topic Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!! in Credit Cards

Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:30:58 GMT

I received the blue letter from SB 2 weeks ago and they asked me to send 4056 Form to them and I called them last week to ask them that if they have any other options so I can send like my paycheck stubs bank statememts and they said that's the only option that they need and If I dont respond the form within 30 days and they will close all my accounts . Well , they said that they are sending this to everyone and soon or later they will receive it, im not sure if anyone else receive this blue letter from them , I dont know why they have to do this besides I did not request for CLI and I spent all their cards and paid off balances every month as well , so I dont wanna share my personal tax data info to any 3rd Party and I had to close my cards for that reason, I know that sucks but I have no choice , so just letting you guys know that and good luck to anyone who has credit cards with them !

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:34:58 GMT

Sorry about the loss of your credit lines. But it came down to the choice of keeping those or having your tax info. shared with a third party company. So in this case, you made the right decision.

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Xistaben2 — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:26:06 GMT

My DW has a Haverty's card that we've had for about 3-4 years now that is issued by Synchrony. It only has a $5500 and we've used it twice for the 0% financing on already overpriced furniture (for real..).

If they are sending tax forms to everyone, I can't wait for that day to call them up.

Sorry this happened, it seems to be happening to a lot of folks out there recently. SB pay be in some hot water with shareholders too, but it seems like all the cases of AA with Synchrony here at MyFico, most of them are with really high limits across multiple cards - reguardless of account standing or payment history. You are def not the only one, so it might not be something you did or could control.

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

ddemari — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:29:47 GMT

sorry this happened op.

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Appleman — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:30:12 GMT

They are sending it to everyone? Hopefully not but time will tell. Sorry to hear they are closing your lines.

Trying to expand the data points: Does your income match or differ from what you listed? Are you self employed?

I do thank you for providing the information. It makes me wonder if the 3rd party company has information that was not matching up with Synchrony?

I have $75K in credit available with Sync. preferring to keep it that way.

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:37:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Sorry about the loss of your credit lines. But it came down to the choice of keeping those or having your tax info. shared with a third party company. So in this case, you made the right decision.

I wonder if this is being over-emphasized on this forum. How do we quantify the actual harm of Lexis-Nexus selling your data (in addition to whatever they have anyway)? Is this harm greater than the benefit of keeping the cards?

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

wasCB14 — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 15:38:03 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I received the blue letter from SB 2 weeks ago and they asked me to send 4056 Form to them and I called them last week to ask them that if they have any other options so I can send like my paycheck stubs bank statememts and they said that's the only option that they need and If I dont respond the form within 30 days and they will close all my accounts . Well , they said that they are sending this to everyone and soon or later they will receive it, im not sure if anyone else receive this blue letter from them , I dont know why they have to do this besides I did not request for CLI and I spent all their cards and paid off balances every month as well , so I dont wanna share my personal tax data info to any 3rd Party and I had to close my cards for that reason, I know that sucks but I have no choice , so just letting you guys know that and good luck to anyone who has credit cards with them !

It would be objectively impossible to prove that they aren't going to eventually ask everyone to sign a 4506-T. From the reports I have seen, though (and I've only read a small portion of some threads) the 4506-T forms are going to people who have a lot of credit from Synchrony, or a lot of credit in general.

If they sent the form to their average, low-risk, non-credit-enthusiast customers, I think they'd upset and lose too many of the desirable ones.

I really have a hard time believing they'll send it to everyone.

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:09:01 GMT

@Appleman wrote:
They are sending it to everyone? Hopefully not but time will tell. Sorry to hear they are closing your lines.

Trying to expand the data points: Does your income match or differ from what you listed? Are you self employed?

I do thank you for providing the information. It makes me wonder if the 3rd party company has information that was not matching up with Synchrony?

I have $75K in credit available with Sync. preferring to keep it that way.

My income not exactly Match with the time I applied for their cards, and yes I am self employed , i owned my business and home , its kind of complicated income and Tax data file . That's why I dont want them to see it

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

AverageJoesCredit — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:31:26 GMT

Dang OP, im sorry to hear this. If they are going to send this to everyone they are going to be lwft without alot of clients. I can see in certain cases you may want to verify someones income depending on the circumstances but it would be a bad precedent to ask everybody for their tax info for a credit card. If i knew i had to provide my tax info just to get a card that may only give a small sl, or any for that matter, well, ill just pass and buy my stuff the good ol fashion way, cash. I agree with an above poster we need more data from OP total exposure etc. Best of luck OP and thank you for sharing the news with us

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 17:20:37 GMT

Most unfortunate! Feel your pain. In my case no sharing of data would be the answer. But, each one of us has to look at our needs and move forward from there.Today, I do not have any Sync or Commenity Cards and life rolls along smoothly. One thing a poster said as a reminder that fits ... diversify our credit card herd!

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 18:33:54 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Most unfortunate! Feel your pain. In my case no sharing of data would be the answer. But, each one of us has to look at our needs and move forward from there.Today, I do not have any Sync or Commenity Cards and life rolls along smoothly. One thing a poster said as a reminder that fits ... diversify our credit card herd!

Yes, I have a Total Rewards Card with 22K cl and I hope they dont do this like freaking SB , btw, its been over a year . So lets just hope .....

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

austinguy907 — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 19:01:47 GMT

1. you had 50K in exposure with the same lender. this will usually prompt some sort of review in comparison to people that have a ton of small limit cards with sync / commenity

2. not everyone will be getting a 4506 from them but, most likely people holding higher CL with them on multiple accounts will get reviewed

3. i recently got a CLI to 25K w/ sync on my Sam's MC and had requested 30K but, they couldn't do 30K w/o additional documentation aka POI/4506

Seeing this sort of action from lenders just reinforces the idea of not putting all of your eggs (CC) in the same basket. We tend to see this with Chase, Commenity, Sync, and others all the time on here for whatever reason. I don't get it personally though why someone needs 10 Chase accounts and 20 Commenity cards or 5 Synchrony accounts. Yes, some of them have the perks of being approved with lenient UW guidelines and grow easily with SP online but, the quality of the card just isn't as stable as others. When I started my credit journey I of course went for all of the major banks BOA/Chase/WF/Citi/AMEX/Disc/ etc. and once I started reorganizing things and getting a savvy view on credit types I started looking into CU's more due to the better benefits of lower APR / higher CL / less penalties. Since cleaning up my reports and building them up with 5 digit CL's and such I'm now able to get whatever I apply for at this point instead of applying for everything and getting whatever the leftovers are.

Currently here's what my accounts look like:

4 X CU accounts / combined CL 79K

(UFCU, ITCU, JFCU, Consumers)

AMEX 30K

Disc 30K

Sync Sam's MC 25K

Macy's AMEX 11K

Chase 5K

Cap 1 $1500 (old HSBC account that got bought)

Total combined CL 181K

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

UncleB — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 12:20:41 GMT

@austinguy907 wrote:
OP

1. you had 50K in exposure with the same lender. this will usually prompt some sort of review in comparison to people that have a ton of small limit cards with sync / commenity

2. not everyone will be getting a 4506 from them but, most likely people holding higher CL with them on multiple accounts will get reviewed

3. i recently got a CLI to 25K w/ sync on my Sam's MC and had requested 30K but, they couldn't do 30K w/o additional documentation aka POI/4506

Seeing this sort of action from lenders just reinforces the idea of not putting all of your eggs (CC) in the same basket. We tend to see this with Chase, Commenity, Sync, and others all the time on here for whatever reason. I don't get it personally though why someone needs 10 Chase accounts and 20 Commenity cards or 5 Synchrony accounts. Yes, some of them have the perks of being approved with lenient UW guidelines and grow easily with SP online but, the quality of the card just isn't as stable as others. When I started my credit journey I of course went for all of the major banks BOA/Chase/WF/Citi/AMEX/Disc/ etc. and once I started reorganizing things and getting a savvy view on credit types I started looking into CU's more due to the better benefits of lower APR / higher CL / less penalties. Since cleaning up my reports and building them up with 5 digit CL's and such I'm now able to get whatever I apply for at this point instead of applying for everything and getting whatever the leftovers are.

Currently here's what my accounts look like:

4 X CU accounts / combined CL 79K
(UFCU, ITCU, JFCU, Consumers)
AMEX 30K
Disc 30K
Sync Sam's MC 25K
Macy's AMEX 11K
Chase 5K
Cap 1 $1500 (old HSBC account that got bought)

Total combined CL 181K

I agree with your statements here, I would just add that with Synchrony backing so many different store cards it's quite easy to find yourself with more than a couple of cards with them, even if you're not intentionally 'collecting' Synchrony cards.

In my own case, I got my Lowe's account years ago when I had my house (and had frequent home improvement expenses) and Belk (also 10+ years old) since I was/am a frequent shopper there.

More recently, last summer I got the Sam's Club MasterCard to use for restaurant and travel expenses (I usually earn $30+ cash back each month) and I got Care Credit for 0% financing on a dental implant... it's also come in handy when I broke a tooth; I got 12 months at 0% for my crown as well.

Basically I'm just trying to demonstrate that not everybody with more than one or two Synchrony-backed cards is seeking to collect accounts... there are some of us who got the accounts for their actual benefits.

I now have four cards with them... while they aren't 'irreplaceable' by any means, I would be quite bummed out if I were to lose them. Hopefully whatever algorithm they are using to determine who gets 'frozen out' will bypass me. <fingers crossed>

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Anonymous — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 12:57:22 GMT

@Xistaben2 wrote:
My DW has a Haverty's card that we've had for about 3-4 years now that is issued by Synchrony. It only has a $5500 and we've used it twice for the 0% financing on already overpriced furniture (for real..).

If they are sending tax forms to everyone, I can't wait for that day to call them up.

Sorry this happened, it seems to be happening to a lot of folks out there recently. SB pay be in some hot water with shareholders too, but it seems like all the cases of AA with Synchrony here at MyFico, most of them are with really high limits across multiple cards - reguardless of account standing or payment history. You are def not the only one, so it might not be something you did or could control.

Doubtful they'd mail you one. It seems most who have been getting the dreaded blue envelope had individual credit limits of $10K+ and/or total combined limit of upwards of $20K. It's not overly surprising for people who opened up many accounts in rapid succession getting a FR. However, for those with a long established history with Syncrony the reasoning isn't clear...

My hunch is it's not just exposure that Synchrony is concerned about, but also utilization. Ironically, too little usage could be a factor. Doesn't make sense for them to extend $50K in limits to a cardholder who charges a tiny fraction of that per year and usually or always PIFs; infrequent, low usage. I don't know if that's true in OP's situation, but putting it out there as a possibility.

I also wonder if Synchrony takes into account one's employment information that's shown on credit reports and/or via other sources. In particular looking for any indication one is self-employed, which can be perceived as more risky.

On a related note, has anyone succeeded in keeping their accounts open after submitting a 4056-T? I've not read of any sucess stories. From what I've read, it seems the account closures are a foregone conclusion regardless of what the cardholder does. Maybe not, but sure seems that way.

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Anonymous — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 13:15:24 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Sorry about the loss of your credit lines. But it came down to the choice of keeping those or having your tax info. shared with a third party company. So in this case, you made the right decision.

+1, Yes-Its-Me. Sorry this happened, OP.

Reporting as self-employed, as you mentioned, and having the income mismatch you reported may be factors (among others) that Synchrony is reviewing on accounts. None of us know for certain, but it's a possibility.

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Anonymous — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 13:49:03 GMT

My Synchrony accounts were blocked in June, I called and was told I would get somrthing in the mail, 7-10 days later were unblocked, and I never received the 4506-T form in the mail.

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Anonymous — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 13:58:15 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
My Synchrony accounts were blocked in June, I called and was told I would get somrthing in the mail, 7-10 days later were unblocked, and I never received the 4506-T form in the mail.

That's pretty funny. Glad to see that they were unblocked but it does make you wonder what caused the accounts to be blocked in the first place and then magically unblocked. Guess that's Synchrony for you.

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

pizza1 — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 14:01:07 GMT

ugh..I can tell you right now that I will NOT be sending them tax forms, if they are eventually requesting it "everyone". The only people that get my tax forms are my future lender for a Mortgage.

Synch is not JP Morgan....and certainly not worth risking my private info on tax forms, that they turn around and submit to LN who turns around and shares it with God knows who for a $$$.

No WAY is any of my Synch cards with a 23-25% apr worth keeping by providing them with tax info.

It is within their right as a business/lender to request such info, but its within my rights as the consumer to say no. They arent the only lender out there, and Id find credit elsewhere. Its not that hard...

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

pip3man — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 14:03:49 GMT

I'll never understand the paranoia people feel by consenting to provide their tax transcript. I mean what more do we really have to loose?! Banks already monitor our everyday activities and have a wealth of information about us at their fingertips. What extra can we provide that they don't already have? Updated income, number of dependent, business profits/losses, employment, marital status, household size maybe?! So ironical that we feel VERY comfortable providing our SSN and stated income when applying for credit but become very defensive when they request proof of the same info we supplied them initially. Really?! I think this Lexis Nexis concern is way too overrated and SOME people are using it as a cover up for whatever bluff they did. For over $50k in exposure, we don't think it's only fair that banks take precautionary measures by requesting these documents to mitigate against lending risk and losses. After all they are lending us their money! Not to mention, as Americans do we even have a real sense of privacy... they know everything about us, what more can we protect or prevent them from knowing. Oh well I digress but to each his own...

Re: Synchrony Bank Requested 4056T !!!!!

Anonymous — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 14:07:53 GMT

OK, I have to ask again! What is the *actual* harm in having your information sold by LN, assuming that they don't have most of it already. I can see iincreased marketing perhaps but what other dire consequences do people expect.

ETA: mister-endowed beat me to it