Consumer complaint received 2019-02-20
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc.
State: CO
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Problem when making payments
Sub-issue: Problem during payment process

Complaint:
Back on XX/XX/XXXX I set up payments to come out on the exact day on the due date with XXXX ( XXXX XXXX ). For awhile this was going fine. After the last payment was set to pull from my checking account I called the company a few days later to close the account and pay the remaining balance of XXXX. The date I called them to pay this balance and close the account was XX/XX/XXXX. I have reviewed complaints that have been submitted to the XXXX. There are numerous complaints of the company charging fees to cardholders after they have paid off the balance and requested the account to be closed. The evening of XX/XX/XXXX I logged into the online account website and saw that I was charged a finance charge. When I called this morning XX/XX/XXXX around XXXX Mountain time to dispute this finance charge due to the fact that I had made the payment of XXXX and told the supervisor I was speaking to to close the account I was told that the finance charge was waived by that supervisor yesterday. I requested a letter to be sent to me via email showing that the account has a zero balance and that it is closed. After awhile I did not see this email so I called the company back at XXXX XXXX XX/XX/XXXX. I was advised that it could take time to receive the email ( between 4 hours and 24-48 hours ) and at that time the call ended. When I checked my email later on I did see that I had a message in the secure message center on the online account website. I checked the message and it showed a balance of XXXX and the account being closed but that I could still receive fees due to this balance. At XXXX XXXX XX/XX/XXXX I called the company back and after explaining my issue yet again. On this call I was told that my last set payment came in late. I find it very funny how the payments are set up through them and the payment came late to them and suddenly that is my fault. It was explained to me when I was actually allowed to speak and voice my concerns that a supervisor waived that late fee. I asked yet again in confusion why I was being charged a late fee. According to the representative it was simply coded as a waived late fee. The finance charge was never waived though which went against what I was told just hours before. She said she was not allowed to remove this late fee as the system would not allow her. She said she was going to reach out to her supervisor via XXXX and ask that it be waived. From what she said this supervisor had stepped away from their desk so she attempted to reach another and put me on hold. A few minutes later she came back on the line and advised me that the second supervisor she reached out to removed this finance charge but it would take 24-48 hours to show and that they would be sending out a XXXX  balance letter on a closed account via the secure message center today ahead of time as she had received permission from the supervisor that waived the finance charge to send this letter. If they have not received all of my payments they are obviously going to charge more fees. On my bank statement the initial payment of XXXX is just now processing and the XXXX is nowhere to be seen. If I receive anymore late fees or finance charges I will be taking this complaint up as high as I can and even reaching out to a lawyer if I have to. I should not have to go through all of this XXXX to simply close a credit card account that I do not want. This company seems to not care about the best interest of their customers and want to scam people out of a remotely decent credit score and hard earned money. I urge anyone that is looking into getting a credit card to steer very far away from this company.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation