Consumer complaint received 2025-01-31 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — Store credit card
Issue: Fees or interest — Problem with fees
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: MI

Complaint narrative:
I signed up for a Lowe 's credit card through Synchrony bank in XXXX near XXXX. On Fri, XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX, I received an email saying I changed my online statements to paper statements, and that I would now be charged {$1.00} per month fee. 
I did not make this change. 
At the bottom of the email, it says, " Didn't make this change? Let us know. '' I replied to the email that same day, but it was kicked back to me saying the email wasn't monitored. 
Since my email was kicked back, I logged in that same to day to report that I had not made that change at XXXX. I used their terrible chat bot to try to report the issue, but it did not have an option for it. I finally got to a human after a run around. The representative told me that Synchrony AUTOMATICALLY changes everyone from online statements to paper statements after 90 days. 
Why do they do this? 
So, I spent more of my time logging in to change my statement back to online statements, only for their system to tell me that I can't make the change back to online statements for a full 24 hours.

So, I asked the representative in the chat box to help me make the change back to online statements. They told me they could not make that change for a full 24 hours, even if I personally requested them to make the change, and they would not do it for me the next day. They told me I had to login online to do it myself. See screenshot of chat. 
I filled out a survey on their site to make a complaint, but the survey form doesn't work either. See screenshot attached. 
The next day, I tried to log into the site, only to be told " Our system is experiencing technical difficulties at the moment. Please try again later. '' See screenshot attached. 
I tried for a full week. Today, XX/XX/XXXX, a full week after getting that email, I tried again only to receive the same error message. I again used my time to get in touch with a representative using the chat box. They told me they would not make the change from paper statements to online statements for me. The reason is because I wasn't logged into their system ( even though I had my card number, my user name, my last 4 of my social, my address, etc. They can verify it is me. They still refused. 
So my complaint overall is SYNCHRONY PURPOSEFULLY MAKES IT DIFFICULT TO REMOVE THE FEE. 
They force the fee upon me by changing from online to paper statements without my request at XXXX, hoping I won't notice. 
They force me to wait 24 hours, hoping I will forget.

They won't allow me to change the fee any way except by logging in online, even if I can verify all my other information. 
Their site is unreliable, and has issues with the login system ( I've taken screenshots of my attempts to login and their error code ). 
They won't allow chat representatives to help. 
If they are automatically making changes, and don't allow me to reverse their change easily, I feel like they are taking advantage of people. {$1.00} fee may not seem like much per month until you consider as of XX/XX/2024, Synchrony had over XXXX XXXX active accounts.

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 monetary relief