Consumer complaint received 2015-10-02
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: CA
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Medical
Issue: Communication tactics
Sub-issue: Used obscene/profane/abusive language

Complaint:
My husband had agreed to repay the loan on a monthly installment plan. This particular company has been debiting his checking monthly for the past twelve months in the amount of {$110.00}. We received a letter from the collection company indicating we were not making payments on the loan. I called to inquire as to the status of this account. I first spoke with a young man by the name of XXXX. He was not able to help me so he transferred the call to his manager, XXXX. XXXX explained to me that the letter was a mere formality to notify the customer that the contract needed to be re-negotiated, even though the letter never said anything about calling them to re-negotiate a contract with them. XXXX stated that they wanted more money. I agreed to pay an additional $ XXXX monthly from my separate bank account on a different day of the month. XXXX stated that we could do that and it would be easy enough to set up. To be clear, I repeated, my husband would continue to repay at {$110.00} on XX/XX/XXXX from his bank ( XXXX ) and I would pay an additional {$100.00} on XX/XX/XXXX from my banking institution, XXXX XXXX XXXX. XXXX repeated this back to me, took my banking information and I thought we were good. 

On XXXX XXXX, 2015, MY XXXX checking account was debited {$110.00} plus {$30.00} overdraft fee by the collection company. 

My husband called the company and spoke to XXXX when I discovered the error two days later. She was confused as to what the problem was because she only saw information for the XXXX account, nothing for his XXXX account. She agreed to pull the voice recording and allow my husband and I to listen to the original conversation setting up this arrangement. The next day when I spoke with XXXX regarding the mistake, he stated that this is the arrangement that I made with him, that the money be taken out of my account on XX/XX/XXXX. I tried to explain that the money was taken out of XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX ; he argued with me and said that was not true. I said to him " Im looking at my account and the money was taken out, plus {$30.00} overdraft fee. '' He told me I was wrong. Then he said, " well that 's the way you set it up with me. '' I said, " No, I did not set it up that way. '' I asked to listen to the voice recording of the original conversation with him. He would not let me listen. He said they do n't do that. He kept insisting that the mistake was mine and he could not do nothing about it. He said my husband authorized XXXX to erase all of our banking records the day before, so he could n't pull anything up to look for the error. He INSISTED that I obviously did not know what I was doing and he could do nothing to try and rectify this error. 

He never used obscene language, but his attitude was bad, and he became hostile after I asked him to reverse the transaction. The other employees we spoke to within the company were very nice and did as much as they were allow to do. The manager of this company lied. I set these payments up to clear them as quickly as we could. He originally said it was possible to do it the way I wanted but apparently he was wrong. If he made an error I could have accepted that, but he was very hostile and refused to help me in any way or offer to investigate and call us back. His behavior was completely unprofessional and I could not recommend this company to anyone.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation