Consumer complaint received 2024-04-30 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — Store credit card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems — Other problem
Company: SYNCHRONY FINANCIAL
State: WA

Complaint narrative:
To whom it may concern : I am writing in regards to my synchrony Care Credit account where I participated in a promotional offer involving deferred interest. Despite consulting a Care Credit representative, following all guidance provided, and receiving repeated verbal assurances that this interest would be avoided, Care Credit made an error and I am now being charged {$3400.00} in interest. 

These errors have been acknowledged repeatedly by Care Credit representatives, and Ive been told on multiple occasions that corrective actions have been taken, however my balance still reflects that the high interest rate resulting in {$3400.00} in added interest. I am seeking that my account be corrected as soon as possible, and that Synchrony Bank/Care Credits internal practices be looked into including not disclosing clearly, in writing to customers that promotional balance payments require special processing unsupported by online functionality and a lack of timely correction of known errors. 

See below for a detailed timeline related to this matter. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I noticed an alert that a promotional balance was coming due, as it was unclear what this meant I called your customer service number. An agent shared with me that if my promotional balance of {$3500.00} wasnt covered by XX/XX/XXXX, I would be charged {$3400.00} in interest. The agent said that she could extend my due date for this promotional balance to early XXXX. She also explained that it was important that my payments be allocated to the promotional balance and not the overall balance and to do this I needed to speak to an agent directly. She said that she would apply all of my payments towards this promotional balance. I had made a payment of {$140.00} on XX/XX/XXXX of that month. I made a payment of {$1000.00} on that day and explained that Id be calling back in a few days to pay the {$2400.00} ( the precise amount that the agent explained I owed to clear this promotional balance amount. On XX/XX/XXXX I called and made a payment for the remaining promotional balance of {$2400.00} and made an explicit request that it be applied to the promotional balance. I asked for confirmation from the agent that the promotional balance was covered, they confirmed that this balance was now covered and that my new amount was around {$820.00}. 



On XXXX I contacted Care Credit at XXXX and had a 24 minute conversation. In this conversation I checked to reconfirm that my balance had been appropriately covered. In this call the representative shared that she believed a mistake had been made by one of the representatives and that one of my payments had not been accurately posted to my promotional balance. She reallocated the payments on that call and assured me that I would not be charged the interest rate. She stated that it would take a while for this correction to appear on my account. She confirmed that my new correct balance should be around {$800.00}. 

When I rechecked my account on XX/XX/XXXX the balance showed up around {$4600.00} I called Care Credit Customer service and was again told that a clerical error had been made by Care Credit which was causing this amount to show up and that they would try to fix it on their end. They acknowledged that this amount showing up was incorrect. I then called back to speak to a manager, who after looking into the issue acknowledged the situation but explained that if she did anything herself to intervene it would disrupt the actions that had just been taken by the representative to resolve this situation. At the end of the call I asked if the situation would be resolved and my actual balance would be around {$800.00}. She confirmed this to be the case but stated that it may take a while. 

My request is that this case be looked into thoroughly, that phone conversations be listened to and that this matter be cleared up as soon as possible. I did everything representatives advised to avoid this promotional interest rate and was thorough in following up. I could have paid my entire balance had I known that all of these errors would occur. At this point Im finding this company to be unethical in its practices of making errors and not correcting them in a timely fashion.

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