Consumer complaint received 2019-07-09
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: WI
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Struggling to pay your bill
Sub-issue: Credit card company won't work with you while you're going through financial hardship

Complaint:
My Paypal Credit account went past due in or around XXXX or XXXX of this year. After receiving multiple calls. I received a message that my account would be sent to collections. I do not know if this was an in-house collections or if it was sent to another company, I didn't keep track because I assumed they would honor their agreements. I returned the call where I was offered a payment agreement that stated in exchange for me scheduling my next three payments of {$270.00} with them over the phone I would be allowed to continue use of my account during the three months the payments were made even if my account showed past due, I would no longer receive collections calls, my account would not be reported to as past due to credit bureaus and my account would be reset/re-aged at the end of the three payments. The first two payments completed successfully and I was able to continue use of my account during those two months. Sometime after the second payment I started receiving collections calls again, roughly about XXXX of this year. I returned their call at XXXX and explained that I had a payment agreement and was told that servicing of Paypal Credit changed companies and that they didn't have all payment agreement information, they were investigating due to multiple calls, and that they would honor the previous agreement and my account would be re-aged 48 hours after my last scheduled payment in the agreement. Soon after my payment posted but the account was never re-aged. I called again and was told they misspoke, the department that does that is not open on the weekends and it would be reset after 48 business hours. I called again after this period of time and was told again they must have misspoke, I needed to call a second number because they set up the agreement. I called that number twice and both times I was transferred 2 to 3 times before finally being transferred to a number where I received a recording that stated this number was no longer in service. I called XXXX again and was told that they would set up a complaint for investigation. I finally called back today and was told my payment agreement never existed and they will not be re-aging my account. I would like to point out that now my account shows three months past due rather than the original one or two and my account is still in past due status. Exactly why would I set up a payment agreement that despite making payments every month allowed my account to fall further past due than it originally was? Now they want me to pay an over {$800.00} minimum payment to bring my account current which should not be the case, I can not afford, and if I could afford it my account would have never went into a past due status to begin with and they are now refusing to assist. Additionally, I believe that the original collections call, either in - house or with a different company, may have even recorded the conversation with me.

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