Consumer complaint received 2021-09-22
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: CT
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Closing your account
Sub-issue: Company closed your account

Complaint:
I had 9 credit card account with Synchrony Bank ( aka Synchrony Financial ). My average credit score with the 3 credit bureaus is over XXXX ( Excellent ), have a perfect payment record, zero defaults, no public record, zero debt utilization and {$27.00} total debt on about XX/XX/2021. 
On around XX/XX/2021 I applied for credit limit increases on all my credit cards that allowed me to do this without any impact to my credit record. Synchrony Bank approved my credit limit increases on all 9 of their credit cards and in some cases granted me credit limit increases much more than what I requested for. They positively reported 2 of these credit limit increases and on the next day ( about XX/XX/2021 ) closed all 9 of my credit cards with them without any notice whatsoever. Upon looking at the 9 closed accounts on my XXXX credit report I saw that the new higher credit limits were reported by Synchrony on all of the 9 credit card accounts with the description " Exceptional payment history '' and " Closed by Bank ''. 
I called the bank several times and was told that the accounts were closed because I was deemed to be " high risk ''. They could not explain why since my credit record showed no such evidence. They explained that the decision was final and there was nothing I could do to appeal this decision to close the 9 credit card accounts.

I asked about one of the new cards where I was owed a {$100.00} bonus for fulfilling the promotional offer but was told that I lost that because the account was closed ( even though it was the bank that closed it for no current reason or evidence of any type of default on my part ).

If high risk was the reason for closing the 9 credit cards why then did Synchrony grant me credit limit increases the day before on ALL 9 credit cards? This is contradictory and disingenuous since there was NO change in my credit card record in the one or two days between granting me the credit limit increases and closing the 9 accounts. Further, if I was high risk why did Synchrony not already close my 9 accounts well before I applied for any credit limit increases. After all Synchrony had effectively finally decided that even reducing my credit limits on all XXXX credit cards to almost zero was essentially " high risk '' since the closed accounts represented XXXX total credit limit and zero risk. It is a fact that all credit cards expose the banks to some level of risk. In this case Synchrony had previously determined that I was not high risk when I did not apply for the credit limit increases but was high risk after I successfully received their credit limit increases but at this moment even a {$1.00} credit limit was a high risk against me ( as they did in fact close all XXXX accounts ). 
I see that the extreme and aggressive uncalled for action of closing all XXXX of my credit cards as a flagrant attempt by Synchrony Bank to severely destroy my credit record. If I am high risk to warrant XXXX credit at my exceptional credit standing then essentially the vast majority of all Synchrony Bank 's existing credit cart customers with lesser credit standing ( record ) than mine are ALL " high risk ''. If Synchrony applied this high standard consistently across its credit card portfolio then it would have to close out up to 90 % of its current customer credit card accounts.

So we know that Synchrony for some strange unknown reason targeted me simply because I requested the credit limit increase that was available to all at the Synchrony Bank credit card web site. At no point during this Synchrony credit limit increase process did Synchrony ever warn me that I might be " punished '' with a credit card closure for just simply requesting ( asking ) for a credit limit increase which Synchrony may for any reason accept or deny ( in my case it was always approved because of my excellent credit record is the only plausible reason I can come up with ) and they always accepted and granted me much more than even I asked for in some of the cases!

I sincerely believe that Synchrony Bank was extremely unfair to me who was a loyal and one of their biggest single customer and in no way at all any credible credit risk to Synchrony as demonstrated to Synchrony in the last 10 to 30 plus years. One just can not obtain an exceptional ( XXXX or above ) score and be currently a high risk when one only owes {$27.00} to the entire world. 
There is no reasonable way that Synchrony can explain the above deliberate and malicious course of action they took to more destroy my credit record than for any of their flippant, theoretical and abstract reasons that have absolutely no basis in the real world. Decisions based on possible and probable future events are just speculation for after all it is knowable that almost all things are possible or possibly not.

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