Consumer complaint received 2023-08-30
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a company's investigation into an existing problem — Difficulty submitting a dispute or getting information about a dispute over the phone
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL (OH)

Im writing today to dispute an account that appears on my credit report from Synchrony Bank/PayPal Credit XXXX I believe that this account was opened fraudulently through my compromised PayPal account. I did not open this line of credit with PayPal and can not seem to gather information from them that proves that I did. Additionally, my access to the details surrounding this line of credit has been suspended and I can not see any of the official documentation associated with it. 

The identifying information that I can gather from this line of credit is the bank account that was used to make the payments, the type of purchases made with the PayPal credit line, and a potential address of the culprit. 

With this line of credit, the thief spent the entirety of the {$1700.00} credit limit on XXXX XXXX and XXXX orders. There were a few other items purchased with the PayPal credit account ( like an XXXX game for ~ {$70.00} ), but mostly centered around purchases from food delivery apps. The purchases made with my PayPal account occurred over the course of almost a year ( XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX ) and at a frequency of 2-8 times per week. ( See the PDF labeled PurchasingPattern for examples ). 

I believe that someone gained access to my PayPal through my XXXX account prior to the implementation of two-factor authentication and signed up for a credit account without my consent. They then used this account to fund food delivery purchases over the course of almost a year without any intention of paying it back. The minimum payments that were made to keep the account afloat during this time period came from a XXXX account that is no longer open. Im unable to see the exact account information but it doesnt appear to belong to me. 

The only identifying piece of information that Ive been able to glean from the transaction history is an address associated with some of the XXXX orders. The address is XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX in XXXX, Ohio. Proof of this can be seen in the PurchasingPattern document that I provided. I have never been associated with this address and I do not know anyone who is. I called the property manager, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, and attempted to get more information, but was denied access to the tenant records without a police warrant. 

Theft aside, the credit line was closed in late XXXX. Synchrony began flooding my inbox with payment reminders, which I initially assumed were some sort of error/glitch on their end, but soon found out that there was a legitimate balance in my name. I tried to dispute account ownership with Synchrony over the phone on two separate occasions in XXXX ( XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX ) but received ZERO assistance. 

Given that this account was now appearing on my credit report, I was forced to pay off the entirety of the account to ensure I could continue receiving lending for my schooling. In XXXX and XXXX of XXXX, I was forced to hand over almost over {$2300.00} to Synchrony bank for an account that I never even opened ( See the PDF labeled PayoffProof for exact amounts ). While the account has been paid off in full for over a year now, the stain that this incident left on my credit report has made it virtually impossible to get approved by even the most predatory of lenders.