Consumer complaint received 2018-08-23
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc.
State: TX
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Charged too much interest

Complaint:
I opened a line of credit with XXXX in XX/XX/2017. I enrolled in XXXX XXXX 12 month, zero interest plan. XXXX XXXX line of credit is backed by XXXX XXXX. My credit is Excellent and I qualified for all of the zero interest plans they were offering, but I chose the 12 month, zero interest plan to finance a couch costing {$1300.00}. I did not need to do this to afford it, but I did so out of convenience. The couch was delivered in XXXX and I made my first payment of {$100.00} on XX/XX/XXXX. My XXXX statement had {$31.00} in interest charges. I called XXXX customer service to resolve it. They informed me that I was correct, that they had made a mistake and that the interest fees would be submitted for a dispute and it would be resolved. At this time I made a second payment of {$310.00}. About a week later I received a standard form rejection letter informing me that I didn't qualify for the plan that I had enrolled in because one of the following criteria was not met : 1. The promotional plan was not offered at the time of your purchase, 2. Your purchase received rewards points and or a discount in lieu of the promotional plan, 3. Your purchase was less than the required minimum purchase amount. A couple of weeks later I saw my second statement which had another {$31.00} of interest charges added to it. I called XXXX customer service a second time to ask why my dispute was rejected and asked which of the 3 rejection criteria I failed to meet. The customer service representative put me on hold to investigate. After returning to the call he informed me that the first customer service representative that I had spoken with a month prior had incorrectly submitted my dispute, saying that the previous representative had mistakenly entered that I was enrolled in an 18 month, zero interest plan, which was not offered at that time. The customer service representative whom I was now speaking with apologized and informed me that I was correct and said he would resubmit my dispute to have my finance fees removed from my bill and have my account correctly put on the 12 month, zero interest plan. At this time I offered to make my second payment. The customer service representative informed me that I did not owe any payments because in his words " You're paid up through the end of XXXX. '' so I did not make a payment at that time. About 10 days later I received another standard form rejection letter that was identical to the first. On my next statement was a third month 's worth of finance fees and a {$27.00} fee for nonpayment from the previous month. In early XXXX I called XXXX customer service a third time to dispute the finance fees and the late payment fee. The customer service representative waived the late payment fee, but said he could not help with the finance fees. I requested to speak to his supervisor. His supervisor was most unhelpful and offered no alternative course of action other than resubmitting the dispute as I had already done twice before without any resolution or an attempt at a valid explanation as to why the finance charges were on my statement while their own customer service representatives were telling me that I was correct, all the while XXXX was continuing to rack up illegitimate finance charges on my account each month. At this time I paid off the balance of what I owed on the purchase price of the couch which was {$960.00} The supervisor with whom I spoke actually insinuated that I was lying about my past dealings with XXXX customer service, saying " I don't know why any representative would ever tell that you didn't owe a payment. '' It was extremely galling to have my integrity questioned while up to then I was acting in good faith that XXXX would correct their mistake and rectify the situation. A few weeks after that I received my third standard form rejection letter. After that I wrote XXXX a letter informing them that I would not be paying any monies above the purchase price of the couch to pay for finance fees that were due to their ineptitude. At that time my balance was {$100.00}, all of it due to illegitimate finance fees. A few weeks after that I received a letter from XXXX stating that they had conducted an investigation and identified errors on their behalf and would be crediting my account with {$52.00}. There was no specificity of accounting, just a dollar amount which happened to be 50.01 % of my balance at that time. I viewed this as an attempt to appease me and coerce me into paying the remaining {$52.00} of illegitimate finance fees which were due to XXXX 's errors. I had no inclination to pay a cent over the agreed purchase price of the couch as I had upheld my end of our sales contract and XXXX had not. If at any point in this back and forth dialogue XXXX had provided me with some kind of proof or justification that I was incorrect in holding them accountable for their mistakes in not assigning my account to the 12 month, zero percent finance plan that I had enrolled in, I would have gladly paid the remaining balance of {$52.00}. Since then I have made no more payments and XXXX has continued to add finance and late fees onto my account, which has ballooned to now roughly {$190.00}. They have also since reported me to the 3 credit reporting agencies, which has had a serious adverse effect on my credit score. I have had excellent credit for the past 10 years and this late payment report by XXXX has reduced my FICO score from XXXX ( Excellent ) last month, to XXXX ( Fair ) this month. I have initiated disputes with XXXX, XXXX and XXXX and hopefully my credit will be restored. This is a seriously alarming byproduct of this situation, which, if not corrected, will seriously affect my future financial dealings in a negative way. All of this because XXXX refused to take responsibility for their mistake and correct my account, even after I patiently gave them 3 chances to do so.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief