was something I had no control over. ) This account was closed in XXXX, XXXXseven years ago. I dont see how it could have any relevance to my current credit status. 

All of my credit accounts ( all TWO of them ) are listed as Open/Never late. I dont know how this could be any more positive. My credit score, moreover, was XXXX, which seems to me to be fairly high, considering that it could vary from XXXX to XXXX ( XXXX = XXXX percentile ). 

In short, there is nothing negative enough in my credit report from XXXXthe agency that First National Bank of Omaha reports that they usedto deny me the credit card I applied for.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation