topic Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards. in Credit Cards

Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 08:58:28 GMT

I had a synchrony bank Amazon store card for years, but it was closed last month without any prior notice. They told me the reason as my credit profile indicates 'high risk of failure to pay', even though I've always paid my statements in full and never missed a payment for ANY of my credit cards ever. It wasn't because of inactivity either as it was my goto card for Amazon.com purchases.

It's upto them if they decide to not keep me as a customer anymore, I can respect that. However I had saved $650ish in rewards which they wouldn't let me redeem either. I contacted them a few times and I was told all my rewards are forfiet. I shouldn't have saved up my rewards I guess, that's a mistake on my part apparently.

What can I do in this situation? Any help is appreciated.

Thank you.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

CreditPacMan — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 09:07:50 GMT

I am very sorry this happened to you. Has there been a sudden change in your credit profile recently?

As far as rewards go, if they already told you it's gone, I am not sure what else you can do. Have you tried to escalate?

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 09:25:32 GMT

@CreditPacMan wrote:
I am very sorry this happened to you. Has there been a sudden change in your credit profile recently?
As far as rewards go, if they already told you it's gone, I am not sure what else you can do. Have you tried to escalate?

I did apply for 4-5 new accounts this year, but the last one of those was back in May/June. My FICO score has been 720-740ish for last few months. So Idk. I don't mind them closing my account as much since I also have the Chase Amazon card, but $650 is a lot of rewards to lose. Took me like a year of purchases to get those.

I asked for escalation via phone to no avail. I'll try again via their secured message but at this point I'm not very hopeful.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

CreditMagic7 — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 21:07:27 GMT

I'm afraid you've joined the thousands that synchrony targets for complete closure in some risk review which is turned to their chief goal now more than ever.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

RootDet — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 09:15:22 GMT

most credit card agreements have you forfeit all points/rewards on closure. It is never a good idea to keep that kind of reward balance for this reason.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 21:08:03 GMT

@CreditMagic7 wrote:
I'm afraid you've joined the thousands that synchrony targets for complete closure in some risk review which is turned to their chief goal now more than ever.

Yep, I've been reading that in a lot of posts from others who had sudden closures for no specific reason as well from Synchrony.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 09:24:30 GMT

@RootDet wrote:
most credit card agreements have you forfeit all points/rewards on closure. It is never a good idea to keep that kind of reward balance for this reason.

I do understand that, and if I closed the account by myself I could accept that.

But it's a force closure on their part so it seems quite unfair to forfeit my rewards without any notice. I didn't expect my account to be closed, I've never had a card closed without any notice like this in my 10+ years of credit history.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

RootDet — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 09:30:07 GMT

That is the sucky part. Rewards are a benefit for accounts in good standing. Yours now is not, no matter how it got there. Rewards are not cash, so they have zero obligation to redeem them, they are simply points.

This is certainly a lesson for me the future. CC rewards are not a place to keep the rainy day fund.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 10:47:12 GMT

@RootDet wrote:
That is the sucky part. Rewards are a benefit for accounts in good standing. Yours now is not, no matter how it got there. Rewards are not cash, so they have zero obligation to redeem them, they are simply points.

This is certainly a lesson for me the future. CC rewards are not a place to keep the rainy day fund.

Yes, this has been said many many times on this forum! One point is that are not earning any interest on rewards you keep with the card, and the bigger issue is that your card can be closed, rightly or wrongly, without notice, even if you feel you have done nothing wrong.

So redeem cash equivalent rewards often! If you are the type who wants to build a reward pot, just move the rewards (or with statement credit, the amount you saved) to a special account.

With points you might want to hold them to build up to an award, but if possible move them to a partner reward program, as these are much less likely to go away.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

CreditInspired — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 11:02:26 GMT

OP, this is really awful and you have my sympathies. I have a few questions though.

*What was your CL?

*What was your monthly spend? $650 is a lot to earn in a year even with an intro bonus.

*Have you been late or missed a payment on any other CC? I ask because it doesnt matter if payment history was good on this card but lacking on another.

*Since the reason was "high risk of failure to pay," what was your individual and aggregate UT on all your credit cards?

Something in the algorithim spooked Synchrony and trying to figure out what it was.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 11:10:00 GMT

@CreditInspired wrote:
OP, this is really awful and you have my sympathies. I have a few questions though.

*What was your CL?

*What was your monthly spend? $650 is a lot to earn in a year even with an intro bonus.

*Have you been late or missed a payment on any other CC? I ask because it doesnt matter if payment history was good on this card but lacking on another.

*Since the reason was "high risk of failure to pay," what was your individual and aggregate UT on all your credit cards?

Something in the algorithim spooked Synchrony and trying to figure out what it was.

CL was $9000.

I spend $15-20k on Amazon easily every year, $650 took around $13k ish spent. So 1-2k monthly spend I'd say but it varies.

Nope, never missed ANY payments ever on any of my accounts, my credit report has 100% payment on time for all accounts.

UT is around 3-5%, total CL is around $120k across all my cards.

Idk what spooked them, but none of my other card issuers seem to have problems..

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

CreditInspired — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 11:19:24 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@CreditInspired wrote:
OP, this is really awful and you have my sympathies. I have a few questions though.

*What was your CL?

*What was your monthly spend? $650 is a lot to earn in a year even with an intro bonus.

*Have you been late or missed a payment on any other CC? I ask because it doesnt matter if payment history was good on this card but lacking on another.

*Since the reason was "high risk of failure to pay," what was your individual and aggregate UT on all your credit cards?

Something in the algorithim spooked Synchrony and trying to figure out what it was.
CL was $9000.
I spend $15-20k on Amazon easily every year, $650 took around $13k ish spent. So 1-2k monthly spend I'd say but it varies.
Nope, never missed ANY payments ever on any of my accounts, my credit report has 100% payment on time for all accounts.
UT is around 3-5%, total CL is around $120k across all my cards.
Idk what spooked them, but none of my other card issuers seem to have problems..

Man-oh-man, this really stinks! No wonder you feel like your $650 was stolen. Again, so sorry about this and it is a "tough" lesson-learned.

Yep, as rootdet and longtimelurker noted, no more storing rewards.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 12:45:31 GMT

This thread gives me added reasons to avoid doing business with Synchrony-not that I needed more. I guess they can get away with it legally, but this nulifying of rewards out of the blue seems like robbery to me. I'll stick to my credit union cards.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

CreditMagic7 — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 21:09:29 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
This thread gives me added reasons to avoid doing business with Synchrony-not that I needed more. I guess they can get away with it legally, but this nulifying of rewards out of the blue seems like robbery to me. I'll stick to my credit union cards.

I use to hold 5 synchrony Cards for years- 3 of those with $20K lines in no time flat.

But that was before they turned tail and began knocking dominoes for tons of cardholders. Lucky for me i closed ALL mine before filing Chapter and not a one IIB. Now i avoid them as much as Barclay's. They may never again be what they once were but was a good run while it lasted.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

Credit12Fico — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 13:16:52 GMT

4-5 new accounts? Vantage Score 4.0 tanks with new accounts. That probably did you in.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

Jnbmom — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 13:24:19 GMT

@Anonymous

Sorry OP. Just used my rewards up today just in case. You never know with synch😞

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

gdale6 — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 14:33:09 GMT

Didnt even know you could build rewards with Synch every account I have had with them the rewards are auto redeemed at statement time. Only thing you could do is file a BBB complaint against them to see if they will move on this.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

SoCalGardener — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 17:13:10 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I had a synchrony bank Amazon store card for years, but it was closed last month without any prior notice. They told me the reason as my credit profile indicates 'high risk of failure to pay', even though I've always paid my statements in full and never missed a payment for ANY of my credit cards ever. It wasn't because of inactivity either as it was my goto card for Amazon.com purchases.
It's upto them if they decide to not keep me as a customer anymore, I can respect that. However I had saved $650ish in rewards which they wouldn't let me redeem either. I contacted them a few times and I was told all my rewards are forfiet. I shouldn't have saved up my rewards I guess, that's a mistake on my part apparently.
What can I do in this situation? Any help is appreciated.

I had no idea it was even LEGAL for a bank to keep your rewards, especially under these circumstances. It's one thing if the customer screwed up the account, didn't pay their bills on time, kept usage at 99%, etc. But to be one of the unlucky Sync customers who gets axed out of the blue, how can they make you forfeit your rewards?!

I'm sorry this happened to you. At this point, I don't think there's anything you can do that will result in reinstatement of your account, but I'd definitely go back and read the fine print you agreed to when you opened it. If it doesn't say you forfeit your rewards when Sync closes your account for no reason, then I'd escalate this and try to at least get that back. Remember to stress that your account was not closed due to negative actions on your part.

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 17:19:39 GMT

When Synchrony closed all of my accounts last October (7 of them) I had between all of them only $18 in rewards. As soon as my accounts where able, I withdrew my money as statement credits. I did this by reading on here how others lost their rewards.

I am sorry this happened to you.

Thanks for the post.

Mark

Re: Synchrony closed my account and won't let me redeem my rewards.

Steveo777 — Sun, 03 Oct 2021 18:16:04 GMT

Hi. Sorry to hear about what Sychrony did to you. A few years back they closed a few of my accounts, including my Ebates Visa. I had around $120 in rewards. Eventually I received a letter from the Escheat office of Sychrony, and a form to fill in and claim my money. It came in the mail about 3 weeks later. Hope this helps you see some light.