Consumer complaint received 2024-05-17 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a company's investigation into an existing problem — Their investigation did not fix an error on your report
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: PA

Complaint narrative:
I opened a line of credit with PayPal Credit in XX/XX/XXXX ( PayPal Credit ) but received a XXXX in the mail, unaware that it was for a different line of credit ( PayPal Cash Back XXXX ). In XXXX, I began receiving negative credit reports. I made attempts to make payments between XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX, but was unsuccessful due to their phone lines being closed during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic. If they were not there to answer phone calls, they should have placed a forbearance on everyones accounts. I settled the balance in full in XX/XX/XXXX, after receiving a letter inviting me to do so. I continued receiving negative credit reporting, and in XX/XX/XXXX, requested and received a settled-in-full letter. XX/XX/XXXX, I began the process of buying a house, and the loan officer advised me of a bad debt charge-off, and that is was still negatively affecting my credit. That is when I found out I have two lines of credit with PayPal. I reported the XXXX account as fraud, as I only signed up for XXXX, and there was no explanation of the difference between the two. The XXXX account was associated with a home address in XXXX, CA, a state where I have never lived. Whoever I spoke with in XXXX didnt bother advising me of this either. I updated my address with them on XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, I called customer service to inquire on the status of the investigation, as I was advised it would take up to 30 days. XXXX, the investigations supervisor, was very rude and treated me like I was XXXX, stating that it would take up to 60 days to complete the investigation, and that there was nothing I could do about it. He also refused to advise me what the address on file is, and made me guess what it was. After a bit of back and forth, it was found that they did not update my address to what I told them ; they updated it to an old apartment address where I no longer live. He said he would update it, and told me to hold, which was about 10 minutes. A different manager named XXXX said he would send a letter stating I am not responsible for the balance regardless of the balance, and that it will be removed from my credit report. On XX/XX/XXXX, I called, and someone claiming to be a manager stated twice that my dispute was approved, and then placed me on hold. When he came back, he stated that the dispute was declined due to payments being made to the account. When I asked for more information, he refused to provide it to me. I spoke to two other individuals claiming to be managers, who also refused to give information, and hung up on me after asking why I wanted to know. The manager i spoke to after that also gave me false information that the XXXX account was opened prior to the XXXX account, which was confirmed to be false after I received a copy of my credit report from XXXX. Intentionally providing false or misleading information is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and Synchrony Bank has violating the FDCPA several times. The dispute was reopened, but Synchrony Bank kept sending correspondence to the wrong address, despite me advising them several times the address was incorrect. It feels to me like Synchrony Bank is sending correspondence to the incorrect address intentionally, after looking me up using XXXX. I filed a complaint on Better Business Bureau, and it seems that they are waiving the balance on other peoples accounts, but have not done that to mine, despite it being an invalid balance, as a form of retaliation and discrimination.

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