Consumer complaint received 2023-09-19
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc.
State: MI
Product: Credit card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
XX/XX/XXXX, Approximately {$270.00} was the original charge, Ulta Beauty XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX, MI XXXX I am disputing this charge because of the following situation. Both because of the terrible service I received from Ulta Beauty AND Comenity Bank servicing this line of credit. 
I had my original appointment for cut and balayage color on Friday at XXXX. The appointment lasted 5 hours and I left with a color far different than what I requested and lines where the dyed edges zigzagged jagged all around my head, not like a balayage I have ever had or what I asked for, nor did she give me the cut I asked for, she actually refused to. I came back the next day, Saturday XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX to see the same hair stylist to give her the opportunity to fix it. I was there for another 4 hours. She straightened the dyed edge lines, but at that point I had a diagonal line edge around my head, instead of a blend down the way a balayage is supposed to go and the color was still not the right color. After a few days, I came back into the store and spoke with the manager there to request my money back. She convinced me to try another fix with a master stylist form another store. I dont have the date of that appointment in my calender, but I went in for another XXXX hours about a week later with a different stylist and after working with my hair and trying a few things, she said that the previous stylist had damaged my hair so that it would no longer hold color and she would not be able to get it to the red that I wanted ( what I always have done ). She got the balayage blended although it had to be higher than I wanted it, but at least that was better. Finally, in a day or two, I received a call from a master stylist specializing in red hair from another Ulta store who said that she would be able to get the red that I wanted back into my hair despite what the last stylist said and what the first stylist had done. So, on XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX, I met with XXXX at a store far from where I live for a 3 hour appointment to try to get the color right. She was able to get the color closer to what I wanted, but not exactly. And about 2 weeks after the appointment, the color had faded almost to blond, because my hair could not hold the color, and still has not been able to hold any color since then when I try to have it dyed, so my long hair has been ruined. So, I wasted a total of 15 hours of my time and {$80.00} in tips to the stylists at this point for their time and effort, for my hair to be left ruined.

After I was tired of trying to reconcile this with Ulta, I decided just to pay the charge because I didnt want to deal with it anymore, but I knew after all those tips, I would have to make payments on the balance, so I waited for my statements, which never came from Comenity. So I downloaded the app to pay there ( I had an Ulta card in the past and was able to make payment to my card through the app in the past ), but because I didnt have a card and never got a statement, I didnt know my account number, so I couldnt log into the app. After about 3 months, I finally got a call from Comenity Bank and was able to request a new card so I could have my full account number and use the app to pay ( and made a payment by phone at that time ). I was not made aware that I had already started accruing late fees. Once my card arrived, I still was not able to log into the app or online because they had changed my account number and sent me a card with the wrong account number on it and when I called to get help, no one could assist me, they told me that I could continue to pay when I received the monthly calls from Comenity, so I continued to do that for several months, not realizing that I was only getting calls from Comenity AFTER my payments were already late and I had already been charged a late fee. In XXXX, when I got my call and asked how much I had left because I figured I should only have had about {$50.00} left to pay and I was going to pay it off, they told me my balance was {$380.00}, and I was dumbfounded. When I learned that I had been charged late fees of {$40.00} every single month for several months and knowing that I have already paid for more than my service was worth, the Comenity representative encouraged me to file a dispute for the entire charge. She said I have to dispute this charge, because the representative said she would not be able to reverse all of the late fees. And what a surprise it was to hear that I COULD NOT pay over that app after all of these months talking to people on the phone trying to get help logging in so that I could pay and NO ONE had told me this before then. There is absolutely no way that I will be paying {$380.00} more for a service that I never should have paid for in the first place. Especially not to a bank that has provided such awful customer service. After the first dispute, I received no correspondence from Comenity Bank until a couple of months later when I got a call to collect payment again. That representative told me that the dispute had been closed because they did not get information they requested from me. I never received any request of information from them. This representative filed a new dispute for me over the phone, and told me I will get follow up emails in this regard. I never received these emails and after about a month, started receiving late payment calls again. The next representative told me that they could not file disputes for me over the phone ( even thought the last representative did ). I also found out during a later call with my XXXX XXXX financial advisor on the call, that all correspondence was going to my messages online, at the account which I never registered because it required an account number which I only had the incorrect number. They told me they were expediting to me a new card so that I can log in online to see the messages regarding the information they needed to file the dispute. I just found out from XXXX today XX/XX/XXXX that they never sent me a card because they were not allowed to do so because my account was too far past due. XXXX is now telling me that I must pay {$100.00} to get my card current in order to be able to receive an actual card in the mail so that I can log in and file a dispute. I will not pay them more money than I owe. Now they are just telling me that they are noting I am refusing to pay them so they can further dock my credit. My credit score went from XXXX to XXXX and all of my other creditors lowered my limits, thus increasing my payments which is not throwing me into financial hardship. I need to file a complaint against Comenity Bank for allowing my balance to skyrocket without notifying me, giving me no recourse to make on time payments, like I usually do, providing terrible miscommunication and no help over these last 10 months, in fact making this situation ten times worse.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief