I'm not sure if this is the right place for this post, but
I opened a Lowe's credit card with Synchrony back in Feb. They were running a promotion and it made sense due to large purchases I needed to make for a home reno.
I purchased about $2,000 on the card in early Feb, and paid off the balance two weeks later… way before the due date (I never hold balances on cards, always pay them off 100% to avoid interest).
Synchrony bank removed the funds from my bank account but failed to apply those funds to the credit card balance. So in March I got a phone call from Synchrony telling me my payment was late.
I talked on the phone with the rep for over an hour and eventually got it sorted out. The payment officially "applied" to the credit card in March (which was past the due date). Due to the situation, the rep removed the late fees and interest which was expected because it was their fault.
This morning, I just recieved an email from Synchrony saying I owe them $22.37. I logged into my account and there were multiple charges for "interest." Mind you, I have made zero purchases on the card since Feb, and paid the entire account balance.
I called customer service and explained the situation, and was told that the interest was accrued from March-April, because technically my payment wasn't applied before the due date. The rep refused to ackowledge that the interest was because of their own failure to process and apply my payment which was originally made way before the first billing cycle ended.
I was transferred to a "manager," who was very stern and basically told me to pay or they would just send it to collections.
Basically, if they didn't screw up, I wouldn't owe interest to begin with. Due to their own mistake, they are trying to charge me interest and threatening to send me to collections. Are they insane or is it just me?
I really don't care about $22, but I recently went through a nightmare billing situation with Spectrum Internet, and i'm just really getting tired of companies trying to walk all over people.
With Spectrum, I ended up filing a report with the FCC, which resolved the matter very quickly. Is there an agency that handles these kinds of situations with credit card companies?
Do I have any recourse here with Synchrony?
Is there a regulatory agency (like the FCC for telecom) that handles credit card disputes like this?
Has anyone dealt with something similar?
Synchrony bank trying to charge me interest due to their own mistake, need advice
byu/Mean_Dirt3485 inpersonalfinance
Posted by Mean_Dirt3485
4 Comments
Do you have a local TV station that likes to do investigative news on cases like this?
It’s mostly from residual interest. This is why it’s important to audit every account every month when doing your budget, even (and especially) the ones you aren’t expecting charges on. You would have a much stronger case had you caught this back when it first charged.
Pull the old statements and figure out exactly what happened so that you can go into the call with more knowledge, and then keep escalating to the next supervisor until they agree to release this charge.
That’s really weird. How did you make the original payment? Was it through your banks billpay or directly on there site or something else?
Luckily I’ve not seen this. I also think that, for the cards I have, they credit the payment even before it is removed from my bank account if I initiate it from their web site.