Consumer complaint received 2023-10-22
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc.
State: NH
Product: Credit card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
Dispute Report with XXXX XXXX I ordered three pair of pants from XXXX XXXX  for our daughter, who has XXXX XXXX and is very hard to fit. They carried a size I hoped would fit XXXX short and XXXX XXXX. The order number is XXXX, date XX/XX/XXXX, for a charge of {$76.00}. They offered free shipping if I opened a credit card, which I did. Three days after receiving the pants, which did not fit, I returned them via XXXX XXXXs which was not happy because I had to pay something in the vicinity of {$10.00} plus and take them to think it was XXXX  XXXX. No problem there XXXX XXXX acknowledged that the pants were promptly returned, although it might take I actually am not precise but something like a week or two for the credit to appear. 
The problem was when I received a bill for the full amount. At first, I thought it was just a crossed in the mail problem so I called Customer Service. Given the option to get the billing information by entering either my social security number OR the account number, I entered my social security number and received a message saying XXXX balance, nothing owed. Good news! XXXX received another bill so this time I called Customer Service to refund the late fee and again entered my social security number and found I had XXXX balance, nothing owed. Good news. NOT. I was beyond frustrated when I received still another bill with another late fee and interest charges for the same purchase, which had been long ago returned. Three more calls, same result XXXX balance, nothing owed. I finally managed to reach a PERSON at Woman Within who gave me the SAME information no balance, nothing owed. This was now taking my time, and I couldn't understand why. When my bank notified me on XX/XX/XXXX that I had an unpaid credit card bill, I couldn't imagine why or who, so contacted them and found it was XXXX XXXX This is what I sent to my bank and was confident this WAS the case : I heard nothing more from my bank, XXXX, where we are Private Clients. I did hear from Comenity Bank however. Their minions assured me I now owed something like {$98.00} for pants I had returned. And I assured them I didn't owe them anything. I think after the third dunning call, I asked to speak to a supervisor. His advice was to call XXXX XXXX, in spite of the difficulties of reaching a human there, since only they could straighten this out. I called XXXX XXXX. Finally reached a person who said no she could do nothing, since I was two payments late ... at which I asked payment for what? Well, I owed XXXX XXXX  something like a {$10.00} plus restocking fee, a retroactive {$15.00} plus shipping fee because of the free shipping I had originally received. Most interesting that it cost XXXX XXXX with bulk rate shipping more to ship me the three pair of pants than I had to pay to return them. And nothing could be done, since I now owed two late fees plus interest and something like XXXX XXXX XXXX! For pants returned. This would be laughable, but please consider the poor folks who are hit with this sort of ridiculous charging. I ordered pants in XXXX, returned them, had made more than half a dozen calls to XXXX XXXX and Comenity Bank, calls assuring me I owed nothing. I was threatened with the terrible things that would happen to my credit rating and they did but, frankly, I am confident my credit rating will not be a problem. What is a problem I eventually found out, but it took HOURS of MY VALUABLE TIME was that when I entered my social security number, an OLD, I can't even imagine how old because it was so old it was no longer in their records, BUT when I entered my social security number an old account came up that was closed by the bank for inactivity. I had to think long and hard if I had ever used XXXX XXXX before, and I had for my XXXX XXXX XXXX one time, when she wanted something from them and I sent it. I obviously paid that bill, never used the credit card or XXXX XXXX until ... XXXXXXXX XXXX, but when I put my social security number in instead of an account number, that was what came up. A glitch in their sytsem, I would say. You are given the choice of entering either entering a social security number or the account number and I always knew my social security number. Bless the woman from XXXX XXXX whose research finally figured this out that I once had a XXXX XXXX Credit card, that they closed it for inactivity, and that I also was racking up charges and interest on a returned purchase because of THEIR additional charges which had nothing to do with the actual purchase other than I had returned the merchandise. 
XXXX XXXX  sent me back to Comenity Bank, where I reached a third level manager while I maintained I would not pay any late charges. I had been more diligent tracking this fiasco than most. I would pay the usurous original shipping fees, the unusual restocking fee for clothing 15 % approximately an no late charges. Or nothing. Takeit or leave it. Comenity 's agent accepted {$31.00}, and I have no idea how he came to that amount, but reversed all the late fees. 
There are three things which concern me. 
First, and most obvious, is how I repeated received a XXXX balance nothing owed message while accumulating interest, late fees, and additional charges on an account which did not show up on their automated system nor with the first XXXX XXXX person I reached. 
Second, how dunning calls by admittedly people who could only manage their part of the system from Comenity insisted nothing could be done but that I pay. We have a daughter with XXXX XXXX and she would have paid, a justified charge or not, because she wouldn't know what else to do, and how many others would be in the same boat or so worried about their credit rating that they would pay, justified or not. 
Third, the bouncing back and forth between XXXX XXXX  and Comenity, both of whom assured me that THEY could do nothing, nothing, nothing, and only the other could help me. Help was in short supply. 

I assume you will recognize that I made prodigious efforts to straighten out this mess. Surely, there is a better way.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief