Consumer complaint received 2022-12-10
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: WA
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: Card was charged for something you did not purchase with the card

Complaint:
Back in XXXX of XXXX, I received a late payment for a credit card that I did not originally open from Paypal credit/Synchrony Bank XXXX I immediately checked my credit report and found out that back in XXXX of XXXX, someone had stolen my identity and opened a fraudulent credit card in my name while also charging over {$3500.00} to this card. I took the proper steps to immediately fix the problem; contacted the bank, closed the account, it was flagged as fraudulent and sent to the fraud investigation team-I then of course filed disputes with all three credit agencies to get it removed from my credit report. All three disputes were successful and it was removed from my credit report and I put a credit freeze on my report as well. The issue started with Synchrony bank when they forwarded my claim to the fraud department and the investigation team-no one from that department got in contact with me to ask me for any information to help with the investigation, I wasn't specifically told to file a police report ( spoiler alert ALWAYS file a police report regardless of what they tell you or DO NOT tell you ) I was basically under the assumption the fraud investigation team would handle it and let me know it was going to be taken care of. I asked them to send me the billing statements as they are required to by law if I request them, a few weeks later I recieved what looked to be an affidavit stating that I was a victim of fraud and a form to fill out explaining to the investigation team what happened, the form stated that the investigation could take up to 60 days to complete. Several weeks went by and I was still receiving billing statements from the fraudulent account, by this time they had assigned a new account number to it since there was still a debt on it, by this time it had been well over 60 days and I hadn't heard back from Synchrony bank of what the results were or if the investigation was still going on. It was now XXXX so I decided to contact Synchrony bank and I was forwarded to the investigation team, come to find out they had closed the investigation back in XXXX and my claim was denied. I was LIVID to say the least, one because I hadn't received anything from the bank stating the results which they " claimed '' to have sent a letter and two they closed the investigation supposedly after they sent me the claims form to fill out. They said they would re-open the investigation, and that I should file a police report ( you don't say! ) The reasoning for denying the claim was pretty laughable, considering that I was a victim of identity theft, I believe they stated that it didn't look fraudulent to them because my information matched, name, address, etc and that I had " supposedly '' kept up on the payments over the months-which if you think about it, isn't that what you would WANT to do if you had a fraudulent account going? So as to not get a late payment sent out to your victim 's real address and raise a red flag ( which is exactly what happened and how I found out about the account ) I think their investigation team is a fraud within itself, how do you close the investigation before you even recieve the claims form or even get any type of contact from the victim? Well as of now I have filed a police report and gave them everything I had regarding the incident, hopefully this will be resolved soon.

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