Consumer complaint received 2020-08-24
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc.
State: IL
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Problem with personal statement of dispute

Complaint:
I have been a long standing customer of Comenity Bank and the XXXX XXXX card, and my payment history has been consistently on time. When I made my last payment of {$360.00} on XX/XX/2020, I did so in an effort to pay off the entire balance of my card, and I had not made any purchases since that time. On Monday, XXXX XXXX, I was surprised to see a statement ( attached ) from my XXXX XXXX card in my mailbox ; I was even more surprised when I opened it to find that I had an outstanding bill of {$150.00}. I then looked at my account online to see I had late charges dating back to XXXX, but I had not received any online statements. My next step was to go to the spam folder of my email. That is where I found emails from XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX. I do not know why these went into my spam, and I did not understand why I had any late fees or charges, but I certainly would not have let it get 90 days past due had I known about the bill. Furthermore, I was unsure why I was getting late fees because I made my payment on the due date of XX/XX/XXXX. I attempted to call Comenity twice the week of XX/XX/XXXX, and I was finally able to get in touch with a woman named XXXX XX/XX/XXXX. I told her about the situation, and that this was extremely damaging to me as I am trying to buy a home this year, and this negative mark on my credit hurts my chances of getting a home loan. 
She informed me that my last payment in XXXX was processed on XX/XX/XXXX, and my bill was due on XX/XX/XXXX, so I incurred a late charge ; she said I must have submitted it after the processing deadline for the same day. From that point on, late fees and interest started accruing until I received the letter in the mail. I asked her why no attempt was made to call me or mail a statement when the first month was delinquent, and she said that I had a do not call note on my phone. Again, this does not make sense to me as I would never tell a bank I do business with that it can not call me. 

I asked her if there was anything that could be done about these fees, and she attempted to get them reversed, by she could only waive {$100.00}. I made arrangements with XXXX to pay the balance of my account, {$57.00}, on Friday the XXXX, and I asked her to change my statements to paper, as I do not want another occurrence of this to happen in the future. XXXX told me she made notes of our conversation in my account as well, and she encouraged me to write a letter to the bank explaining the situation to ask for a goodwill waiver regarding the late reporting of my account to the three major credit bureaus. I wrote and mailed the letter to Comenity that day. ( letter attached ) On XX/XX/XXXX, I received a reply from Comenity stating that they could not grant my goodwill request. I am filing this complaint as I believe that Comenity exhibited unfair practices in continually charging me exorbitant fees without making any proper contact. Furthermore, they are in direct violation of the CARES Act that states a creditor may not report late payments to the major credit bureaus during the time in which the CARES Act is in effect.

I appreciate your time and attention to this issue.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation