Consumer complaint received 2025-10-03 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — Store credit card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement — Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: PA

Complaint narrative:
In XX/XX/year>, my husband XXXX and I invested in custom closets from XXXX  XXXX XXXX. Although we were able to pay for the closets in full, XXXX  XXXX XXXX offered us a promotion through Synchrony Bank that offered No Interest if we made equal payments. We saw this as a great way to maximize our spending power, so we opted to take out two ( 2 ) Synchrony Bank credit cards for XXXX  XXXX XXXX -- one for myself, the other for my husband. As soon as we made the purchases, we set our Synchrony credit cards to autopay for the equal payments, which was set up and selected through Synchrony 's website.

We would periodically check on the accounts to make sure the payments were going through and to make sure the account balances were being paid down. We had full faith and trust in the Synchrony autopay to ensure our equal payments were being paid so that we did not incur any unintended interest fees.

However, this past week, we checked on our statements and saw that there were multiple interest fees that had been charged to our cards since earlier this year. We immediately assumed this was a mistake since we had set up the autopay for the equal payments through the Synchrony site. We had done this previously with another luxury store credit card and never had any issues. The balances were always automatically paid off before the promotional period ended.

We called Synchrony Customer Service on Wednesday, XX/XX/XXXX around XXXX ET to explain the situation and remedy the situation. The initial agent XXXX  ( sp ) was very pleasant, but explained that she could not dispute the charges since the promotion period we had purchased under was expired. I explained that we had set up auto-pay for the equal payments through the Synchrony website and expected that those payments would have paid off the balances by the end of the promotion period and that we believe those interest charges were made in error. She was not able to help us further, so we asked to please speak with a supervisor.

Our experience speaking with the supervisor, XXXX ( employee number XXXX ), was alarming, abrasive, and unprofessional. She flat out told us that this issue was our fault and that she could not help us. When we attempted to explain our situation and ask questions, she rudely and unprofessionally reiterated that it was our fault and that she could not make an exception to dispute the interest fees for us since she would then have to make an exception for the next customer, as well. She bluntly told us that we have no remedy. When asked to speak with her supervisor, she said her supervisor, XXXX, would not speak with us. She then asked if we had any more questions. And she hung up on us. 

After digesting the conversation over the past day, we went back and reviewed our previous statements for due diligence. Although the autopay was still active, it does not appear that the feature was designed to pay off our balance for that particular promotion by the end of the promotional period -- which we did not realize. In fact, it does not look like Synchrony Bank has the option to make the true equal payments before the promotional period ended -- which is a departure from what other credit card issuers offer and is misleading in and of itself. We set the auto-pay up in good faith that it would satisfy the payment schedule to avoid interest -- like we've done in the past. Regardless, we've now incurred thousands of dollars in unintended interest fees that we thought we were avoiding. 

As a result, we have come to the conclusion that Synchrony Bank is engaging in predatory lending practices and has built a business model on setting customers up for failure. Having worked in the financial services industry for the past 20 years -- including in-house at a major custodian -- I have never experienced nor witnessed a blatant unwillingness by a credit card company to remedy a situation until this week. Not only have I seen credit card companies settle disputes fairly and amicably with customers, but I also have seen them waive past fees for customers that they value -- especially when that customer has made good faith efforts on their payments. 

In addition, in reviewing the statements, it appears that some of the information about our promotional period was confusing or misleading. We only selected the Equal Payments-No Interest option. However, the DEFERRED INTEREST/NO INTEREST IF PAID IN FULL option was selected on our statements just this year.

We have paid both balances in full not only to avoid the unintended interest fees, but also to sever relations with Synchrony Bank. We will never do business with this company again.

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