Consumer complaint received 2023-03-22
Company: BARCLAYS BANK DELAWARE
State: TX
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
On XXXX XXXX, I canceled a subscription to XXXX XXXX. I received notification that my subscription will expire on XXXX XXXX. Therefore, I was quite shocked when I logged onto my credit card account and found a charge for a service that has been confirmed is canceled. I even tried to log onto the service to see if maybe they forgot to cancel me despite the email, but I was not able to logon because I do not have a subscription. 

Therefore I called Barclay cards. That is who the charge was with, and I figured that they would very easily remove the dispute a charge, since I had proof that I had canceled it, and received a verification. What ensued was so awful, and still unresolved, and it leads to a terrible problem with the company itself. First of all, they want consumers to carry the balance of the dispute a charge for 15 days before they dispute it. There is nothing that's going to change between now and 15 days except that I have to remember to come back and do it. I should not be required to carry a false balance on my account when I never carry a balance, all because they don't want to do their job. Over the course of the next hour and a half or so, I was forced to call Barclay, no fewer than five times, where I spoke with up to seven or eight different agents, all of whom claimed they could not see my previous call. I was forced to both tell a bot my verification information, then repeat it again five minutes later. One agent was in a call center or at home on speakerphone, I'm not sure, but it was so loud that when I asked her to speak to a supervisor, or to somehow help my complaint, and was obviously frustrated, she responded " Ma'am, we do not tolerate profanity. '' I was stunne because I had not used any profanity. But the quality of phone calls was so poor that she couldn't understand some of the words I was saying. I should note that I do not use profanity at all, and I had not even muttered a word as benign as darn, let alone used any profane words. When I protested, she seem to believe me, and realize it had been her mistake, but the fact that it even had to go that far is indicative of the innate problems with this company. They are making it almost impossible to dispute a charge, without a great length of time passing, in which some customers would probably forget that it was there. I tend to pay my balances on a regular basis, so because of that, it looks like I might be paying this balance over the next 15 days and therefore, I'm not disputing it. They need to not only remove this charge from my card, and except the written proof that I have, which no channels even gave me to offer them, and they need to make the dispute process, simple and streamline for all customers. Unfortunately, I have had to dispute charges with other credit issuers, often for similar reasons such as a recurring auto charge after cancellation. NO OTHER ISSUER makes a consumer carry a balance for 15 days first! 

All cards will open an investigation the day the false charge posts. Barclay encourages high balances ( which I never carry ) and has almost 30 % interest rates! I am sure they hope I will forget I have been ripped off. No agent was empowered to help. One hung up accidentally, and a supervisor purposely put me on a long silent hold just to make me wait. I hung up, called and applied with a different card issuer for a different awards card, and will be canceling this as a result. However, these unethical actions must STOP. Further, the false charge is still on my account! They are predators who do not practice ethics, and this is not acceptable. I demand the charges be removed and I will not be calling them again -- except to cancel my card!

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