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Edited by Hannah Locklear

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Hannah Locklear is SoloSuit’s Marketing and Impact Manager. With an educational background in Linguistics, Spanish, and International Development from Brigham Young University, Hannah has also worked as a legal support specialist for several years.

When you beat FNB Omaha in court ^^

Summary: Is FNB Omaha suing you for a debt? SoloSuit can help you take a stand and win in court.

Have you applied for a credit card with First National Bank of Omaha? If so, they may appear on your credit report as a hard inquiry. First National Bank Omaha (FNBO) has been operating for over 160 years and offers personal and financial services, including:

Credit cards
Personal loans
Refinancing
Home and auto loans
Mobile banking
Investments accounts

FNBO is popularly known for its credit card services with options like cashback, limited-time offers, and cards for building credit. That is why it should concern you if you see them on your credit report and you have not applied for a credit card recently.

FNBO on your report can lower your credit score and affect your chances of getting a loan, mortgage, or credit card. You need to investigate why they are on your credit report and find out how you can remove them to avoid unnecessary financial challenges.

Now, let's dive deeper into what you need to know about FNBO and how to beat them.

How legitimate is FNB Omaha?

FNBO is a legitimate company with its headquarters in Nebraska and offices in Illinois, Kansas, Texas, Iowa, and Colorado. It is not a debt collection company trying to scam you, but it performs credit history checks on its clients. FNBO's headquarters contact information is:

Address: 1620 Dodge Street, Omaha, Nebraska, 68197
Phone Number: 1 (800) 642-0014
Website: FNBO

FNBO had an A+ Better Business Bureau (BBB) accreditation but is currently unavailable on their website. FNBO Google star ratings vary depending on the location. For example, in Illinois, the Lake in the Hills branch has a 2.9 rating, the Sycamore branch is 4.1, and the Oswego branch is 3.6.

In short, FNB Omaha is a legitimate company, but its reputation isn't the greatest.

FNB Omaha has received many complaints

If you're feeling frustrated by FNB Omaha, you're not alone.

As of 2022, First National Bank of Omaha has received 229 complaints on its BBB profile. In addition to this, 1,907 complaints have been submitted against FNBO to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Consumer complaints include delayed card cancelation, failure to contact consumers for suspicious card usage, and illegal credit report entry. The CFPB even reported deceptive marketing and illegal billing of add-on products, ordering FNB Omaha to pay $32.25 million to 257,000 consumers who were harmed by these practices.

Let's take a look at a real example.

Example: One consumer, we'll call him Freddy, signed up for a credit card with FNBO in February 2022. Freddy started using the card and making his payments on time. After a few weeks, he got locked out of his account with FNBO. He contacted the company to ask for help, feeling very concerned about falling behind on his payments. FNBO told Freddy that he must submit private personal documentation before he would be able to access his account again. More specifically, FNB Omaha was asking Freddy for his paychecks, pictures of my SSN and ID, and other sensitive information. Freddy felt uneasy about the request for documentation, but he felt he had no other choice in order to pay the account and avoid being late. He decided to submit the documents, but FNBO kept asking for more.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act protects consumers from unfair and inaccurate credit reporting, and you can submit a complaint against FNBO on the Fair Trade Commission website.

Your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act

Lending institutions sometimes mistreat consumers or provide inaccurate credit reporting that affects a consumer's financial position. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) promotes fairness, accuracy, and privacy in the credit reporting process. The following is a summary of your rights under FCRA:

You have a right to know what is in your credit report and ask for a free credit report yearly.
You have a right to dispute inaccurate and incomplete information from the consumer reporting agency.
Consumer agencies must delete or correct incomplete, unverifiable, and inaccurate information.
Consumer reporting agencies should not include outdated negative information.
You must give consent for credit report sharing.
You have a right to order a security freeze on your credit report, and no one should access it.
Consumer agencies must tell you if your credit information has been acquired and used against you.
You may sue violators in a state and federal court.

Some states have additional consumer reporting laws. Contact your local consumer protection agency or the Attorney General's office and find out if FNBO has violated any state law.

Steps to remove FBN Omaha hard inquiry from your credit report

A hard inquiry occurs on your report if you have applied for new credit and the lender wants to check your borrowing and spending habits. Removing a genuine hard inquiry may not result in any change to your credit score.

However, you can take these three steps to remove a hard inquiry resulting from identity theft, an inaccurate hard inquiry, or an overdue or canceled hard inquiry.

1. Request your credit report

FCRA allows consumers to receive a free credit report from Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Carefully check your credit report for the FNBO hard inquiries and verify that the inquiry is not familiar. The credit bureaus will label the section as a hard or recent inquiry.

If you find any debt entries from debt collecting agencies in the process, you can send SoloSuit's Debt Validation Letter for clarification and possible removal of the debt from your report if the creditor fails to validate the debt.

2. Dispute the hard inquiry

You have the right to send a dispute letter to Equifax, Transunion, and Experian. These credit agencies give you a step-by-step process of submitting the dispute online. Take it a step further and send the dispute via certified mail as hard evidence.

Once you submit the request, check the progress online in each bureau's dispute center. The dispute process takes 30 days to give the bureaus time to check the inquiry's validity with FNBO. Sometimes you may fail to recognize a legitimate hard inquiry if you did the following:

Sought out financing as you shopped for a car, and the dealership sent your loan application to several lenders, including FNBO, to get the best interest rates.
The same scenario as above occurs if you solicited mortgage rates online and the mortgage servicer sent your application to FNBO to check if they have competitive rates.
Requested for expensive home repairs and gave out your social security number. The vendor may take that as a go-ahead to check your credit for payment security.

A legitimate hard inquiry will remain on the credit report, while an inaccurate or unverifiable inquiry will be removed. If the hard inquiry was due to identity theft, take further action and put a fraud alert on your credit reports, contact FTC, file a police report, and consider freezing or locking your credit.

3. Examine your credit report regularly

Examine your credit report regularly to prevent fraudulent activities and errors from appearing on your document. Always review everything that is listed and address anything you do not recognize. Additionally, you can monitor your credit scores for free with Experian. Watch out for unexplained drops that indicate fraudulent activities, unpaid debt, or illegal debt entry.

SoloSuit can help you deal with illegal debt entry on your credit report using our Debt Validation Letter, which forces the creditor or debt collector to prove the debt belongs to you.

Respond to a debt lawsuit against FNB Omaha

If you are being sued by FNBO, don't give up hope. You can respond in court and win your case. Here's how.

The first step to beating FNB Omaha in court is to file a written Answer to the debt lawsuit. Here are some tips to follow when drafting your Answer:

The Answer is not the place to share your side of the story: Instead, you should focus on responding to each claim listed in the Complaint document. You can deny, admit, or deny due to a lack of knowledge.
Deny, deny, deny: As you respond to each claim, keep in mind that most attorneys recommend denying as many claims as possible. This forces FNB Omaha to prove each claim is true. If FNBO doesn't have the necessary documentation to prove a claim, the case may be dropped.
Include your affirmative defenses: An affirmative defense is any legal reason that FNBO should lose the case. One common affirmative defense that is used in debt lawsuits is the statute of limitations. This is the time period that a creditor can sue someone for a debt. If the statute of limitations has passed, the lawsuit is void and the case should be dropped, but only if you state this affirmative defense in your Answer.
Use standard formatting or “style”: Your Answer should be clean and professional. It should include a caption at the top of the document that lists the court information, party information (name and address of the plaintiff and defendant), and most importantly, the case number. You should use standard font, margin size, etc.
Include certificate of service: At the end of the document, include a certificate of service that shows you properly served the opposing party. It should list the address you send the Answer to, as well as the name of the attorney representing FNB Omaha. Some states have a statewide form for the certificate of service.
Sign it: Last but certainly not least, make sure to sign your Answer. Most courts reject legal documents that don't have a signature. So, to avoid having your Answer rejected, sign off!

Learn more about these 6 tips here:

SoloSuit can help you draft and file an Answer in all 50 states.

h2>What is SoloSuit?

SoloSuit makes it easy to fight debt collectors.

You can use SoloSuit to respond to a debt lawsuit, to send letters to collectors, and even to settle a debt.

SoloSuit's Answer service is a step-by-step web-app that asks you all the necessary questions to complete your Answer. Upon completion, we'll have an attorney review your document and we'll file it for you.

Respond with SoloSuit

"First time getting sued by a debt collector and I was searching all over YouTube and ran across SoloSuit, so I decided to buy their services with their attorney reviewed documentation which cost extra but it was well worth it! SoloSuit sent the documentation to the parties and to the court which saved me time from having to go to court and in a few weeks the case got dismissed!" – James

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