Consumer complaint received 2021-06-18
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc.
State: WI
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Charged too much interest

Complaint:
On or about XX/XX/XXXX I logged into my Commenity Bank issued, XXXX XXXX branded credit card to pay my bill. I do not know when my bill posts but know that the due date is the XXXX  of every month. I logged in and attempted to pay my statement balance in full, just as I've done every month since acquiring this card. By happenstance I actually wanted to see the statement as I had an issue with one of the merchants I used the card with. I was surprised to see that I was charged finance charges. I quickly called the company and inquired why I was charged interest on purchases as I'd paid the balance in full the previous month. The representative from the company " checked my account '' She verified that I indeed had paid my statement balance in full every month and didn't know why I would be charged interest. I confirmed with her that in fact that is how this credit card worked ( I have other cards and they all work the same ). She was able to somehow have the interest waived and I went about my merry way. I recently logged in to pay my account and noticed even more interest expense. This infuriated me. I called them today and again was greeted by a representative who stated " yeah I see you paid your balance in full you shouldn't be charged interest and I see you called on the XXXX and we waived the interest. I will set up a dispute of this finance charge '' I said that sounds great but I'd like to talk to a supervisor so that I do not have to do this every month. After waiting what seemed like forever I got a supervisor on the phone who stated that they changed their policies for calculating interest. The statement balance is no longer the balance that must be paid in full to maintain your grace period but instead it is the " entire balance '' owed on the due date. She made a claim that they sent a disclosure to me stating as such. I didn't believe this to be true and I certainly didn't believe that it was a separate disclosure. Later, when I asked for a copy of that disclosure the representative was able to find out that it was included on page 7 of a statement that they mailed me. Well the disclosure certainly didn't in " plain english '' explain that they were changing how credit cards work. Eventually, as a still unsatisfied customer I got to another person that was able to give me a partial statement credit for the interest. 

I am not satisfied. I believe they have not met the requirement to disclose in plain english the terms of the change and the impact on consumers. There are no other credit cards I have ever used that use this language or this methodology. It is so obvious on its face that when you call their representatives the first thing they do is look at your payment history and say that must be a mistake!!!! I believe they are harming consumers that are unaware that this. Furthermore, I don't believe they met the criteria that material changes be disclosed in a separate mailing. I find this behavior abhorrent and would request that you pursue the matter to its fullest extent. You can pull the tapes from my phone calls today XX/XX/XXXX as well as XX/XX/XXXX and here multiple representatives state that I should not have to pay interest because I paid the statement balance in full before the due date. Even the final " senior manager '' said the same and then he backtracked. 

I am attaching my XXXX and XXXX statements. The XXXX statement has the change in language that they claim allows them to do what they are doing. It can be found on page 5 under grace period language. 

The XXXX statement shows that they do not change any of the first page terms like " balance '' " payments '' " new balance '' They present it all the same while stealing money from each of their customers. 

Please make this a class action case I would happily be the lead plantiff.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation