Consumer complaint received 2021-08-03
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc.
State: NY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: Store credit card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement

Complaint:
Comenity agrees with this history of events, but says that " policy '' prevents them from removing the fraudulent fees from my account. 

In XX/XX/XXXX I placed an order from XXXX XXXX and paid with my XXXX XXXX / Comenity card. The order was never delivered. I assumed that it had been cancelled, which turned out to be a mistake. I didn't think about it again until XX/XX/XXXX when I got a call from Comenity collections department asking for payment plus late fees. I spoke with both XXXX XXXX and Comenity customer service several times, including one conversation with both of them together. It turns out that XXXX XXXX issued a gift card instead of a refund, and mailed it to a defunct address. 

On / about XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX XXXX canceled the gift card and tried to credit my card account at Comenity. Comenity 's response was that my account was locked and therefore not eligible for a credit. 

XXXX XXXX offered a workaround : they would issue my credit to a different credit card, I would use that refund to pay Comenity, and Comenity would remove the late fees from the account. I received the refund to a 3rd party credit card on XX/XX/XXXX and paid Comenity on XX/XX/XXXX. I was told the late fees would be removed and didn't think about it again. 

Then in late XXXX I received another call from Comenity collections. They had continued to accrue late fees and finance charges. I submitted a dispute at that time, and fees were paused until resolution. They also credited two of the four late fees that had accrued, which was the max they were allowed to credit by policy. 

Comenity claims they sent a written response to my dispute, requesting more information. However I never received a written response and there is no message in my Secure Message Center online. Instead, I got another call from collections in XXXX. Comenity had closed my dispute and started accruing fees again in XXXX. 

( Almost ) every customer service agent I've talked to has been friendly and attempted to be helpful. But now, when they review the history in their system, they ask me to prove that I never received the order. Which is of course impossible, especially 10 months later when XXXX has already wiped the tracking information. They actually suggested that if I have a video doorbell, I could review footage and show that the package was never delivered. I don't have a video doorbell, and that's ridiculous anyway. 

In XXXX, I was able to speak to a Senior Account Specialist named XXXX, who refused to give a last name. She said that it was impossible that my account could have been locked in a way that made XXXX XXXX unable to issue a credit. All of my calls with customer service are surely recorded and can be reviewed for accuracy. XXXX also told me that even if I'm 100 % correct, my account is not eligible to credit any more late fees, because two have already been credited this year.

So now Comenity policy requires that they continue to charge late fees and finance charges, even though they have admitted that they should not, three times over. What is fraud, if not charging fees for an order that was never delivered?

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief