Consumer complaint received 2021-01-05
Company: Chime Financial Inc
State: TX
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Their investigation did not fix an error on your report

Complaint:
On XX/XX/20, Chime emailed me an invitation to enroll in their Credit Builder program. The footnotes of the invitation said my credit would be built because my monies transferred into a secured account would be used to pay off my charges at the end of every month and the on-time payments would be reported to the credit bureaus ( page 3 of attachment ). On XX/XX/20, I enrolled in Credit Builder and the confirmation email once again had a footnote saying that the money in my secured account would be used to pay off my charges at the end of the month ( page 5 ). In the Chime Mobile Banking app, the Application Disclosure and Secured Account Agreement begins by stating I should keep the document for my records, which is impossible because it is only available in the app and can not be downloaded or emailed. ( And if there is any update to the terms, there would be no way to compare the previous terms to the updated terms. ) Section I ( A ) says in the first sentence that the balance must be paid in full every month ( read : not the statement balance ). The calculation of my balance is described as charges from previous month minus any payments and credits -- again, this calculation does not mention a statement balance. Section F says if I fail to fulfill this obligation, Chime will add negative information to my credit report. In Section 2 ( E ) ( a ), Automatic Payments can be made by choosing an option in the app called " Build Credit Safely ''. If automatic payments are enabled, my balance will be be paid one day after Statement Date. It is important to note, nowhere in the document is there a mention of a billing cycle or statement balance and this is the first mention of a Statement Date, so it is assumed that the balance of charges from the previous month will be automatically paid one day after the Statement Date. This section refers me to Section 9.b. of the Card Agreement for details but there is no Section 9.b. in that document which only has 4 sections. Section A of the Chime Credit Building Visa Credit Card Agreement again says my balance will be calculated by subtracting payments and credits from the outstanding balance from the previous month ( read : not statement balance ) plus any purchases and transactions posted. And, again, this section says the balance must be paid in full every month. Unlike the Application Agreement, the Card Agreement defines " Billing Cycle '' and " Business Day ''. But the Card Agreement first defines the " New Balance '' as the total outstanding balance at the end of the Billing Cycle, then in the Promise to Pay the New Balance is the entire amount that I owe ( again, not the statement balance ). Like the Application Agreement, Section II ( I ) ( b ) ( 2 ) of the Card Agreement says if automatic payments are enabled, payments will be applied one ( 1 ) day after the Statement Date. There is also an option in the app referred to in the Card Agreement to be notified 1 day before the automatic payment is made. In the Card Agreement, Chime says they will provide notification that the statement is available via email and that I will need to login to chime.com to view and print my billing statement. However, this is not possible, as the statement is only viewable on the app and there is not an option to print. At the end of the month, on XX/XX/20, I received an email saying my statement is available. That email said " This month 's balance is {$110.00} '' and that this is what I spent between my last statement and NOW. And because I had Safer Credit Building enabled, the money in my secured account would but used to pay off my balance on XX/XX/20. Nine hours later a second email was sent out correcting the payment date to XX/XX/20. Because the email came out on XX/XX/20 and said my balance NOW is {$110.00} and would be paid automatically, I did not look at my statement or account balance. I trusted that Chime would honor the terms of the Card Agreement and assumed I would not have my report negatively affected by following their instruction for Safer Credit Building. However, my balance on XX/XX/20 was actually {$160.00}. Chime reported this as my High Balance to the credit bureaus as well as an open balance of {$52.00}. Even though opening a new account lowers the average age of the accounts on my credit report, the open balance impacts my score significantly more. On XX/XX/20 I called Chime and asked that my report up corrected and received pat responses about when my Credit Builder Account should show up on my report. I very clearly clarified that I was not asking about when my reports would be updated, but instead, why my balance was not paid in full. The rep saw that the {$52.00} balance had cleared and posted by the end of the month but said he was not in a position to transfer the payment or to update my report so he would have to esclate the matter. Before getting off the phone with him I had him read back to me the reason for my call. On XX/XX/20, I received an email from XXXX, one of the leaders of Member Services Escalations, ignoring my request and again giving pat responses about when my reports would be updated. I promptly replied back and once again very clearly the urgency of my report being corrected as I am trying to get some security deposits back and may be evicted sooner than a dispute with the bureaus would be processed. I copied Chime 's Vice President of Member Experience, XXXX XXXX. XXXX 's response included mentioning of the billing cycle, but also that my " past month 's bill was fully paid promptly ''. I repeatedly explained that nothing in the advertisements, emails, FAQ 's, or Agreements specify that the calendar month high balance and open balance would be reported rather than the statement balances, but he refused to update my report or explain why payment is made five days after the statement closing date rather than the one ( 1 ) day it says in the Agreements and app.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation