Consumer complaint received 2019-07-05
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: PA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Improper use of your report
Sub-issue: Credit inquiries on your report that you don't recognize

Complaint:
On late afternoon XX/XX/XXXX I checked my XXXX XXXX and saw that my credit dropped with Credit Bureau XXXX down 6 points? My credit is excellent and stays even and climbs on occasion. Investigating, I found the explanation, " Between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, an inquiry made by SYNCB/PPC was added to your credit report. '' Finding out the inquiry was PayPal Credit , Synchrony Bank, I realized I was subject more likely to identity theft/fraud then a mistake. The reason is I have had no dealings ever with PayPal, and have no idea why PayPal might have pulled my credit report. This happens to many people I see on Identity Theft forums with hard pull from SYNCB/PPC on XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, I spoke with XXXX  and said the hard pull was on XX/XX/XXXX. They told me to contact with SYNCB/PPC immediately and explain someone applied for a PayPal Credit Card under your identity and if it got approved it needs to be cancelled immediately. She then said I can Freeze your XXXX  account. I agreed and went through the process with her. The way she handled everything was as if it has happened many times when I mentioned the name. I called PayPal Credit and I spoke to a gentleman from the NC office of Synchrony Bank. He was helpful. I told him that someone applied for a PayPal Credit Card and if it did get approved it has to be cancelled. When he asked for my SS # I refused. I didn't even give him my last four of the SS #. He did get my address. He said this will take some time to pull it up with minimum info. After some time on hold, he came back and said this was the case. It was approved and we cancelled the account right now. I'm happy I was able to resolve this quickly, before a person with no conscious can start charging up on me? He gave me a confirmation key code and explained I will be receiving a confirmation letter in the mail 7-10 days. I need this written document in my hands to feel reassured. Again, the way the gentleman was handling the situation seemed as if he does this all of the time. No complaint! 

I was a SS # that was suspected as stolen in the XXXX XXXX   breech. Always when a breech happens usually the stolen SS # 's stay low and come out a couple of years later. Ever since then I have been looking at XXXX XXXX every 2 weeks. I'm very cynical and suspect of how information is being handled in our technological dark age. You work hard, live right and contribute to society to make it better and yet, large corporations who have all your personal information and livelihood XXXX up and you are the one who has to get out of the financial disaster they created. And the sad thing, you can't even opt out. I mean no freeze! Opt out completely for hard inquiries ... the three credit bureaus not having that information!

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