Consumer complaint received 2019-05-20
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc.
State: VA
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Credit card debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action
Sub-issue: Threatened or suggested your credit would be damaged

Complaint:
I am requesting an investigation into Comenity Bank and Comenity Capital Bank including a full review of their business practices and audit of other customer complaints like mine against their company. One morning I received multiple emails telling me that my credit limits were being drastically decreased on my accounts ( the limits were reduced to well below my current balances at the time ), and just minutes later, I received multiple emails on the same accounts telling me that my credit limits were increased to just at the credit limits, and right after that I received another email saying that my credit limits were decreased again across my accounts. It was clear that these actions were being performing manually by a live person working with my accounts. This time the limits were taken down to a point where even with making my minimum payments for the accounts, the interest charges alone on the following months statements would take me into excessively overlimit statuses on each of my accounts. After seeing the same process repeated on each of my accounts with Comenity, I contacted them immediately because I was shocked and absolutely could not believe that any financial company would so brazenly launch an abusive financial tactic on any customer. I called and expressed my concerns regarding each of the actions taken by Comenity across each of my open lines of credit ; and explained via the secure message center, as well as by phone again, and I wrote them regarding my concerns. I explained to them that their actions were abusive practices and I needed immediated resolution to avoid having the accounts report as excessively over the new credit limits. Upon further review, it is now my understanding that is a common business practice that Comenity inflicts on thousands of customers. I explained to each of the representatives that would not have been able to make a quadruple payments for each of the accounts to shield myself from their flagrant disregard for what constitutes as an abusive practice and try to get ahead of the next abusive tactic from Comenity. 

After ceasing to make a payment and being told by their representatives for about 3 months that they would not consider restoring the limits and simply canceling charging privileges ( a request I made because all of my accounts were being reflected at 120 % to 140 % credit utilization due to their initial set of abusive actions towards me ), I sent them a letter for this account further detailing my concerns in an effort to connect with someone who would realize that this abusive to me as a customer. Approximately 3 weeks after I sent them that correspondence to both XXXX XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX XXXX ( addressing both the Comenity Bank and Comenity Capital Bank entities ) I checked my credit reports and Comenity had updated all of the accounts to pays as agreed and current although the last payment date never changed because I had NOT in fact made a payment since notifying them of their abuse and requesting assistance with a resolution that did not involve reporting me to be grossly over 100 % of my credit lines because of the person who sat working my accounts and cut the limits to under the balances. I have reached out several times by mail and Comenity never provided a valid response to my concerns. They flooded my mailbox with bills and letters of adverse action to the point where I couldnt even get regular mail because my mailbox was full. I received countless text messages and phone calls requesting payments, but no one would discuss the issues I had written in about. They told me that they havent received any correspondence on the accounts and that the late payments and interest were going to compound. Based on each of the credit bureaus reporting these accounts for the past year, FOR OVER 12 months every 30 days to 120 days, Comenity removes the late payment history, and updates each account to current and pays as agreed and then sends a past due report to the credit bureaus to bring my scores down. Every month for the last 12 months Comenity tacks on hundreds of dollars in fees/interest and and at the 60 day to 120 day mark they update all the accounts to past due in order to inflict significant damage to my credit scores and then they use this form of intimidation to threaten and abuse me as a customer. Additionally, they CONTINUE to FURTHER reduces the credit lines in order to aggressively report an excess credit utilization ratio to drive my credit scores down further thus making it fully impossible for me to obtain a consolidation loan to stave off a bankruptcy. I have to rely on support from my family now. While this has all happening, my mailbox is filled with hundreds of letters from them, I dont even go to my mailbox anyone, their text messages to me became more and more deceptive and aggressive, and in one day alone received in one day alone over 30 phone calls. In some instances my call records reflect 6 separate calls within a span of 4 minutes. A woman named XXXX from Comenity was  particularly deceptive in her voicemails and Im deeply concerned that this kind of intimidation abuse and harassment is allowed. Comenity even went so far as to update the payment history on multiple past due accounts in order to sell the debts as current to other servicers ( and Im not the only person theyve done this to ). In regards to my communications from Comenity I have several phone records, text messages, voicemails and litany of mailed correspondence 's from Comenity reflecting the issues outlined in this complaint. The credit bureaus Comenity reports to continue to allow Comenity to report false information for my accounts as well as the accounts of several other customers with experiences identical to mine. When I contacted the credit bureaus involved regarding their reporting practices of false information and the ongoing reporting of payment history rollbacks in order to cause further abuse with additional fees and increased interest charges, I was told that I needed to contact the creditor first to attempt resolution. The credit bureaus themselves have no systems setup to detect this kind of abuse for customers credit reports. When I wrote to Comenity requesting an explanation of their credit reporting practices, I never received a response ; only further aggressive debt collection efforts and a continuation of the payment history rollbacks, penalty fee assessments, and the same further reduced credit limits on top of the already lowered credit limits, on already grossly overlimit accounts due to their manual actions. The astonishingly deceptive and abusive business practices that I was writing them about, is exactly what they continue to do to me. I have reached the end of my rope and I have no idea what to do. Like other customers adversely affected by Comenity, I am appealing for an investigation into Comenitys business practices. I have exhausted my efforts. Due to my lack of any monetary assets or property, the settlement requests outlined in my request for resolution were sent to BOTH Comenity Bank and Comenity Capital Bank by my father in his attempt to resolve these accounts on my behalf prior to my current personal relief effort across all of my obligations ( personal, auto, etc ) via an intended Chapter XXXX bankruptcy filing. We are attempting to resolve the issues with Comenity instead of including them in a future Chapter XXXX filing for myself. I submitted follow up copies to BOTH Comenity Bank and Comenity Capital Bank as well and neither of us have received any response back from the Comenity. The following addresses each received ( 2 ) copies of the settlement requests ( one from my father and an additional copy from myself ), XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, Ohio XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Ohio XXXX, XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, Ohio XXXX, XXXX XXXX CARD XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, Ohio XXXX, XXXX CARD XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, Ohio XXXX, XXXX CARD XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Ohio XXXX, XXXX  XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, Ohio XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Ohio XXXX. The requests contained all the information needed to identify the accounts in question and the settlement requests based on the balances at the time of the requests. Time has passed since providing them with the original settlement offers. Significant additional fees and interest charges have been tacked onto the accounts, and the balances continue to grow excessively due to Comenitys violation of regulatory laws and abusive practices. I have enclosed updated terms based on the most current balances reflected on my credit reports. These amounts are the final offers being extended on my behalf prior to including these accounts in my future Chapter XXXX bankruptcy filing and escalating an investigation to the FTC of my experience and the experiences of others with Comenity. Each of the settlement payment offers must be agreed to in order to resolve this matter. Each settlement payment will be remitted to Comenity on my behalf immediately upon acceptance of all of settlement offers.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief