Consumer complaint received 2026-06-09 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — Store credit card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers — Confusing or misleading advertising about the credit card
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: MN

Complaint narrative:
Subject : Systemic Auto-Pay Calculation Failure and Subsequent Deceptive Consumer Practices Regarding Deferred Interest Promotion I am filing a formal complaint against Synchrony Bank regarding a 24-month 0 % deferred interest promotional financing agreement originating from a mattress purchase at Mattress Firm. In the first month of this agreement, I utilized Synchrony Banks proprietary online banking portal to establish automatic payments. My explicit and clear intent as a consumer was to fully amortize and pay off the promotional balance before the 24-month expiration date. Every single automated payment was successfully processed by Synchrony over the 24-month duration without a single missed or late payment. However, due to a systemic calculation error or unadvertised administrative tracking fee inherent to Synchronys software, the bank 's Auto-Pay tool under-calculated the required monthly amortization amount. This proprietary system failure left the core promotional balance short at the 24-month mark, which reflected as a remaining principal shortage on my XXXX statement. Because I relied in good faith on the banks automated payoff tool, I was unaware of this software tracking failure until recently, resulting in Synchrony retroactively applying a massive, predatory deferred interest penalty to my account balance. To maintain total consumer good faith, I made a manual payment of {$360.00} today ( XXXX XXXX XXXXXX/XX/year> ) to completely satisfy the principal balance gap shown in that XXXX statement. Furthermore, my automated payments of {$85.00} per month have continued to execute completely in XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX, with another scheduled for XXXX XXXX XXXX I am intentionally leaving these automated payments active strictly to protect my credit health from retaliatory reporting while this billing error is being investigated. Consequently, I have now significantly overpaid the original principal cost of the merchandise. To compound the issue, I attempted to resolve this directly via Synchronys official live chat channel on XXXX XXXX XXXX. During this interaction, I was subjected to deceptive layout practices and obstruction of documentation : Stonewalling by XXXX XXXX : A live representative named " XXXX '' firmly refused to provide me with a copy of my original purchase receipt or financing contract terms. The agent repeatedly copy-pasted the exact same rigid, canned script three separate times before deflecting the responsibility entirely, stating I would have to contact the retail store. Deceptive AI Chatbot Instructions ( " Dark Patterns '' ) : I was then transferred to Synchronys AI chatbot, " XXXX. '' I explicitly requested a copy of the chat transcript to preserve evidence of my dispute. The AI chatbot instructed me that upon closing the chat window, I would be presented with a survey, at the bottom of which would be a " Review Chat Transcript '' option. Destruction of the Paper Trail : I followed the AIs instructions precisely. However, upon closing the window, the system immediately terminated the session, bypassed the survey entirely, and completely denied me access to the promised transcript download. Anticipating that Synchronys automated systems were actively misinforming me, I took comprehensive, chronological screenshots of the entire interaction. I have attached these screenshots to this complaint as definitive, photographic proof that Synchrony Bank utilizes deceptive user interfaces to prevent consumers from documenting billing disputes and accessing contract records.

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