Consumer complaint received 2023-07-04
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: NJ
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Problem with fees

Complaint:
In XX/XX/2023 I applied for and received a PayPal Credit Card serviced by Synchrony Bank. This card was tied to my PayPal account. I did not receive a statement after two months use but I did receive a notification from Pay Pal that the account was in arrears. I was confused by this but assumed that there was a processing problem. I immediately debited my checking account and completely paid off the total balance on XX/XX/2023. After doing so I received notification from PayPal that a payment was made and my balance was {$0.00}.

I also contacted PayPal to report my difficulty receiving timely statements and was told to contact the Synchrony Bank about that issue. When I contacted Synchrony Bank I was told to establish a direct debit from my checking account. The customer service representative also said that interest charges and fees would be reimbursed to my account. I provided my checking account information to Synchrony Bank and assumed that the issues were resolved. 
In late XXXX I had again not received statements but was surprised that I got a notification from PayPal that my account was overdue. I had assumed that the direct debit if my checking account to pay balances was in place so I was surprised. I contacted Synchrony Bank and was told that direct debit of my checking account ( auto pay ) was not in place, and that I had a large overdue balance as well as fees and interest due. This time I asked for a review of my statements which.to my knowledge I never received. I was told to look for the statements in my Spam/Junk mail. When I did that I was surprised to find that, indeed, the statements were in the JUNK file because they were identified as service @ paypal. After reviewing the charges, which were accurate, I told Synchrony Bank that I wanted to terminate my card. After several conversations with customer service agents, and several dropped conversations, I was finally told that I could not close the account until I paid the outstanding balance, including the interest and fees from BOTH episodes. At this point I simply wanted to end my relationship with this bank and paid the balance in full. After the payment was cleared, I called to cancel the card and was told that in addition to the late fees and interest I would also forfeit my cash-back account in the amount of {$130.00}. So this experience cost me {$80.00} in late fees + {$88.00} in interest charges + {$130.00} forfeited from the cash-back account. {$270.00} in total. This after being told on three occasions that the fees and interest would be credited to me because of the mix-up.

I cant help but believe that this pattern of behavior is deliberate on the part of Synchrony Bank and the Pay Pal Credit Card. I can also assume that this response from the Synchrony Bank and Pay Pal have adversely affected my Credit Score.

This organization needs to be held accountable for this despicable behavior.

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