Consumer complaint received 2019-03-15
Company: BARCLAYS BANK DELAWARE
State: PA
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account status incorrect

Complaint:
Recently my husband and I attempted to refinance our current mortgage to take advantage of more attractive loan terms. During the mortgage application process, I was shocked to learn that I have a balance of {$50.00} reported as bad debt from Barclaycard, a credit card account that we have kept open for emergencies but used very infrequently and not in many months. As a result of the actions of Barclaycard described in detail below, my FICO credit score has been significantly degraded to [ 630? ] and am no longer eligible for favorable lending terms, in addition to damaging my credit for years to come, causing me and my family significant financial harm.

Barclaycard US has engaged in unfair and deceptive activity regarding their paperless online enrollment and statement delivery, by : ( 1 ) enrolling me in paperless statements without my consent, ( 2 ) failing to deliver a required monthly billing statement or email notification to me, and ( 3 ) failing to alert me that I owed a small balance and allowing it to be written off as bad debt without any notice whatsoever. 

When I discovered the adverse credit report on XX/XX/XXXX, I immediately called Barclaycard. My call was escalated up to Tier 3 manager. During this phone call I was told that my account had been a paperless account so no statement reflecting this small balance was ever sent, nor could I access it online. I was also told that the bank had reported this derogatory information to all major credit reporting agencies without any notice to me of the amount owed. Both of these facts were shocking and a complete surprise to me. 

It is important to note : 1. I received no statement or email. While delinquent, I received NO account statement by mail or email. Barclaycard claims thats because I was paperless. They also claim they are unable to verify that I did or did not access my online account to retrieve monthly statements ( which I did not ).

2. I did not consent to paperless statements. I prefer to receive all of my bills by mail. Any change to suppress statements was done without my consent and my knowledge. I also did not share my online account password so it is not possible that this election could have been made by anyone other than the bank. 
3. No collections or notice. While delinquent I received no collections letters, nor any phone calls advising me of the existence of this small balance owed. Had I known about it, I would have promptly paid it.

I am a mother of 2 and high school teacher on a limited budget, try to instill in my students and my daughters a sense of pride with handling credit appropriately, as my account record will reflect ( up until now, that is ). My FICO score hit as a result of these unfair practices by the bank may not see
m significant to the banking execs at Barclaycard, but I can not imagine the financial harm that it will cause me and my family.

As I have paid the debt when I became aware of it last week, I request that the bank immediately correct my credit score reporting through a customer service account reage, or remove my account from credit reporting altogether. Additionally, there should be an investigation into the manner in which Barclaycard enrolls its customers into paperless statements without consent, and then does nothing to follow-up to verify if statements have actually been received and opened.

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