Consumer complaint received 2017-12-15
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc.
State: FL
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers
Sub-issue: Confusing or misleading advertising about the credit card

Complaint:
I am the victim of confusing and misleading advertising and lending practices by Comenity Capital Bank and XXXX XXXX During XXXX XXXX I walked into an XXXXXXXX XXXX location to learn about its services. The cost of the services was quoted as {$5000.00}, and I was informed that I was approved for {$10000.00} in credit on an XXXX XXXX Comenity Capital Bank credit card to use for my purchase. This credit account officially opened on XXXX XXXX. 

At no time during my meeting with the XXXX Image representative was I ever verbally informed that this was a promotional credit offer that would expire at a certain time resulting in a balloon addition of alleged interest to my balance. Instead I received a large folder full of coupons for XXXX XXXX flyers, and a printed out agreement and receipt. This " promotion '' was possibly buried and hidden within this folder. 

I began paying my monthly bill via the online portal at comenity.net/idealimage. Their system is set up so you can only schedule a couple of payments, so each month/bi-monthly I would log into the account/portal and pay my bill. Nowhere on the home page, and nowhere prominently displayed was there ever any message warning me of the promotional nature of my account and the consequences of a failure to pay off my entire balance by a certain date - that there would be drastic consequences for me. 

Then as of XXXX XXXX my balance was paid down to {$2100.00} - always using the online portal. Then on XXXX XXXX, XXXX I received an email alert stating that my balance was now {$4000.00}. 

When I logged into my online account portal and viewed my home screen I saw no explanation for this drastic change in my account. Then I scrolled to the very bottom of the page where there is an option to download PDFs of statements. On the statement I saw that an interest charge of {$1900.00} ( in the form of an " PROMO FINANCE CHARGE ADJ '' ) was added to my balance on XXXX XXXX, XXXX. 

When I called the only defense for this was that my statements included a statement that if I did not pay my entire balance by XXXX XXXX, XXXX that all accrued interest would be added to my balance. 

I feel victimized by confusing and misleading advertising and lending practices by Comenity Capital Bank and XXXX XXXX for the following reasons : 1 ) The in-store XXXX XXXX representative never mentioned this promotional finance charge or its consequences.

2 ) The true nature of the finance charge was never discussed but possibly hidden in a bundled folder I received during my store visit of miscellaneous materials, if at all.

3 ) I opted into the Go Green online option and only used the online payment portal without using paper statements. Confusingly and misleadingly, the information about the promotional finance charge and deadline was not displayed in a Green-Friendly online Format ( and instead hidden in paper PDFs that I did not have to look at in order to pay my bills ) 4 ) The home screen in the online portal/payment portal never displayed an Alert or Notice about the promotional finance charge. A change of this magnitude should be displayed prominently and clearly - which it was not.

5 ) There were other Alerts displayed on the online portal homescreen ( of which I took a screenshot as an example ) but never an alert for this most important detail regarding a promotional charge resulting in a huge balance increase to my account. 
6 ) Any information about the promotional finance charge was instead hidden in the PDF paper statements and never displayed with all of the payment notices and options in the online portal pages. 
XXXX XXXX After calling in to Comenity Capital Bank customer service to express my concern I looked at the XXXX PDFs and noticed that this alleged notice was not even included in all of the statements. For XXXX XXXX years it was not included, then it appeared. 8 ) Although Comenity sent me monthly emails with details about my account it never sent an email alert about this promotional finance charge or its consequences. ( I have also saved PDFs of the entire emails as an example. ) 9 ) Comenity failed to ever send me a secure message within the online portal about this detail ( I have also saved a screenshot of my secure message inbox in my account as an example of this. )

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation