Consumer complaint received 2026-03-26 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers — Didn't receive advertised or promotional terms
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: CA

Complaint narrative:
On XX/XX/XXXX my puppy was dieing and needed emergency vet care. The vet provided us an amount to save our puppy 's life, which we did not have the money for. The vet office told us we coule be eligible for a Care Credit credit card which we qualified for. We proceeded with the vet care and put the amount of {$3500.00} on the credit card. Our mail often is put in other peoples boxes so I wanted to make sure this credit card had no missed payment. I setup auto pay to ensure no late payments. We had to use the card again for vet care and added {$760.00} on XX/XX/XXXX. I continued with having the payment automatically withdrawn and assumed all was good. I had to check another syncrony credit card on XX/XX/XXXX and noticed my care credit balance was {$5800.00}. When I looked at the history it showed {$2100.00} was added to my account. I immediately disputed the amount believing it was a fraudulent charge. I then spoke with someone virtually to get more information. I was informed that I missed a " promotional '' deadline that I needed to pay the balance off by and because I didnt they added interest. I was dumbfounded as I was never at any point informed by the vet or anyone that I had to pay the balance by a certain point. If I was aware that I had to pay {$3.00}, XXXX by a certain point, I would have never opened the account and would have had to seek alternate for my puppy. Or I wouldn't have setup auto pay knowing it wasn't going to pay the amount needed to satisfy the debt. I was told by care credit that they couldn't do anything since I missed the deadline and I can close the account and still be owed the balance which would affect my credit. This is very disappointing to the customer who had very good intentions on paying this card off by setting up auto pay. The vets and companies offering this product should make it very clear that the customer needs to be committed to paying off the balance before they consider moving forward with opening the account. This credit card company is banking on the customers at their most vulnerable time. Since I setup the auto pay and my payments were coming out each month, I had no reason to check any statements since there was nothing alerting me to check. This company should be reaching out in many different ways, especially by telephone to inform the customer that they will be affected by additional funds being added if they miss the deadline. At this point I wasn't able to afford paying off the original balance, how am I supposed to be able to afford paying off an amount thats pretty much doubled? Credit card companies with this type of service knows that customers will never be able to afford this and its sad the customers are affected. I also noticed looking at my history recently that even though my payment is automatically drafted, that the payment fluctuates each month causing my balance to increase. The balance since the {$2100.00} was added has increased each month from XXXX at {$5700.00} to {$5800.00} in XXXX to now in XXXX {$5800.00} with each monthly payment being $ XXXX. How will I ever be able to pay the balance off if the amount keeps increasing even though my payment isn't even being paid late?

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