topic Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods...... in Credit Cards

Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

madmann26 — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 11:51:58 GMT

I woke you up to my Synch accounts closed, albeit, they seem to have left my Venmo alone, for now. No emails from them either.

Am I angry? Naw. Do I understand why they did it? Naw. Do I care? Naw.

The only balance I carried was on my Lowes but it was less than 10% of it's limit, always paid when it was due, never late. Other cards I used, then paid when charges posted. I had 6% util across the board.

No lates were reported, no serious changes other than a few new accounts. Hell, I actually closed 2 of my other Synch accounts last week. Was it that? Who knows. This seems to be their mantra.

The crappy part is they'll report the accounts closed, a couple had a balance and that'll sting. I went through and paid them all. It's not like I don't have the funds. :/

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

Drifter73 — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 12:45:53 GMT

@madmann26 wrote:
I woke you up to my Synch accounts closed, albeit, they seem to have left my Venmo alone, for now. No emails from them either.

Am I angry? Naw. Do I understand why they did it? Naw. Do I care? Naw.

The only balance I carried was on my Lowes but it was less than 10% of it's limit, always paid when it was due, never late. Other cards I used, then paid when charges posted. I had 6% util across the board.

No lates were reported, no serious changes other than a few new accounts. Hell, I actually closed 2 of my other Synch accounts last week. Was it that? Who knows. This seems to be their mantra.

The crappy part is they'll report the accounts closed, a couple had a balance and that'll sting. I went through and paid them all. It's not like I don't have the funds. :/

Curious about the following:

- You mentioned paying some off with balances after closure, were they being slow paid over time or pif?

- You mentioned low utilization. How much time went by between using each card for a new purchase?

- You mention several cards closing. How many sync cards did you have total?

- With the above in mind, what was your total sync credit limit exposure (all sync cards combined)?

- Last question, what's your income vs. Total credit exposure on all cards (including non sync cards)?

Trying get data points to help myself and others prevent advers actions that hold multiple sync cards.

For instance, I hold 4 sync cards, each sees 1 purchase every 1 to 3 months. All are pif except 1 (carecredit) leveraging promotions. Total sync exposure is $20k (46% of income) and my total personal credit exposure (including non sync cards) is 1 1/2 x income. (Not including business credit)

So far, so good.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

madmann26 — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 12:46:42 GMT

@Drifter73 wrote:
@madmann26 wrote:
I woke you up to my Synch accounts closed, albeit, they seem to have left my Venmo alone, for now. No emails from them either.

Am I angry? Naw. Do I understand why they did it? Naw. Do I care? Naw.

The only balance I carried was on my Lowes but it was less than 10% of it's limit, always paid when it was due, never late. Other cards I used, then paid when charges posted. I had 6% util across the board.

No lates were reported, no serious changes other than a few new accounts. Hell, I actually closed 2 of my other Synch accounts last week. Was it that? Who knows. This seems to be their mantra.

The crappy part is they'll report the accounts closed, a couple had a balance and that'll sting. I went through and paid them all. It's not like I don't have the funds. :/
Curious about the following:

- You mentioned paying some off with balances after closure, were they being slow paid over time or pif?

- You mentioned low utilization. How much time went by between using each card for a new purchase?

- You mention several cards closing. How many sync cards did you have total?

- With the above in mind, what was your total sync credit limit exposure (all sync cards combined)?

- Last question, what's your income vs. Total credit exposure on all cards (including non sync cards)?

Trying get data points to help myself and others prevent advers actions that hold multiple sync cards.

For instance, I hold 4 sync cards, each sees 1 purchase every 1 to 3 months. All are pif except 1 (carecredit) leveraging promotions. Total sync exposure is $20k and my total personal credit exposure (including non sync cards) is 1 1/2 x income. (Not including business credit)

So far, so good.

Cards that had balances were closed when I got up this morning. I paid all of these before 8a EST.

Balances on those cards are relatively small compared to their CLs. I closed 2 of my Synch accounts in good standing/0 balance just because I didn't use them and was actually trying to do the right thing by reducing my exposure with them.

My total exposure with them was about $59k, with $29k being my Lowes card. My income is about $266k/yr.

My advice, and others will echo this, don't rely on them for credit.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

Ushio — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 13:20:05 GMT

Synchrony is wild. Sometimes I really wonder how they manage to survive as a company, since they're so consistently awful to so many people. It really must just be people who don't know better since they've basically cornered the market of at-the-register store cards.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

ElvisCaprice — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 13:32:08 GMT

Sync doesn't have anything special that you can't find with an alternative issuer with equal or better terms. Best just to avoid them altogether. But if you are going to go there, don't poke the bear. Be happy with your SL, in fact maybe reduce it with a CLD on day one to your spending needs/utilization.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

coldfusion — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 18:54:08 GMT

Did you go through a recent cycle of successful CLI requests?

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

madmann26 — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 18:55:04 GMT

@coldfusion wrote:
Did you go through a recent cycle of successful CLI requests?

Sure did.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

Drifter73 — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 19:32:42 GMT

@madmann26 wrote:
@coldfusion wrote:
Did you go through a recent cycle of successful CLI requests?
Sure did.

That seems to be consistent with other threads about sync closures, so it may be safe to assume cli sprees are a trigger.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

coldfusion — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 20:02:54 GMT

@madmann26 wrote:
@coldfusion wrote:
Did you go through a recent cycle of successful CLI requests?
Sure did.

There's your likely answer. That's a known trigger even if the cardholder has a pristine history.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

BallBounces — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 21:38:58 GMT

Welcome to the club.

FWIW, I actually don't think that asking for recent CLIs is the trigger. But I also will not pretend to know why Synch does what they do.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

madmann26 — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 14:16:52 GMT

I got a rash of emails from EQ about updates to various accounts and just as I suspected, these were the Synch accounts they closed, some with a reported balance.

Although, there doesn't appear to be a negative impact to my scores (yet). I pulled a fresh report from myfico and all the Synch accounts were reported as "closed by credit grantor" and a couple were closed with a balance (just as I suspected they would, albeit, I also paid the balances due when I saw they had been closed).

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

pauldc73 — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 16:23:46 GMT

Hopefully these will be updated in your credit report next month even though the account is now closed.

It seems the moral of the story is not to ask Sync for "just because" CL increases especially if they are truly not needed. One card maybe but not more than one.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

CreditCrusader — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 20:33:09 GMT

@Ushio wrote:
Synchrony is wild. Sometimes I really wonder how they manage to survive as a company, since they're so consistently awful to so many people. It really must just be people who don't know better since they've basically cornered the market of at-the-register store cards.

They lend money to people who do not have other avenues to procure credit for the necessary amounts.

Case in point: CareCredit

It's absurdly easy to get large CareCredit lines, especially is someone takes liberties with regards to their claimed income.

So, say the borrower requests and receives $5k for a medical procedure (or a pet's) and uses their 12-24 month deferred interest promo. The odds that the borrower will pay that entire amount by the end of the promo period are quite slim. But Synch won't close the card. They'll just tack on interest and the borrower will pay interest on that interest in addition to the borrowed amount.

Sync makes money from people who do not PIF like so many on this board. That's why they will CLD someone who is clearly in credit trouble, but close outright the card holder who isn't paying them a cent in late fees or interest. That's their business model. They're the credit equivalent of a payday loan place or loan shark.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

LivingTheAmericanDream — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 22:40:34 GMT

Only Synchrony account I have is a Sam's Club-branded card. I like the rewards structure but have zero affinity to a card issuer, which is why I have cards w/so many different banks/CUs/other lending institutions. I have zero patience for abusive practices, but this is because of my many options. I know I'm fortunate in having so many options.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

Meanmchine — Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:25:22 GMT

FWIW, Synchrony has been known to approve applications for the cards that were privously closed in as short as just a couple months.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

KatzNDawgs — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 02:40:22 GMT

Thanks for the DPs OP, and hopefully there won't be any side effects on score or other creditors noticing what happened and getting nervous. At least we now know that the trifecta of opening cards, multiples CLIs, and closing other cards of Sync definitely upsets them!

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

madmann26 — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 17:04:33 GMT

I got a couple of letters in the mail today - they both said the same thing -

"Activity on account(s) with Synchrony Bank indicative of high risk of failure to pay"

WHAT? They absolutely kill me. The only card I carried a balance on was my Lowe's card and it was 10% of it's limit. I had no other balances carried and my reporting util was 3-6%.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

Drifter73 — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 17:30:44 GMT

@madmann26 wrote:
I got a couple of letters in the mail today - they both said the same thing -

"Activity on account(s) with Synchrony Bank indicative of high risk of failure to pay"

WHAT? They absolutely kill me. The only card I carried a balance on was my Lowe's card and it was 10% of it's limit. I had no other balances carried and my reporting util was 3-6%.

Could they be referring to any non-sync accounts that spooked them? Any late payments on non-sync accounts? Or above 75% balances on a single non-sync account?

I suppose credit seeking on multiple accounts might be worded that way by them, but its an odd way to say it.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

madmann26 — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 17:32:36 GMT

@Drifter73 wrote:
@madmann26 wrote:
I got a couple of letters in the mail today - they both said the same thing -

"Activity on account(s) with Synchrony Bank indicative of high risk of failure to pay"

WHAT? They absolutely kill me. The only card I carried a balance on was my Lowe's card and it was 10% of it's limit. I had no other balances carried and my reporting util was 3-6%.
Could they be referring to any non-sync accounts that spooked them? Any late payments on non-sync accounts? Or above 75% balances on a single non-sync account?

Absolutely not. I've not had a missed payment in almost 6yrs. As I said earlier, my reporting util across all my cards was 3-6% and certainly nothing even remotely close to 75%.

Yet, the left my Venmo account alone. It's still open/usable.

Re: Welp, I angered the Synchrony gods......

bs1234 — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 18:30:29 GMT

@madmann26 wrote:
I got a couple of letters in the mail today - they both said the same thing -

"Activity on account(s) with Synchrony Bank indicative of high risk of failure to pay"

WHAT? They absolutely kill me. The only card I carried a balance on was my Lowe's card and it was 10% of it's limit. I had no other balances carried and my reporting util was 3-6%.

Did you buy anything different from usual on any Sync card? But with predictive models it's almost impossible to tell, history might show that people buying something in zip code X and then within two weeks buying in zip code Y have a higher default rate and ...