Consumer complaint received 2020-04-26
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: CA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Card was charged for something you did not purchase with the card

Complaint:
Around but no earlier than XX/XX/2020 - I checked my credit score on XXXX XXXX. It was negatively impacted because it showed an estimated {$18.00} charge to my Banana Republic Visa Card by Synchrony. I was upset because I had a {$17.00} on my previous statement which closed on XX/XX/2020. I had not used my card since the previous statement ( until an online purchase yesterday XX/XX/2020 ) and California has been on stay-at-home orders since XX/XX/2020. I immediately called my credit card company to see what the charges were. It showed 4 balance transfer charges. I have never transferred funds to a credit card from another card. Due to COVID-19 the person I spoke with said they had a limited view of charges but that he would make sure that I would not be charged. He said he would XXXX  out the balance, removing {$18.00}. I said it should be more than {$18.00} because I had a credit balance and there are 4 charges. He said that is all that he would be able to remove. I asked to have the account temporarily frozen because I wanted to make sure that no weird charges reappear. He said he couldn't do that that he could only close the account and send me a new card. 

A few days later, I received my bill and it clearly showed 4 balance transfer charges. I called again to get this removed and was told that it would be removed. 

A few days after that, I received my credit card. I called in. It said I had a {$0.00} balance rather than a credit balance of {$17.00}. I called again and told XXXX that I needed this removed and I told him that I had similar {$9.00} fraudulent charges from the previous year and this was already the 3 credit card I from them that I have had within the last 6 months. I wanted to find out exactly what these balance transfers were from and he confirmed to me that these were balance transfers from fraud that had been removed from last year which were from a company called XXXX. I had looked up XXXX   and it seems to be a company that looks at how many clicks a person or company gets. I don't social media and I don't personally sell any items on any platform ( my work does sell online but I have never used my credit card to track their clicks ) so I have no need to track any clicks and the fraud was previously removed last year. XXXX said he was confused and wasn't sure why it was re-charged to my account because it had been settled last year. He assured me that it would be removed. 

Late yesterday XX/XX/2020 afternoon, I received a letter by email from Synchrony dated  XX/XX/2020 confirming the removal of the {$18.00} charge that the first person already helped me to remove and it showed that I had a {$0.00} balance. I called again because indicated that the balance was still {$0.00} rather than a credit of {$17.00}. I was told that the fraud department was closed and I needed to call back today between XXXX ET. 

I called this morning and was told that it had been removed in XXXX which didn't make sense because I wasn't even aware of this until after the XX/XX/2020 billing cycle. I was told that I would be able to see the change online. But I had just used the call in system that said the balance was {$0.00} as the purchase had made on XX/XX/2020 had not gone through yet. I was then told that it would take until the next billing cycle for this to appear but it was taken care of. I was put on hold for over 20 minutes and was told that he was going to reach a manager who he was not able to get a hold of.

Right now, I feel that I have been repeatedly liked to and the only persons that were at all helpful was the first person I had spoke with who at least removed {$18.00} to XXXX out the balance and XXXX who confirmed that these charges were the ones previously removed as fraud charges and should never have appeared on my card. The credit card company has wasted much more than {$36.00} of my time and at this point I've been calling in for the principle of the thing.

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