Consumer complaint received 2018-02-27
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: PA
Product: Payday loan, title loan, or personal loan
Sub-product: Installment loan
Issue: Charged fees or interest you didn't expect

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX I hired someone to replace a roof on our house. They offered my wife and I a " Promotional Loan Offer '' with " No Interest '' for 18 months if it was paid in full at the end of 18 months. Seemed like a good idea until my wife asked me when we got our bill for XX/XX/XXXX why we owed more than the initial loan was worth. Unfortunately since my wife pays all of our bills with a check monthly, I never realized that she was basically paying the minimum payment ( which was the same every month as stated on the bill ) and that that payment would not pay off the loan in 18 months. 

I called Synchrony on XX/XX/XXXX to try to resolve this problem and sent them a letter based on my conversation with XXXX XXXX from Synchrony, offering to split the incurred interest, then offered to pay the full interest that was accrued on XX/XX/XXXX. I have talked to various customer services folks and their account managers ( and have been patiently waiting to talk with the account managers boss which Synchrony said would call us, but haven't heard from them in over a week ). I have attached a copy of the original loan agreement, my initial letter to Synchrony, and 2 responses from Synchrony Bank for your information to help us resolve this problem fairly. Synchrony Bank   has not been very cooperative to this point. 

This type of loan is very misleading. Although I signed the agreement I was under the impression that if my wife paid the bill on-time every month that we would be done in 18 months. As you can see from the agreement that's not the case. I should have looked at the bills rather than simply handing them to my wife and having her pay them first because I was worried that we would get charged interest if it wasn't paid on time. 

XXXX XXXX, the first person we spoke with, offered to remove 2 months interest but that just didn't seem right, though now Synchrony says no interest can be removed. My wife paid 21 monthly installments of $ XXXX/month. You would think that Synchrony Bank would have found that " unusual '', why not pay it off in 18 months. XXXX XXXX said that if we had been " delinquent '' in any of our monthly payments that the bank would have gotten in contact with me to understand why a payment was missed, which would have been great because then I would have looked at the agreement and realized that this loan was coming due. Seems to me we are being unfairly punished for a loan like this and no other senior citizens should fall into this trap and that's why I am sending you this complaint, to get a fair resolution and to let others know of the pitfalls of this type of loan are. I have never had a loan like this, not from any other company who offered " no interest loans ''. When you paid the monthly bill, at the end of your term, the loan was paid off. With this loan, your monthly payments will not pay off the loan in full.

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 monetary relief