Consumer complaint received 2020-11-12
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: NY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Unexpected increase in interest rate

Complaint:
The credit card company, Care Credit, has created schemes to fraudulently overcharge its customers with high interest rates and fees. 

Care Credit is primarily used to pay medical bills. The company initially offers a plan with an APR interest, credit limit, late fee, and deferred interest due date. It appears to be a normal credit card at first. However, when the account is actually charged, the deal changes each time at the point of sale. A new deal is generated with a different interest rate and due date. At the point of sale, the customer can not see the new deal and is unaware of the changes. 

Employees at medical offices charge Care Credit accounts without informing their patients about the new deal. The employees simply print out a receipt for the patient without an explanation. The medical staff unknowingly participate in Care Credits fraud. In turn, most customers are unaware that the deal has changed and eventually get caught up in significantly high interest charges. 

Care Credit starts calculating interest at the point of sale. The company offers a deferred interest rate for a specific time then adds all the calculated interest to the customers monthly statement the second a charge is late. For example, whenever a charge is deferred for six months, Care Credit will bill for the full six months of interest, if the charge is not paid-in-full within six months. No matter how much money has been paid toward the initial charge. And, usually the interest is extremely high, around 29.99 %. 

Care Credits fraud takes place each time the card is used. Care Credit changes the due date and interest rate for each deal at the point of sale to confuse its customers who are dealing with medical issues. Most people who use this card do not have law school degrees and are taken advantage of repeatedly. 

Care Credit floods its customers with email schemes to entice its victims into charging more. When the card is not being used often, Care Credit repeatedly sends offers promising statement credits when large purchases are made. They have sent offers for chances to win a {$5000.00} Grand Prize with {$500.00} Weekly Winners and other Sweepstakes. Care Credit uses gambling tactics to lure their victims into spending more to Earn More Entries! Care Credit has never sent emails about the changes to their interest rates, due dates, etc. 

Care Credits deceitful activities should be deemed illegal. 

My own experience with Care Credit started at XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. The office manager described Care Credit as insurance and created an account for me on her computer. I could not see her computer screen nor what she was typing. She did not inform me of what she was reading or approving while she created my account. She simply wrote down my account number on a sticky note and said I had 24 months to pay off all charges. I knew nothing else about Care Credit nor its policies and XXXX DXXXX simply used my Care Credit account number that was stored on their computer each time I visited. I thought Care Credit was connected to XXXX XXXX somehow. 

I recently was informed about Care Credits schemes. I called the company and, for the first time, was told that I had nearly {$700.00} of interest that had accumulated within 4 months during COVID-19. The {$700.00} interest was based on one {$2000.00} charge. I called the XXXX XXXX office manager and she insisted that every charge had 24 months deferred interest as she told me in the beginning. However, she was wrong and Care Credit has forced me to pay high interest. 

The employees at medical offices are selling a product they know little about without fully disclosing the terms and conditions to their patients. Again, these activities should be illegal.

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