Consumer complaint received 2021-10-07
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: NH
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Confusing or misleading advertising or marketing

Complaint:
PayPal Credit offers 2 types of promotional purchase programs.

1 ) 0 % interest if paid in full in 6 months, with deferred interest 2 ) 0 % interest with 24 monthly " Easy Payments '' ***If you have both types promotional purchases ongoing at the same time, payments made online will be applied mostly to the Easy Payments purchase instead of the deferred interest promotion. This is in spite of the fact that on the statements it clearly lists a " Monthly Plan Payment '', which is the original purchase price divided by 24.

***If you make large payments with the intent of paying off the 6-month promotion so as to avoid paying deferred interest, the payments are instead applied to the Easy Payments balance. The result is that you wind up paying off the 24-month promotion early while also owing the deferred interest on the 6-month promotion. Furthermore, if you make a purchase and return for a credit, the credit gets applied to your Easy Payments promotion!

***There is no way to force payments to be allocated to the Easy Payments promotion in such a way that the Monthly Plan Payment is made each month, with the balance of the payment being applied to the next 6-month promotion to expire.

***This seems to me to be purposely rigged to make customers pay interest, even if they are careful about making the payments on time and in sufficient amount to pay off all active promotional purchases. It's a scam - a subtle and complicated one that I am sure makes PayPal Credit a ton of money.

***I contacted the company when I realized that my Easy Payments promotion had been paid off 14 months in advance. They made an adjustment to the account to restore the Easy Payments balance - I thought the issue was resolved. I noticed several months later that the company continued to apply subsequent payments to the Easy Payments purchase instead of other active 6-month promotions. I called back, described the issue, and the woman said an adjustment would be made within 2 billing cycles. Never happened, and in the meantime a 6-month promotion expired. This resulted in a significant interest charge on my account. I called a third time, was disconnected several times, and eventually talked to a manager who said they could not restore the Easy Payments balance. He indicated that if a customer wants to only pay the Monthly Plan Payment, they need to call and request a " same-day reallocation '' each month after they make a payment. This is insane, and none of the other customer service reps said anything about this. I also never saw anything about this in any of the promotion descriptions. 

***By this time, I could afford to pay off the remaining Easy Payments balance ( which was supposed to expire in XX/XX/XXXX ), so I requested that I be given a credit for the interest charge. I paid off the remaining balance - otherwise I would be charged interest each month, even if I continued to make the promised Monthly Plan Payment.

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 explanation