Consumer complaint received 2024-06-20
Product: Credit card — Store credit card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers — Confusing or misleading advertising about the credit card
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc. (CA)

On XX/XX/XXXX, I made a purchase withXX/XX/XXXXedit card for {$1700.00}. I was told by the dentist office where I signed up for this credit card that this was an 18 month no interest credit card. My 18 months was coming up, so I checked the XX/XX/XXXX statement that I have attached here and saw a notice that I would begin accruing interest in XX/XX/XXXX. I only had about {$250.00} left on the payments. I decided it was fine to pay a little bit of interest on the small amount I still had left. I was shocked to find on my XX/XX/XXXX statement that they had added {$620.00} in interest. I have attached the XX/XX/XXXX statement as well. I called the company and was told nothing could be done for me as they had no " negotiation department and out of frustration I stopped paying the credit card. The company finally contacted me for nonpayment and magically they had a dispute department where I was able to send a letter to the company. I wrote a dispute letter to the company on XX/XX/XXXX. They responded and let me know they were not going to do anything to help me as the terms were in a Credit Card Agreement. I never received or saw a Credit Card Agreement. The company has said I signed up for a deferred interest plan which was never told to me or clearly written out in any of my monthly statements. This company is not complying with all applicable rules as CFPB has published and said these kinds of practices are deceptive : ( https : XXXX ) " The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ( CFPB or Bureau ) is issuing this Bulletin to inform credit card issuers of the risk of engaging in deceptive and/or abusive acts and practices in connection with solicitations that offer a promotional annual percentage rate ( APR ) on a particular transaction over a defined period of time. These transactions include, but are not limited to, convenience checks, deferred interest/promotional interest rate purchases, and balance transfers. The Bureau has observed that certain solicitations for these types of offers risk being deceptive if the marketing materials do not clearly and prominently convey that a consumer who accepts such an offer and continues to use the credit card to make purchases will lose the grace period on the new purchases if the consumer does not pay the entire statement balance, including the amount subject to the promotional APR, by the payment due date. In addition, depending on all of the facts and circumstances, a credit card issuer may risk engaging in abusive conduct if it fails to adequately alert consumers to this relationship. '' Even though I was notified the promotional plan was ending, they did not clearly and prominently convey the type of promotional plan. " The representation, omission, act, or practice misleads or is likely to mislead the consumer '' The company purposefully omitted the full name of the plan to " XXXX XXXX XX/XX/XXXXXXXX XXXX '' which is unsurprisingly the only hyphenated term in the entire notice as the company was deliberately trying to hide the terms from consumers. " Other issuers may include information regarding the loss of the grace period, but the information is not prominently located in the marketing materials or uses technical language that fails to clearly explain the full terms, risks, and potential costs of the offer. '' The use of technical language failed to clearly explain the full terms and potential costs to me. The fact that I had a deferred interest plan was only made clear to me after I had sent a dispute letter and they had charged me {$620.00} in additional interest as it was not clearly listed on any of my monthly statements. Myself and the many other people who have written reviews about also being confused about the terms should be proof enough that they are using deceptive practices in order to 1. tack on a huge interest amount 2. use this new large interest amount to begin accruing more interest on the already owed interest 3. offer no cohesive and easy to understand materials for people to understand what they will be charged. People then have no choice but to pay for the large interest owed or risk their credit scores and lively hoods. If I am not able to have this complaint resolved by reducing my account by the amount of {$620.00} with the company, I will be considering moving to small claims court or preferably arbitration. I will keep fighting this fee for myself and to stop this company from continuing to hurt other consumers. ( https : XXXX ) XX/XX/XXXX: XXXX )XX/XX/XXXX XXXX )