Consumer complaint received 2022-01-23
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: DC
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Problem with personal statement of dispute

Complaint:
XX/XX/XXXX I started a chat with Synchrony Bank for an Amazon Credit Card account I currently have. I stated that they reported my account incorrectly. I told them that each month my statement goes in the last day of the month and the balance ( statement balance ) at that time is reported. I told them for some reason they reported my account twice within days the first one showing the prior months statement balance {$0.00} then a few days later reported again showing my current usage $ 200+. I said this is not right this is not how this has been done in the past and it is impacting my credit score. The month of XX/XX/XXXX, I purposefully paid the full balance with the notion that I would have a {$0.00} statement balance on this account while I hold a higher balance on another credit card account. I stated I manage my report this way every month and I was not happy. They told me they understood and they would review my account but never stated that they would or needed to pull my credit report. They never asked my permission which would have also allowed me the right of refusal. Then a day later all of my credit reporting apps alerted that I had a new inquiry. To my surprise they pulled a hard inquiry on my credit report. This really upset me because I felt like I should have been alerted/asked if I wanted them to place a hard inquiry on my report. More importantly why should I have to suffer another XXXX point blow because of their erroneous tatics of reporting all of a sudden. I filed a dispute with XXXX and they denied my attempt to remove the inquiry. I filed a complaint with the XXXX and again they denied my attempt to remove the inquiry. All of their reasoning is that they have the right to pull my credit file which is true to a degree. If I am applying for new credit or a credit limit increase they have the right to pull the inquiry. But they are still required to ask my permission to pull the hard inquiry prior to, which they did not do. Oddly enough, they did not pull a hard inquiry when I did an online request for a credit limit increase and yet they still asked for my permission to authorize the soft inquiry. But they pulled a hard inquiry for me reporting that they reported my account in a manner that was inconsistent compared to the last few years of reports they have made on my behalf. Then to make matters worse each time I attempted to dispute the fact that they reported my account incorrectly they updated my credit usage dropping my credit score even more due to high utilization but they didnt pull another hard inquiry. So again I dont see the consistency. 

First you say you can report any time my credit account as long as the amounts are right so therefore you wont change the balance. Then you say you can pull a hard inquiry every time you review the account. So therefore you wont remove the inquiry. But everytime after the initial dispute you update my usage which is abnormal to report on an account multiple times in one month/billing cycle. If I pay the XXXX, XXXX XXXX, and XXXX no trade line is going to report every payment each day that I lower the balance. The report will populate at the end of the billing cycle 1 time with 1 balance at the cut off point. So with that said the trade line should not be able to randomly report my usage anytime I borrow against the account. If thats the case most people would not use credit because this type of reporting would cause too much volatility and would make what would normally be a consistently good borrower appear to be risky simply because they are using the credit that they were already approved to borrow.

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