Consumer complaint received 2016-03-22
Company: BARCLAYS BANK DELAWARE
State: TX
Product: Credit card
Issue: Billing disputes

Complaint:
I have been a card holder of the Frontier World Elite MasterCard in good standing for many years and have not had issues prior to XXXX 2016. In XX/XX/XXXX I received a notification email that my account was approaching its credit limit. This is concerning since I should have a relatively low balance on the account. Upon researching my account activity, XXXX consecutive {$2500.00} cash advances were posted on XXXX/XXXX/16 with correlating {$75.00} cash advance fees posting over the next 14 days. I immediately contacted Barclay to let them know these were not authorized transactions. They informed me that the charges would be reversed but could take 3 or 4 days to issue credits while their fraud team investigates. They cancelled that card and issued a new card. I activated the new card and activated more strict email notifications in an attempt to be informed sooner in case of recurrence. I began using the card again when I received another credit limit notice. This time XXXX more {$2500.00} cash advances and a money order were all charged to my account. Upon calling Barclay again they escalated the complaint to the investigation team who again cancelled the card and issued a new card. Before I could even activate the third new card, more cash advances were posted on my account. In frustration, I called to speak to an investigator who informed me this was in internal Barclay issue and that all cash advances on my account actually had the same approval code and their system is duplicating the same fraudulent charge over and over. I had the account put on hold, did not activate the new card, and reduced the cash advance limit to the minimum amount of {$1.00}. The Barclay investigator informed me that the issue has been fixed and it may take several weeks to sort everything out on my account. The cash advance fees continue showing up on my account through XXXX/XXXX/16 despite the account being on hold. On XXXX/XXXX/16, another cash advance adjustment was made and XXXX more {$75.00} cash advance fees posted on my account. At this point, I am extremely frustrated that Barclay is not able to manage the credit service they offer. I asked if I am the only Barclay customer being affected by this glitch and the investigator said no. I asked if they can provide me the balance owed on the card so I can pay it off and cancel the card. The investigator informed me that she did not know what the balance is and that I would have to wait for my statement and that it could take a couple months. In the meantime, I am afraid to activate the card that I need for business use and I am concerned that artificially high balances on my open end credit account are adversely affecting my credit score and my credit worthiness will be jeopardized by internal mistakes at Barclay. These mistakes are extremely disruptive and cause a lot of unnecessary anxiety for the consumer. This issue has other undesired effects on consumers like me who are attempting to qualify for a loan. While the timelines for resolution do not yet violate the Fair Credit Billing Act ( which I will monitor closely ), the Federal Trade Commission should be notified of the issues Barclay is causing their customers so this issue can be fixed permanently. Please help.

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 monetary relief