Consumer complaint received 2026-04-24 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest — Problem with fees
Company: Bread Financial Holdings, Inc.
State: TN

Complaint narrative:
This complaint relates to interest and late fees charged on an XXXX XXXX XXXX issued through Comenity Bank. I have been an XXXX XXXX XXXX customer for 13+ years, have never paid my card late and for at least the past 10 years have paid the balance to zero each month. When I received my XXXX XXXX statement, I noted there were late fees of {$41.00} and interest fees of {$540.00}. The statement had a XXXX statement balance of {$12000.00}. During the XXXX statement period, I made a payment of {$12000.00} and had credits applied of {$1400.00} for a total credit in XXXX of {$13000.00} for an excess credit in XXXX of {$1000.00}. However, Comenity did not credit the {$12000.00} payment until XXXX XXXX, one day after the due date. This action triggered Comenity to assess the late fees and interest fees. For more than a decade, I have utilized the XXXX Bank online bill pay for my household payments. In XXXX, I requested online bill pay from XXXX for the XXXX XXXX credit card to be delivered by XX/XX/XXXX which was well ahead of the XX/XX/XXXX due date. Because of the late fees shown on my XXXX statement, I reached out to Regions online banking on XX/XX/XXXX at XXXXXXXX XXXX CT to find out what had happened from their perspective. I spoke to XXXX. She shared that the bill was mailed to Comenity on XX/XX/XXXX at their request, despite the availability of electronic payment which would have transferred the funds immediately. The funds were deducted from my account on XX/XX/XXXX, leading me to believe the bill had been settled. XXXX did not know why Comenity requested payment via snail mail vs accepting the online electronic payment which they had accepted previously. I asked if XXXX could help in any way with this matter. They said they could send a good faith letter to Comenity on my behalf and did so. Im unsure if Comenity has received this correspondence as of the timing of this note. Their letter essentially says that both the consumer and the bank made a good faith effort to see that the payment was made prior to the due date, and Regions provided evidence of that. With this information, I then reached out to Comenity Bank on XX/XX/XXXX by phone and spoke to XXXX at XXXX XXXX XXXX During this conversation, I sought to understand why Comenity had requested payment via mail rather than accepting immediate payment electronically, and why it had taken from XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX for the payment to be received and credited to my account. In short, XXXX did not know. As a result, I pointed out my long time history as an XXXX XXXX XXXX customer which she acknowledged, my long history of on time payments, my history of over a decade of paying my monthly statement to zero and my good faith effort to pay this bill on time. I asked for a courtesy one time waiver of the interest and late fees. She declined. At this point, I then reached out to Comenity on XX/XX/XXXX via their consumer portal and sent a written message detailing the situation and seeking a one time courtesy waiver of the fees. They promised on the portal to provide a written response within 48 hours. On XX/XX/XXXX, I received two lengthy responses that did not explain why Comenity preferred to utilize snail mail to receive a payment that they could have received immediately via electronic transfer. Additionally, they declined to waive the fees but suggested I could follow-up with another request which I did on XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, I returned to the portal to check the status of my response and discovered that all of the correspondence and messaging in my Comenity portal inbox had been deleted by someone at Comenity. There was no response to my XX/XX/XXXX message to them. None of my efforts have been successful in resolving the issue or in gaining answers to my questions so that I might avoid this situation going forward. My unanswered questions : 1 ) Why did Comenity intentionally request paper payment vs electronic payment, 2 ) Why did it take nearly two weeks for Comenity to receive and credit the payment, 3 ) Why was the payment credited on XX/XX/XXXX, coincidentally one day after its XX/XX/XXXX due date which triggered hundreds of dollars in fees, 4 ) Why has Comenity been unwilling to provide a one-time courtesy waiver of these fees when an obvious good faith effort to pay on-time was made by XXXX Bank and a long time customer with a proven track record of on-time, full balance payment, and 5 ) Why did Comenity on XX/XX/XXXX- in advance of the XX/XX/XXXX due date - also notify me they were revoking my grace period for payments? A personal comment and observation : I utilize this card for most of my day-to-day household purchases and as such tend to have a sizeable monthly balance as a result. I also pay it to zero each month. This action on the part of Comenity in requesting payment via mail vs immediate payment electronically feels predatory, as if they flagged or targeted my account with its high monthly balance as an opportunity for gaining additional interest fees, and then took actions that increased the probability of extended flow times leading to late payment receipt and hence more fees and revenues for their business. Im sure a solid American business wouldnt intentionally do such a thing to a good customer, but thats certainly what this feels like. Particularly after there have been repeated opportunities to forgive these fees on a one-time basis. As a result of my lack of success in resolving this matter myself, I am choosing to take the next step and seek help, review and engagement through CFPB to achieve resolution.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief