Consumer complaint received 2023-02-01
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: NM
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Overcharged for something you did purchase with the card

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I had purchased an item for {$2900.00} from XXXX XXXX XXXX after getting approved for a Synchrony Bank credit card. This card was a 0 % interest if paid in full within 12 months card. Immediately I had done the math and set up automatic payments of $ XXXX ( leaving the last month to be less than {$250.00} ) to pay off the card in 12 months. These payments were coming out on the XXXX of every month starting XX/XX/XXXX. I never logged back into my Synchrony account once the automatic payments were started and going out every month without a " glitch ''. XX/XX/XXXX I received an email, which unfortunately I did not see in my inbox, that my automatic payments were cancelled, then a follow up email that they were restarted, which I did not perform these actions. My XXXX payment of {$250.00} still went out normally. But on XX/XX/XXXX Synchrony tried to charge me the remaining balance of {$2100.00} which bounced because I do not keep that amount of money in the account the payments are coming out of. I did not notice any of this as I do not log into the account, nor did I receive any notification ( email, phone, etc. ) that my XXXX payment was missing as they tried to charge me the remaining balance without my authorization. Once I noticed, about XXXX, that my {$250.00} payment to Synchrony did not go out, I logged into my Synchrony account to find out what is going on. That is when I found out that they changed my automatic payments from {$250.00} to " The remaining balance '' back on XX/XX/XXXX without my authorization, and that is when I searched my email inbox and found those emails showing that they changed my automatic payments to pay the remaining balance. I also got charged a late fee of {$30.00} since my {$250.00} didn't go out, and the {$2100.00} charge bounced. I contacted Synchrony about what happened and they stated that it had to be me who changed the automatic payments to " remaining balance ''. At this time I changed the password to my Synchrony account, and had Synchrony Support, help set up my automatic payments again to {$250.00} a month to insure that I did not set up the automatic payments wrong ( even though all the payments that I had set up earlier from XXXX went smoothly ). I also paid XXXX 's {$250.00} so I wouldn't be behind in payments. Now that everything was setup by Synchrony XXXX everything would run smoothly correct? WRONG. With my automatic payment set up at {$250.00} on the XXXX of every month by Synchrony themselves, again XX/XX/XXXX they tried to charge me the remaining balance of {$1900.00} which again bounced for the same reason as before. But this time, instead of marking the payment as late, they tried charging the same amount again on the XXXX of XXXX but I had that amount of money in the account at that time as I had received a refund from my University between charges. Them charging me {$1900.00} drained that account completely and I still had other bills that needed to come out of that account which has caused financial stress for the rest of XXXX. I am a XXXX veteran who is a XXXX XXXX XXXX living off of my XXXX pension that I get the 1st of every month, so I live on a fixed income. Anyway, I contact Synchrony again on XX/XX/XXXX, and this time they acknowledged that it was their fault, and that the " system glitched '' and tried to charge the remaining balance. They said there was nothing that they could do besides send a physical check of what was charged minus the XXXX payment of {$250.00} by mail that would take 3-5 business days to arrive. So this check should be in the amount of {$1600.00}. As I am writing this, it is XX/XX/XXXX and I have not received the check, but they already put my remaining balance back to {$1600.00} on the credit card account. In short, they racked up a ton of late fees for me, from them and my financial institution, they have caused financial stress and anxiety, and they still have my {$1600.00}.

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 monetary relief