Consumer complaint received 2020-03-23
Company: BARCLAYS BANK DELAWARE
State: NV
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: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX we purchased a real estate  " coaching  '' program from a company called XXXX ( AKA XXXX XXXX ). The program cost ( in total ) was about {$70000.00} ( {$9000.00} of which was on the Barcalys card referenced in my complaint today. A few months later we realized we had been scammed but there really was no recourse. Because of the XXXX scam we were drowning in credit card debt and in XX/XX/XXXX we pulled out money from retirement accounts to pay down some of the crushing debt. One of the cards paid completely off was the Barclays card for {$9000.00} ( plus interest ). We looked into several avenues to get our money back from this scam but it appeared that their contracts were pretty solid and were shells of what we were promised verbally. In XX/XX/XXXX we reached out the the FTC and learned that the company was shut down after hundreds of complaints just like ours. The FTC and the XXXX receivership advised us to reach out to our credit card companies and file disputes. In total we filed 6 disputes with 4 different credit card companies. ( NOTE : XXXX, XXXX and XXXX XXXX have ALL refunded our money after thoroughly investigating and reviewing the supporting documents we submitted ). Please see below for a timeline of events from here : - XX/XX/XXXX - I called Barclays to find out how to submit a dispute. The Barclays representative pulled up my account and referenced the {$9000.00} charge from XX/XX/XXXX ( the only charge made to the card ). He then advised that I needed to fax in my dispute details. 

- XX/XX/XXXX - Faxed in a full dispute statement and supporting documents - XX/XX/XXXX - Received a letter from Barclays notifying me that they had received my dispute documents for the charge of {$9000.00} from XX/XX/XXXX and were processing their investigation. 

- XX/XX/XXXX - Received a letter from Barclays advising that " Due to the length of time that has passed since the charge posted to your account, we are unable to take further action '' and they encouraged me to " pursue credit by contacting the merchant directly ''. ( Again, the merchant has been shut down by the FTC which was fully explained in the dispute documents they received ). 

- XX/XX/XXXX - Attempted to call Barclays dispute center but was hung up on after waiting several minutes. I then submitted an email asking someone to contact me back regarding the denial through their secure mail system. 

- XX/XX/XXXX - A " manager '' from the disputes team called and said that they can not help with disputes on charges older than 60 days. I then advised her that I did my research and there are additional FCBA ( Fair Credit Billing Act ) provisions covering problems with the actual goods or services, aside from billing errors. This is known as the right to assert claims and defenses. In other words, the charge is correct, but the goods or services are not delivered as promised or described. This right can be exercised up to ONE YEAR after purchase. I further advised that the 3 other banks/credit unions had refunded our money and asked why Barclays does not have to follow the same federal guidelines. She said she's not familiar with the guideline and that some banks have different " write-off '' policies. She kept reiterating that it has to be under 60 days and they could do nothing. 

After this conversation I feel that the main reason they would not refund my money was because I had already paid off the card and this would be a hard cost to them vs. writing off any debt currently on the card. Barclays excuse to not refund our money not only seems unfair, but illegal.

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