Complaint Review: Synchrony Bank - Draper Utah

To all those who assumed that I was in the wrong without knowing all of the facts, the BBB contacted the company, and I received a full refund of all errant fees.

I will not be contacting this site anymore as I was attacked relentlessly. Have fun playing the consumer blame game. 

You are assuming that Sychrony didn't send the request. Your reasoning for this assumption is that they wanted to get the late fees.

But as pointed out by me and others that is not dealing with this rationally. As not only does this cause them more issues, it makes unhappy customers, and doesn't actually make a difference in trying to do anything to increase their profit.

It is just as likely that they did send the request, and they may have even sent the correct information. But if the receiving bank had an issue(which is just as likely if not more likely). It could reject the request, and for the reasons noted still would never show that it was a request for your account.

If there is a middle-man processor involved it could be that company that received the request from Synchrony and never sent it to your bank. The point is that you are blaming one company for manually picking on you at random, when it could be 2 or 3 others in an totally automated process.

You will actually see that my response was strictly on your claims that they did it to just collect the late fees. So you very well may have done everything you thought you were supposed to do. So to clear a few things.

I made the payment two weeks in advance and did not receive notice of the rejection until three weeks later,

- This does bring up interesting questions. As someone who is that proactive to make their payments 2 weeks in advance is one who also would likely monitor their bank accounts very closely. So when the payment wasn't pulled from your bank in that 2 week period what did you do?

Or was this a case that you "scheduled" your payment 2 weeks in advance? Where if this was the case you didn't really make the payment 2 weeks in advance, you made the payment the day you scheduled it for. Which would also explain why you didn't get notice of a rejection a week later. If this was a scheduled payment again do you have proof(by way of confirmation) that you did actually schedule it.

I am not intending to go back and forth for reasons, but am poining out that the one scenerio you came up with is probably the least likely.  Especially if you think it is for them to just collect a late fee.

The fact that you are attempting to shift blame onto me and state that maybe they would be nicer to me if my attitude was better tells me that you evidently work for them

- Just like your assumption about them doing this for late fees, your assumption here is also incorrect. This is a PUBLIC web site and as such the PUBLIC may respond. I have not now or at anytime worked for them or any finance company or bank. I am just telling you the basics of Customer Service.

If you start "attacking" some rep who answers the phone they are going to be less likely to help, then if you calmly and rationally explain the situation. If you do that and have as good of a history as you claim, very often you will find that they will waive the late fee.

None of us work for any of the companies you happen to be complaining about, but it is a common assumption by people who complain here that don't wish to be responsible for their actions.  The problem is you are responsible - plain and simple.  It's time for you to accept that.  Here's the truth:

Amazon processes thousands of transactions per day - all successful - which is why they are a multi-billion dollar company.  Same with Synchrony - they are the largest company of their type.  It logically follows that if these companies process thousands of transactions daily, and you can't get them to process yours on a consistent basis, then there is a problem on your end, not theirs. 

In the case of your Synchrony card, they make money off of Amazon through each transaction processed.  While late fees would be a revenue source, there are labor and other costs on their side as well for tracking and maintaining, so the income effect on late fees is nearly zero.  So, no, they don't make money off of late fees.

Now, you clearly haven't contacted your bank yet to verify whether the ABA for ACH transactions is going to be different than for your checking account, otherwise you would have said so.  The really large banks you are probably familiar with do have a different ABA numbers for ACH's the ABA on your paper checks. 

I would do that first.  If that isn't it, then I would call Synchrony support and figure out how you pay off your balance.  Then I would ask their support if you can delete your account and then re-establish the account - and have them send you a new card, or equivalent.

And no, I don't work for either company.

 There are some great people with a large amount of varied experience and insight who comment on the ALLEDGED ripoffs which supposedly take place. Most of the time, people like Robert hit the nail very directly and very squarely on the head, so much so, the original complainer has the wind taken out of their sails and they can't put together ANY intelligent rebuttal!

Of course, they could realize where and how they were wrong and write back a "thank you" but they just don't have the ADULTHOOD to do that. Their response? It's the same old immature, nonsensical "you must work for them" garbage! So Little Barbie, why not GROW UP and learn to accept the FACT you don't know everything and even Your Highness makes mistakes!

You are incorrect in all of your assumptions. I made the payment two weeks in advance and did not receive notice of the rejection until three weeks later, when the late fee was added on. The account number is stored in the online system, and was not changed.

The fact that you are attempting to shift blame onto me and state that maybe they would be nicer to me if my attitude was better tells me that you evidently work for them, or another company like them. The customer is always wrong appears to be the new norm.

The routing and account numbers are accurate. They are stored in the system and were used successfully for several payments before that. In fact, I just made another payment, which was successful using those same numbers that are stored on the Amazon/Synchrony site. Nothing was changed.

They state my payment was rejected by my bank.  My bank never received the request for funds and has always had plenty of funds in it to cover my payments.  The bank didn't reject your payment.  What happened was when their system tried to validate your routing and account number, the system rejected your payment.  This rejection happens most often for two reasons:

• Bad account number provided
• Bad ABA routing number provided

Now, if either of these things happened, the company would reject the payment AND the bank would never receive notification of the request for funds.  Why?  If the wrong routing number was used, then the bank would never know it was being asked to make a payment.

If the wrong account was used, then the bank might get the request, but they would never know from which account the funds should be drawn from.  In the latter situation, the bank ignores the request, so the bank would tell you there was no request.

I would look at the accuracy of the account number for which the payment is supposed to be made from to make sure the account number is accurate.  If so, then make sure you look at the routing number.  In some cases, you cannot use the routing number that appears on your check for an ACH debit.  You should check with your bank to see if a different routing number needs to be used.

I believe this is a scam to collect late fees.  If you thought about this rationally, then you would never make that statement.  If late fees have to be paid all of the time by customers, then both companies lose customers; that would cut down on their profit far more than making money on late fees.  No late fees generally means happy customers, who then spend more money, and everyone is happy.

 I looked at other Synchrony complaints and it appears that you have a pattern of attacking the person filing the complaint. I find that fact very interesting. Have a nice day.

 The bank did not receive a request for payment, therefore, there was nothing to reject.

 If the bank has rejected the payment, don't you think you should ask the bank about it? Having the funds available and a payment rejection are two different matters! No, I don't work for them!

Without notification, they reject my payments, then send a late notice with a late charge.

- That is an incorrect statement. You did recieve notification of the rejected payment when they sent you the late notice. If you made the payment close to the due date, and the payment was rejected, by the time they are notified(and in turn notify you) it is after the due date which would incur a late fee.

My bank never received the request for funds and has always had plenty of funds in it to cover my payments.

- That may not be correct. They never received a request for YOUR account. But this doesn't mean that a request was made, it may have been for an incorrect account number. If it was an incorrect account number when you call your bank they are not going to link the thousands of requests that come in to your account.

How did you make the payment? Was it online? Over the Phone? Did you enter in the account number? Do you have a confirmation number? Do you have proof you entered in the correct account information?

I believe this is a scam to collect late fees

- Oh yea..that's it. They are so desparate to collect your $35-$39 late fee that they picked you out at random and intentionally messed with your account to cause you a late fee. All to "pad" their bottom line. Oh yes that makes so much sense.

Seriously, companies like the is deal in Billions. Amazon makes about 19 Billion dollars a month, and Syncrony makes about 1.5 Billion a month..you are talking about $35. Don't give us the "Oh but if they did it to 10,0000 people a month". That is still not even enough to show up as a rounding error on their books. Not only that but for this to work on an ongoing basis, they would have to come up with new people every month.

I have even sent them proof that there were funds in the bank, and it does not matter.

- That is correct, it does not matter. Because it doesn't show that you actually wanted to make the payment. What matters is confirmation that you actually made the payment using your correct account information.

Now, I will say that if your account history is as good as you say because mistakes happen. Depending on your attitude, it is likely with a bit of work you can get them to waive the late fee. But for this to happen you have to get rid of the attitude that they did this to pick on you. You also should have made the payment that was now late once notified, as there is nothing that would show proof that you intended to make the payment than you actually making the payment.

Good Luck...