Consumer complaint received 2021-07-30
Company: Google Compare Credit Cards Inc.
State: MA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Confusing or missing disclosures

Complaint:
InXX/XX/XXXX, I purchased a phone from the XXXX XXXX. There was a promotion for low ( or XXXX  -- I don't remember ) interest financing that I availed myself at the time. 

As part of this, and without my understanding that this was happening, the XXXX XXXX added " Google Financing '' as a payment option to the XXXX XXXX. Without my realizing it, this seems to have become a default payment option, at least for some of my devices. I certainly did not approve this or intend for it to be the case. But, as a result, since XXXX  several purchases I made were paid for via this method. I didn't realize this at the time. Indeed, I didn't even know to watch out for it as I didn't know that financing could be a payment method. It was, as I now know because I've gone to check, something that was written on my receipt, but I didn't catch it. 

Meanwhile, the bank that Google teams up with, XXXX, works as follows. For each of these new new loans ( they call them " promotions '' ), if they are not paid off in full, the promotional APR expires after six months, and then the loan accrues interest at 30 %. This is presumably all stated in the fine print somewhere when I initially " approved '' the XXXX XXXX financing option, but it's not stated clearly at checkout or on the receipt ( see attached ). 

There's one additional thing that really ended up mattering a lot. If you're enrolled in autopay, XXXX doesn't change your monthly payment when you take on a new loan, so, of course, you never draw down the principal on these new loans. ( And since I didn't realize I had a loan, I didn't know to pay them off when the " promotion '' expired. ) I should say, XXXX does send an email with your balance. I usually didn't open these emails, since why would I check a balance that's supposed to go down by {$28.00} each month, and that's that. But on the occasion that I did, I admit to wondering why my balance was still so high. I just assumed I was misremembering how much I'd financed and for how long, and that everything was XXXX. 

Today, I finally opened another of these statements, wondered why my balance was nearly XXXX dollars, and thought, hmm, maybe I should call and find out what's going on. That's when I discovered that my balance was the result of interest on those loans that I didn't know I had. 

I told Synchrony that I had not approved any of these loans and that I wanted interest on the loans removed from my balance, but that I was willing to pay back any remaining principle. They refused ( all the while, continuing to call the loans " promotions '' ). I got mad, told them they weren't authorized to take any more payments from me. They told me the account would go into collection. And that's where we stand for now. 

I'm guessing that all this is somehow legal, but ... it shouldn't be. It's also pretty crazy to me that Google ( " do no evil '' Google ) is enabling this. So I'm reaching out to the gang that's supposed stop this kind of shadiness and passing on the info. Maybe I'm silly and naive and should have known better. But I figured I'd double check since there might be a whole lot of additional google customers who are getting fooled into taking high interest loans as I was. 

Thanks for your time, XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation