Consumer complaint received 2022-04-25
Company: Affirm Holdings, Inc
State: GA
Product: Payday loan, title loan, or personal loan
Sub-product: Installment loan
Issue: Problem when making payments

Complaint:
Affirm paid for an item on my behalf that was falsely advertised by the merchant, is currently in dispute due to a price discrepancy and inauthenticity of the item. The issue of concern began with a purchase I made in XXXX for an item on XXXX ( an online re-seller ). On XXXX 's website customers have an option to finance purchases through a lender. I choose Affirm as the lender. I have used Affirm several times before to make purchases using their installment loan process with no issues. The item in question was originally listed for {$1100.00} on XXXX website. A day after viewing the item, I received an alert on my phone to purchase the item for a discount of {$100.00}, bringing the price to {$1000.00}. Again, I used Affirm to finance the item from the website directly on my phone. When I reviewed the charges, I noticed that the item charged reverted back to the {$1100.00} price and not the discount that was advertised. I immediately emailed XXXX with a picture of the advertisement displaying the reduced pricing and their response was that I chose the wrong button on my screen and therefore would not receive the discounted price and they acknowledged that the seller did offer a discounted price ; they were not going to honor it. That same day, I sent a reply email stating my request to cancel the purchase because of false advertisement. XXXX and I went back and forth with emails for a week. In those emails, they said they could not cancel the purchase because it was on its way to their facility to be authenticated and that they wanted to give me an opportunity to receive it and make a decision. I requested again to cancel due to false advertisement and stated I no longer wanted the item. They sent the item anyway with no return label. I emailed them and requested a return label and informed them that the item was not what I expected on top of them overcharging me. They said it was too late to return it, because they released the funds to the seller. They also offered in the email a {$110.00} credit towards other items on their website. I replied back in my response email that all I wanted was a return label and for them to return the funds because I requested a cancellation before the package arrived due to the discrepancy in pricing. Their last emails only consisted of an offer of credit of {$110.00} for new purchases but no resolution for the additional charges, never sending a return label with the item or acknowledging that the item was not what was advertised as they claimed they authenticate all their purchases before they are sent. Then, I contacted the lender, Affirm to place the purchase in dispute and requested that they do not process the funding to XXXX because of the discrepancy of price, no return label sent and the item was not as advertised and not authentic as claimed by XXXX and their seller. Affirm requested all of the documentation needed to support the dispute : pictures, screenshoots of advertisements from my phone and the email stream of correspondence between my self and XXXX. Affirm suspended all charges on my account until they investigate with the merchant and that they would respond to me by email. In XXXX, I received an email from Affirm stating that they sided with XXXX because I did not send the item back. I called their customer care department the same day and explained the issue is that a cancellation request was sent in writing before the item was sent to me and that XXXX did not send a return label in the first place. Affirm agreed to escalate the matter to their customer care team and get back to me within XXXX days. I did not hear from Affirm until I called them on the XXXX day. I explained again that a cancellation was made on XX/XX/XXXX to XXXX before any merchandise was sent to me. I explained again that XXXX acknowledged that they would not honor my cancellation request as the item ( at the time of my request ) was on its way to their authentication facility. All of this information was in the email correspondence originally requested by Affirm. On this same day, Affirm began sending electronic alerts to my phone that my account was overdue even though it was being escalated to the customer care team. I have been receiving over due payment alerts since this last phone call. On Friday, XX/XX/XXXX, I contacted Affirm again to make sure that they were not reporting derogatory information to any credit reporting agencies while the dispute was being escalated because I was now receiving overdue payment alerts on my phone. Affirm said they are escalating this to our Customer Care team again because we see you did make several requests to us and contacted XXXX several times over the past few months. Affirm stated they would email me 14 days from XX/XX/XXXX. Today, it is XX/XX/XXXX and I received the first debt collector call directly from Affirm requesting a payment. I explained to the debt person from Affirm the situation above, and that I am waiting to receive an email from their customer care team. The collector said yes, they could see my dispute on file and that they would not call me because of the escalation request from their customer care team. I am concerned about my credit. I do not want a derogatory comment from Affirm on my credit file because the merchant, XXXX did not honor the price, merchandise or services that they originally offered.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation