topic Re: What's the deal with Synchrony? in Credit Cards

What's the deal with Synchrony?

1LostArk — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 03:38:48 GMT

Current have $27,500 in tradelines with Synchrony ($20k Verizon Visa, $7.5k PayPal Credit). I'm looking at possibly picking up the Harbor Freight card at the end of the year. I've read horror stories about Synchrony randomly CLD'ing or closing accounts, but so far in my experience all they've done is given me CLI's and provide good customer service. Are the horror stories blown out of proportion?

Any long term Synchrony anecdotes?

1LostArk — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 03:44:19 GMT

Seems like whenever I see Synchrony mentioned it's in the context of some AA horror story. But in my experience (so far) all they've done is give me generous SP CLI's and provide good customer service. Am I an outlier? Is it only a matter of time before the other shoe drops? I want to pick up a Harbor Freight card at the end of the year, but I already have $27k+ in tradelines with Syncrhony and don't want to incur gratuitous AA. Anyone have long term experience with multiple Synchrony tradelines?

Re: Any long term Synchrony anecdotes?

Drifter73 — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 05:09:01 GMT

Not long-term, roughly 3 years and x3 credit lines (carecredit, walgreens, sams club) with a total of $15k exposure in their ecosystem.

Like you, I've had no issues. I even carry a balance on carecredit most times, because I use their 0% x12mo and 0% x24mo promos on mid 4-figure medical related purchases once or twice per year.

Nothing but good things to say so far (knock on wood).

If synchrony had more than just Sam's club in their business credit lines portfolio, I would probably go for some of their Biz cards too.

Re: Any long term Synchrony anecdotes?

Andypanda — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 05:19:47 GMT

I have the Verizon visa, and had the Rakuten visa while it existed. No issues.

Re: Any long term Synchrony anecdotes?

Shooting-For-800 — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 05:26:11 GMT

I have not had any issues - knock on wood.

I have had a lot of exposure and used 0% a lot.

I have $70k among 4 cards now.

Was $80k among 5 cards before WalMart went to CapOne.

It is a lot but I no longer ask for CLIs or open new accounts with them.

YMMV.

GL!

Re: Any long term Synchrony anecdotes?

CreditCobra — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 06:55:54 GMT

I have four Synchrony cards with a total exposure of $62,500. I am carrying a few hundred on a single card, as those purchases are zero interest.

PayPal Mastercard - My fallback 2% card.

Venmo Visa - My 3% Costco card.

Amazon Prime Store Card - 5% at Amazon.

Sweetwater Store Card - 5% cash back (sorta) at Sweetwater, or 0% interest for 6-48 months depending on the item purchased.

So far, I've had zero issues.

Re: Any long term Synchrony anecdotes?

UncleB — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 12:16:43 GMT

So far I've never had any issues with Synchrony. My oldest two cards are Lowe's and Belk, so while it wouldn't be disastrous if something happened I'd really prefer to keep them around for as long as possible.

At times I've added multiple new accounts at once (last spring was an example of this) and I knew it was possible Synchrony would react, but everything was fine. The one thing I've not done in the last decade is carry a balance with a Synchrony card, which may or may not have made a difference. Lowe's did balance chase me in the mid-2000s, but my credit scores were falling due to financial difficulties so that wasn't suprising. When my credit scores eventually rebounded I got the credit line restored (and more).

My exposure with them is as follows:

Lowe's - 2004 - $20k
Belk - 2006 - $5k
Sam's Club MC - 2015 - $20k
Care Credit MC - 2018 - $15k
Venmo Visa - 2022 - $13k

Re: What's the deal with Synchrony?

tcbofade — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 14:36:21 GMT

No, they aren't.

...but they don't happen to everyone, and the severity varies greatly.

I've had a few "haircuts" from Synchrony, but nothing devasting.

At $27K in total exposure, I wouldn't worry too much about adverse action from Synch.

You can almost certainly double that exposure and still not have to worry.

Good luck to you!

Re: What's the deal with Synchrony?

GreatLife — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 16:51:56 GMT

I caution you to carefully research the benefits this card does or doesn't offer for consideration in your decision. My spouse got the card about 5 or 6 years ago and only ever received 10% off a SINGLE item during 1st purchase on the card. No rewards, no further purchase discounts, no promotional offers - nothing except a hard pull and high APR on balances. Synchrony eventually closed the sock drawered card after almost 3 years but didn't touch his other Synch cards. From my previous readings within the forum Synch will sometimes auto CLI, then turn around and AA the same profile. IMO there are better cards to be used at Harbor Freight without risk of Synchrony AA, unnecessary hard pull for initiating the account, or risk of exceeding Synch's secret internal CL algorithm if open another type of account with them in the future.

Re: What's the deal with Synchrony?

ALLgoodABQ — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 17:38:43 GMT

I have 4 cards with Synchrony: the amazon store card, Sam's club, Lowe's, and Venmo visa.

The Lowe's I got back in August, 2022. Started with a $1000 limit, bought a washer, PIF before the interest kicked in. Couple months later, bought a $50 gift card. About 2 days later, got a letter saying they reviewed my credit history and new limit was $100. Paid off and haven't touched since.

The amazon started at $300 and is now $1,500, and just recently got PIF, but had been at its max since July last year.

Sam's started at $800, and got axed to $680 when my balance was $650 after about 6months or so. This also just got PIF.

My Venmo started at $250 and a couple month later bumped to $500. This one also just got PIF recently.

I've been carrying high balances on all my CCs, but just paid a lot of them off. I'm hoping with my scores increasing they won't cut my lines again, but i'm preparing myself for the worst. Honestly, I'm about ready to just close them all, but waiting to see what they do.

Re: What's the deal with Synchrony?

reluctantgarden — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 18:40:50 GMT

@1LostArk wrote:
Current have $27,500 in tradelines with Synchrony ($20k Verizon Visa, $7.5k PayPal Credit). I'm looking at possibly picking up the Harbor Freight card at the end of the year. I've read horror stories about Synchrony randomly CLD'ing or closing accounts, but so far in my experience all they've done is given me CLI's and provide good customer service. Are the horror stories blown out of proportion?

FWIW, I thought they were until after having new Crate & Barrel and Lowe's cards for about a week, they nuked them ($44.5k), my two-year old PayPal MC ($20k), and my 20-year-old PayPal Credit ($10k) in one fell swoop despite 780s FICOs, no baddies, 25-year credit history, and north of $400k TCL. They have the least stable underwriting and risk models of any FI I know of, so that needs to be taken into account when deciding whether to start or continue a relationship with them.

Re: Any long term Synchrony anecdotes?

reluctantgarden — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 18:56:48 GMT

See my experience on your other post.

Re: Any long term Synchrony anecdotes?

youngandcreditwrthy — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 17:08:03 GMT

Yes, i've been using them since they were GEMB then GECRB then spun off to publicly traded SYNC.

if you handle the accounts correctly, realize it's a bad idea to accrue debt at their ginormous interest rates, you'll be fine.

if you get aggressive with the CLIs, they might occassionally ask you to provide proof of identity via SSA 89 form but if you're handling the accounts appropriately you'll be fine. I had 100k in exposure with them through the transition from GECRB to Synchrony that started back in 2007 (so 17 years exp here) and never experienced any AA.

the issue is when people have huge balances, miss payments, commit fraud, etc.

if you handle the accounts well (dont EVER let the 0% expire with a balance bc youll OWE all the 'deferred interest' ) you shoulud be fine.

ANY BANK and for that matter, ALL BANKS engage in AA including CLD, account closure, etc.

be responsible my friend. you'll be fine. and certainly don't keep all your eggs in the synchrony basket. lol as AI advances, I susppect banks will become more quick to reducle CLs, detect risky activity etc with far more velocity than in the past.

like I said, been using Sync since 2007 starting with a Dillards Card $400 cl (which grew to 10k then WF got the card)

Re: Any long term Synchrony anecdotes?

SouthJamaica — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 17:18:07 GMT

No you're not an "outlier". I'm sure most people have no problems with most of their lenders.

But if you ever get hit with any of the weird things Synchrony has done to some people, like closing all of a customer's accounts despite a perfect record, or unpredictable reporting of balances to the credit bureaus, you won't be able to say you were caught off guard by it.

Re: What's the deal with Synchrony?

youngandcreditwrthy — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 17:26:43 GMT

@ALLgoodABQ

yeah but is that a them problem or a you problem? not meaning to sound crass here, but in general if you carry high utilization, banks notice. it's their job to risk mitigate.

the answer to your problem is to have higher limits to begin with so that you aren't having high utiliztion. it is weird that they'd cut line after you paid it off, but you gotta remember there are algorithmsthat respond to patterns. they'd rather see you make a steady stream of $60 payments over 10 months than pay the thing off all at once after 9 months of carrying a balance. it makes them thing you had a one time windfall and they better get their money and dip.

when i carry a balance, I try to plan it out like how many months will it take, and what do I need to pay monthly to pay it off timely.

anywho, hope that advice helps you. Good luck!

Re: What's the deal with Synchrony?

youngandcreditwrthy — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 17:27:53 GMT

whoa @reluctantgarden now im rethinking lol

Re: What's the deal with Synchrony?

ALLgoodABQ — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 17:57:12 GMT

@youngandcreditwrthy

This was absolutly a me problem. It was my fault for carrying high balances on my cards that killed my scores. I understand that companies will cut limits to avoid losses, and having high utilization does raise a red flag, but out of all my cards, Synch was the only one to cut my limits. And I've made regular payments on all of them on time, and would occasionally use them. The topic of this tread was the AA that synch has done. So i was justing adding my two cents.

Re: What's the deal with Synchrony?

SouthJamaica — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 18:17:07 GMT

@1LostArk wrote:
Current have $27,500 in tradelines with Synchrony ($20k Verizon Visa, $7.5k PayPal Credit). I'm looking at possibly picking up the Harbor Freight card at the end of the year. I've read horror stories about Synchrony randomly CLD'ing or closing accounts, but so far in my experience all they've done is given me CLI's and provide good customer service. Are the horror stories blown out of proportion?

No, the horror stories are not blown out of proportion.

Re: What's the deal with Synchrony?

ChargedUp — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 20:35:44 GMT

Here's some of the problems I see with Synch...

1: When it comes to retail store credit cards, Synch covers most of them. This means that for people that may frequent certain retailers and find value in what discounts or offerings may accompany a store-only credit card, you're going to end up with a bunch of tradelines all from the same lender. Synch gets unnecessarily nervous by fault of their own business model here.

2: Synch uses Vantage Score vs. FICO. The FICO - 8 of a mature, thick, blemish-free credit history won't fluctuate much should this person find a few credit offerings they take a liking to. Vantage scores seem to jump around and weigh heavier for inquiries/credit seeking. I've watched this happen in my own scores on EX.

3: There seems to be multiple means for receiving CLI's from Synch, and I don't think they know about each other. On one hand, you can click a CLI link on your account and you may get a small bump... or nothing at all. You could call the number on the back of your card and get a different response. On top of that, you could call the infamous Synch number to the India call center where they seem to put their hand over the receiver, yell across the call center to someone with a Magic 8-Ball and push your $2K Lowes card to $25K.

.... Then a month or three later the Synch computers at the home base realize there's too many zeros in your available credit and decides to take the nuclear option. Nevermind your 20+ years of perfect payments on 12 accounts, $500K income, <1% UTL and <5% DTI, nor your 846 TU - 08. HAL-9000 has gone blue screen and your 3 Synch accounts are now closed for good. 30 minutes later the same profile could apply at any top lender and snag an instant $40K SL that would be as solid as the Rocky Mountains.

Bottom line... There's probably tens of thousands of people out there that deal with Synch and never have an issue. The negative is usually what becomes newsworthy and we hear about... On the other hand, we seem to hear more negative about Synch than any other lender around here. We used to hear similar about Comenity/Bread, but it's been a while since I've read about anyone getting a blue envelope in the mail, leading me to believe they've at least somewhat cleaned up their algorithms. With Synch it's still the same complaints year after year.

Re: What's the deal with Synchrony?

K-in-Boston — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 15:17:19 GMT

I've merged your two nearly identical threads. Please refrain from creating multiple threads on the same topic.

I've also had numerous Synchrony accounts since the GE Money Bank days, and the worst issues I have ever had were CLDs on accounts that had no activity for years (and received CLIs back to my previous limits immediately after noticing that it happened). Due to the nature of credit card forums, you're going to mostly hear about bad experiences with lenders and Synchrony is certainly no different. I do not recall ever seeing account closures from Synchrony where there wasn't something obvious in a cardholder's profile or actions that caused their underwriting to take adverse action. Typically that has been things like opening numerous Synchrony accounts in a short period of time, rapidly escalating balances with Sychrony or other lenders (this can happen with any lender), new derogs on your credit report (again, can happen with any lender), or in at least one case I've seen here because they added about a dozen authorized users to their accounts (absolutely a red flag for potential fraud).