Consumer complaint received 2021-05-24
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: IA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Information belongs to someone else

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX, I received a billing from Synchrony Bank/Chevron and Texaco Visa indicating that there was a credit card in my name at an address that I have not lived at since early XXXX, over 20 years ago ( Exhibit A ). The person who bought my house in XXXX hand-delivered this bill to me in XX/XX/XXXX at the address at which I have lived since early XXXX. This bill indicated that there was a balance of {$6000.00} on this account, which was shown as the card limit, with a payment due on XX/XX/XXXX. 

I immediately went online and disputed this transaction through my credit monitoring company, XXXX. I also drafted a letter and forwarded it by certified mail to Synchrony in XXXX XXXXXXXX at the address on the back of the billing statement identified as the location to which to direct billing mistakes ( Exhibits B & C ).

In response, I received a letter from Synchrony dated XX/XX/XXXX ( Exhibit D ), indicating that they had received notice of my dispute, closed the account, and directed the major credit bureaus to remove the account for my credit report, and advised me that it would take up to 60 days to complete the process. 

A few days later in XXXX, I received a billing statement ( Exhibit E ) ( which the buyer of my old home put in my mailbox as it was still addressed to my 20 year old address ) reflecting that the {$6000.00} debt on this account had been XXXX out. I naturally assumed, of course, that the {$6000.00} credit was in response to the online and/or the written disputes that I had earlier entered/forwarded, and that this matter was now resolved. 

Several months later, in XX/XX/XXXX, my XXXX credit monitoring service sent me an alert that the debt was still on my credit report, and that the credit bureaus were indicating that someone had been making payments on the account and then billing charges substantially in excess of the credit limit ( over {$12000.00} ). As a result of that alert that Synchrony had had been receiving payments, and permitting additional charges to be made on an account in my name that Synchrony had represented that Synchrony had closed, I made a phone call to Synchrony and, after being transferred through multiple different parties, finally spoke with an individual who was representing himself as being part of Synchrony 's fraud department. He indicated that the case had been investigated and that the claim I had made had been denied. Apparently, the denial letter was ( still being ) sent to my 20-year-old address, as I never received it. When I expressed that I had already been advised in writing that the account was closed, that I had not lived at this address for 20 years, and that I had sent Synchrony a certified mail letter 2 months earlier, he indicated that the letter I had sent to the address on the back of the billing statement was not the proper address for filing my billing claim, which was demonstrably untrue.

I told the Synchrony representative that somebody obviously used my name and a 20-year-old address to apply for a credit card in my name. I insisted ( as I had in my XXXX certified mail letter ) on seeing a copy of the application that was filed for this card, to confirm that my signature was not on it. Additionally, I asked the Synchrony representative to note that somebody had been making payments on this card between XXXX and XXXX, and that person wasn't me, and that it should not be difficult to trace the source of those payments to the individual who was committing this fraud in my name, but I got nowhere with this supposed fraud department representative, except to be advised that he would send complaint paperwork to my current address and that I had to start the dispute process all over again. I was, understandably, very angry at this point. 

So, I again wrote to Synchrony 's Fraud Department on XX/XX/XXXX ( copy included in attached documents ), by certified mail, laying out all these facts, and attaching each of the referenced documents and certified mail return receipts. I also sent them copies of my credit reporting agency 's report still showing 2 of the 3 credit reporting agencies reporting the account as delinquent, and advising Synchrony that this reported " default '' was affecting my credit rating on both of those two accounts by at least 50 points from my XXXX rating of approximately XXXX by these 3 agencies. I noted that I had recently refinanced my home mortgage to take advantage of the historically low interest rates, and this lower credit score resulted in my having to accept a higher interest rate than I would have qualified for with my previously stellar credit rating. 

Again ... .crickets. No deletion from my credit reports, and no copies of the application or payment identity documents I had repeatedly requested. They clearly did not care that they had made all the mistakes, not me, and had made no effort to simply check into the paperwork opening the account, and/or into who is making the payments on the account, to confirm this account was not, and had never been, mine. 

Then, by letter dated XX/XX/XXXX ( copy enclosed ), I received the first letter in this matter mailed to my current address ( for the past 20 years ), but instead of being the documentation i had requested on multiple occasions which would easily prove the fraud, it was a collection letter from XXXX advising me that " my '' {$12000.00} account balance had been placed by Synchrony with XXXX for collection. While I immediately wrote the demand letter to XXXX with a complete history and all this documentation demanding they get the documents from Synchrony ( XX/XX/XXXX letter enclosed XXXX, at this point I have no expectation of Synchrony 's compliance at this point, either. 

In the meantime, I have, as shown on the copies of credit entries by my reporting service, a Synchrony account shown as closed and current ( presumably the one related to their original letter to me advising the account was closed ) and a second entry indicating the account is delinquent. They do not reflect the entire account numbers for these two entries, so I can not tell whether there are actually two separate accounts, or two erroneous entries on the same account.

Please help me. Please ask Synchrony to provide proof of their application, and of all source information on the account payments and purchases. Any one of these items should make the fraud clear. Thank you ( and it is not lost on me that, after sending correspondence to Synchrony letting them know that I am a lawyer, and they still blow me off, how difficult it must be for many Americans to deal with these companies - so thank you for you ).

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 non-monetary relief