Consumer complaint received 2015-10-15
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: MD
Product: Credit card
Issue: Billing disputes

Complaint:
I have excellent credit and the only times I miss a payment on a revolving credit account is when the vendor fails to send me a bill. XXXX ( aka car care XXXX from Synchrony bank ( formerly GE capital ) is one of several similar cards I have with this company. I also have a very large money market account with them. 

This is one of those specialty cards where you can purchase interest free for a qualifying purchase for a period of time and, presuming the account is kept current, and you get slapped with a 26 % interest rate if its either not paid regularly or in full before the deadline. They know I always pay in full and in time. 

I never received a bill in XXXX for an emergency car repair purchase that I was unsure would show up on the XXXX bill. And since I am busy and have no way to keep track of companies who refuse to notify me that I owe them money, I had no way of knowing I had missed a payment until the XXXX bill showed up. I immediately called the company to tell them that I had missed the payment because I had n't received the bill. The very nice customer service agent took off the late charge and told me that it would be no problem if I just made a double payment in XXXX. She assured me that she had notated the account. 

Three days later, I started getting regular calls from some number from Synchrony bank telling me that they had a call for me, then putting me on hold for XXXX minutes. Since I am busy and these calls came in during meetings or dinner, I hung up on the first XXXX and tried to call them back when I had time. When I called back, I got to someone who did n't even identify the company they were with or department. It took XXXX minutes of my precious time just to figure out this was collections. Once I determined this was n't security to tell me that my accounts had been breached, I told them that I had already called in to tell them that this was their mistake and been told to pay it when the payment was due later that month, asking them to check their records and leave me alone. 

In the intervening two weeks, I have received daily calls and a letter from synchrony, often at dinner time or other times during the day when they are not supposed to call. Yesterday I finally called the number in the letter, then spent XXXX minutes being transferred through XXXX and XXXX to finally get to an escalation unit in the U.S., but when I asked for her supervisor, was told that all she could do is refer me to her supervisor 's voice mail. NONE of the people that answered the phone identified who they were or what company they were with when they answered the phone. The supervisor never called back, despite me clearly stating that I would report this to CFPB if I did n't hear back from him that evening. 

I have scheduled payment for XXXX months, but suspect I am going to be slapped with huge fees and interest rates because synchrony ca n't seem to send out bills on a regular basis and keep their records straight. BTW, this is not the first time I have not received a bill from them for XXXX of the XXXX specialty cards I have with them.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation