Consumer complaint received 2019-12-22
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: PA
Product: Payday loan, title loan, or personal loan
Sub-product: Personal line of credit
Issue: Getting a line of credit

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2019 I was going through the checkout process at XXXX a mattress and bedding retailer. I was going to use the PayPal Express checkout with my XXXX XXXX card that I already have linked in there because it saves time in adding my payment and billing and shipping information. When I logged into PayPal a pop-up came up offering 6 months no interest financing and {$20.00} off my transaction if I applied for PayPal credit. I clicked apply and was brought to the Synchrony Bank website which is the financing company for PayPal credit, I then applied through their process and was approved for a {$1000.00} line of credit. Upon returning to the checkout page that purple sends you to when you select PayPal checkout a information came up saying that PayPal credit was now available in my wallet to use at checkout, however it was not available. I called in to PayPal and was transferred to their customer account security team, and after going through an additional verification process where I had the answer questions based on my credit report we tried putting the transaction through again. PayPal told me that their security procedures were rejecting the transaction. I asked if there was any more information they could give me or any reasons why even though I was approved for the credit line they would not let me make a purchase that was well below my credit limit and that was at a major established online retailer. I was given a bunch of nonsense answers and basically was told that there's nothing they can do about it and something in their security systems determined that it was a risky transaction, so I asked to be transferred to a supervisor, XXXX, who basically gave me the same line. He was very quick to point out that Synchrony Bank is the issuer of the credit not PayPal to which I responded that it's called PayPal credit and was initiated through the PayPal website not through an external website or through synchrony themselves that they were the ones that made me the offer and that they are the ones that are not now allowing me to use my financing. I feel like this was a bait-and-switch because I took a hard credit inquiry for this account with the express purpose of using it for this transaction which they advertised was what was going to be able to happen when they offered it at checkout for this transaction. Now I have a hard inquiry and a {$1000.00} open credit line and I'm unable to use it and nobody there can or will tell me why. They are just very quick to say that there's nothing they can do and that it must be a risky transaction for them to deny it.I just want to be able to use the credit that I was approved for being that I already took the hard credit inquiry for it and now it's basically useless to me, and they're all just telling me that there's nothing they can do and no information they can give me. Upon doing further research hundreds if not thousands of other people on credit boards online have had the same problem and this is basically the definition of a bait and switch.

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 explanation