Consumer complaint received 2023-10-24
Company: Affirm Holdings, Inc
State: AZ
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Unauthorized transactions or other transaction problem

Complaint:
Affirm theft, and horrible business practices which have forced me into paying for things I didnt buy or have. 
-Key Facts- -Affirm is a Buy Now Pay Later platform -I have used Affirm in the past -I have notified Affirm about Identity theft, as I have the Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau. I have also disputed three loans and provided them with the proof that they require to remove the loans from my account. I have also been told by employees of Affirm that the XXXX watch was in the process of being removed, but to just continue paying it so that they dont report me to the credit bureaus for a late payment until it drops off of my account. None of them have dropped off of my account, and Affirm has gone silent regarding the investigations and evidence that I have submitted to them. Until XXXX. 
-Affirm has responded after 1 month and 12 days have passed since notifying them about my filing Identify an identity theft report with the FTC ( indentitytheft.gov report number XXXX ) on XX/XX/XXXX. During this period of time, Affirm has been automatically taking money out of my bank account for items I never purchased, have disputed, and as far as I knew were ruled in my favor and I am simply waiting for them to fall off my account, meanwhile I am still being required to pay for them until they do. XX/XX/XXXX is not the first time that I have attempted or have been in contact with Affirm about the following loans, I have tried to contact them for months about each one, including them investigating them, and finding evidence that the loans are mine : - I have also done a thorough investigation with all of my work recorded, have disputed all of affirms claims including that they have investigated anything, have been told that at least one of the loans in question is falling off since they received notice that the merchandise was returned, and have been told the other loans were investigated by them, and will be investigated again. 
-One of the five loans that they are charging me for is a XXXX XXXX. I returned that watch the day I got it and have had XXXX call them multiple times to let them know that they received it. 
-One of the five loans they are charging me for is to XXXX which they claim to have an order id for, which XXXX does not, nor do I. Affirm has told me that I need to provide a receipt for their investigation several times. Which tells me that they do not keep notes in their system, as I can not provide a receipt for something I have never purchased and does not exist. I do, however have a 15-minute video recording of myself calling XXXX to see if they can find a purchase with my name on it, to my address with that ID number. In the video recording I was told multiple times that there is no order at all, not for the amount that Affirm is reporting, That the ID number does not exist. That recording was sent to Affirm, after XXXX explained that they can not call Affirm and tell them that, despite being partners with a lending institution that is reporting false information to a creditor regarding their orders, who is and has been charging me money, for the item that they can not find, and that they refuse to call Affirm about. Luckily I video recorded the whole thing for Affirm, who ignored it and said they will investigate again, made me pay while investigating, and then ruled against me again and said that I can not speak with their investigations team about what they investigated, because they are in a " back room '' with " no telephones ''. 
-Affirm has not had any comment on that conversation, while I have been attempting to email them verifying their receipt of it every day, once per day around this time ( XXXX ) and having my emails bounce back at me as they do not provide accurate contact information, and consistently send notices from a Do not reply email address typically several times per day. 
XXXX After 4 months of being charged for things that I did not purchase, Affirm finally reached out to me to let me know that they heard about my Identity theft troubles : I received an email from them claiming to have heard about ID theft, and that they want to make sure everything is right. That I simply need to fill out an affidavit, and let them know which loans may be wrong so that they can investigate them. Which is exactly what I have done twice already and they have simply continued charging me. 
They claim that they may be missing certain information while I have provided them with every piece of evidence that they need to make a common sense judgement that I can not make, and they have chosen to ignore what I have found for them, and go with their own investigation team. At this point, I would expect them to actually investigate something rather than tell me another lie about how they investigated it and found some purchase order number that XXXX can't find, or that XXXX hasn't called them, which I helped them call by three waying Affirm in, and recorded it. They will ignore facts like those and do another separate investigation for some reason. Could it be that they require me to pay while investigating? I think so. I think all of this is just a game to get people locked into loans that they are not responsible for, and then provide just the right amount of no customer service to essentially annoy the person and jab at them every day with Do Not Reply emails that talk about loans they didn't approve and seemingly can't do anything about, until the person gives up and ends up having late payments and other things that are valid, on loans that were never theirs to begin with. 
-However they demanded that I sign an Affidavit which they said was attached but was not, as well as more information about myself which they obviously do not need. Then they will restart an investigation for 30 days which is the exact process that I have been through with these loans twice already, just to pay for 30 days while they investigate the matter again, refuse to provide anything about their investigation other than you owe us and then have them act as if they brought this up out of the kindness of their hearts, but after looking into it, turns out that I owe them money rather than an issue that I have been trying to raise with them for months on multiple loans, almost every day and thought they had been already working on an investigation using the evidence ( video recordings, names of people I have spoken with, time that I have spoken with them, results of the conversation, questions for Affirm to answer ) Instead, this time I am reporting them to the Consumer Fraud Protection Agency and if you would like to see the evidence that I have given them I can happily provide it to you. I did respond to that email, and said that I would provide an affidavit and that there are still multiple items that are wrong on my account. Instead of replying to that email or sending an affidavit, later that day ( XXXX  ) I got another email from their Do Not Reply billing email, subject line Payment due in 3 days. 
This is the same day the I received an email from them saying that they are aware of identity fraud and want to work with me to find a solution to anything that may be wrong. This emails body was filled with simply Hello, Thanks for getting in touch. We're not monitoring this inbox, but it looks like we have some relevant FAQ content that can help. We've linked to some topics below that may answer your questions.

FAQ Getting started with Affirm Applying for a loan Checking your loan details Payments and billing Returns and refunds If you still need help after reviewing this information, please fill out this brief contact form and we'll get back to you.

The Affirm team And was of course sent from a Do Not Reply email address.

The number of times that this company has charged me for something I never bought, told me they will fix it, and then didnt do anything just to have the exact same conversation that I have had in the past with them, after scheduling myself a day that I can afford to lose 3-4 hours sitting on hold, is outrageous. I wish I didnt trust them from the start and would have begun counting months ago so that I would have an accurate number of times that they have used theft by deception to keep my account balance where it is. 
Again, I am complaining about XXXX loans out of the XXXX that affirm claims are mine, highlighted below : XXXX XXXX XXXX  : XXXX *** XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX *** XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Now today, XXXX, I have not been focused on Affirm as heavily as my own employement the past few days, and while working on my resume, I got an email from affirm letting me know that my payment is due for one of these fraudulent loans. No check in email about the affidavit that I asked them for multiple times, nothing about my account being potentially hacked into or however my ID got stolen, just right to business on trying to collect their fraudulent loan. 

Please let me know if any of the evidence that I mention in this complaint would be useful. I have emails and recordings saved that I can not attach to this but will happily send you. 
Companies that operate the way Affirm does need to be put out of business in extreme fashion to send a message to all of the other scammers out there that it won't fly in the banking industry.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation