Consumer complaint received 2020-04-21
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc.
State: OH
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers
Sub-issue: Confusing or misleading advertising about the credit card

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX I made a purchase at XXXX XXXX for an engagement ring. They told me it was a 12  month payment plan and as long as I paid it off in 12 months there would be no fees or interest charge. I was told my payments would be due on the XXXX of every month ( {$350.00} ). XXXX XXXX credit card is ran through Comenity. 

On the Comenity website I believed it was a pretty simple process. The main page had my balance and minimum I would have to pay each month so I can get the ring paid off on time.I did not have a charge for the month of XXXX and when I called in and asked why not they said it was because XXXX would be the first full billing cycle so that is when my payments would start. 

Everything was going smoothly and on XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX I made what I thought was my last payment on the account so my balance showed $ XXXX.On XX/XX/XXXX I started to see a number of {$730.00} on my account which included a back dated charge of {$710.00} on XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX which did not show up on my account until that XX/XX/XXXX date, after my balance said {$0.00}. 

When I called to ask them what happened since I started making payments in XXXX of XXXX and got them completed in XXXX of XXXX, they said it was 12 months from the day I bought the ring. They showed me on my online account after I clicked a few tabs to get to my online billing statements that there was a section that said I had to get it paid by XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX. This frustrated me greatly because the Comenity account had my payments I needed to make at {$350.00} dollars each month starting in XXXX of XXXX which set me up to fail by the time I needed to pay it off for them. It indicated nothing on the main screen to me where I would log on and make my payments that anything needed to change or an alert that this was happening ( the account usually has alerts that come up when I log in ). If I were to have paid everything off when they wanted me to, this would have caused me to make a payment almost doubled what I had been doing even if I was aware about it. 

On XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX I called in to Comenity to file a dispute. After I got off the phone with them I wrote a written dispute and sent it to them like they asked. On XX/XX/XXXX they wrote me back saying they have received my request and to not make payments on my account until the matter is sorted. On XX/XX/XXXX I was charged a late fee on my account and when I called in on XX/XX/XXXX to discuss why this happened when I had written confirmation that I was to not make payments they told me that after my initial call on XX/XX/XXXX they wrote in their notes that the matter was handled and I was to pay the amount even though on XX/XX/XXXX they wrote me in their secure message center to not make payments.They then told me that due to Covid-19 they do not have the staff operating to look into my dispute and that I would have to simply pay off all this interest and added fees.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief