Synchrony Late Fee, What the!?

[Anonymous]

So, this is a bit concerning for somebody with a large Synchrony portfolio and perfect payment standing:

As you can see, I scheduled a payment on the night of 12/15 to post on 12/16 (which is my exact due date;12/15 - one day prior to my due date - wasn't available as an option), yet my account was assessed a late fee.

I immediately called the # on the back of my card, and after battling the automated phone system for 3 minutes, I told it to connect me to a rep regarding a late payment fee. After wasting more of my time telling me about the post-call survey, the system abruptly disconnected me. Awesome.

So I call back and give a different reason. I make it to a rep who is very concerned and reassuring about the situation, saying that the system made a mistake and he won't even need to take action for the late fee to be reversed on its own since I made the payment on time.

He seems to think at first that I'm concerned about them reporting me 30 days late, which isn't my concern at all as I never anticipate being 30 days late on anything. I explain I'm concerned about the false record of a late payment being on file internally with Synchrony as I have many other cards w/ them in excellent standing with a large amount of credit available. He very kindly took the time to write a message to their back office explaining the situation and how alarming it is for a customer with excellent credit habits to ever see a late fee posted to their account after making a payment on time, and apologized for the inconvience.

Has anybody had this happen before on a Synchrony account? It freaked me out not having seen any kind of late fee in many years... I hope somebody on their end fixes the system to never do this to anybody again.

edit: it's been established that this is normal for Synchrony for same-as-due-date payments. I hope this detailed account and transaction example will be most helpful to the next person that has this happen.

[Anonymous]

It looks like you missed the cutoff time. As an example, some lenders require that you must make your payment before a certain hour in"their" time zone, not necessarily yours, for it to be considered paid on that date. As an example, for my Capital One payment to be posted, if I make it on the due date, it must be initiated before 7pm EST. To me that is before 4pm Pacific Time.

Edit: I see you got some help via a CSR.

Everyone has their own budgets. I avoid these close calls whenever possible, by making a payment as soon as I see a bill due, if not before. .

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

It looks like you missed the cutoff time. As an example, some lenders require that you must make your payment before a certain hour in"their" time zone, not necessarily yours, for it to be considered paid on that date. As an example, for my Capital One payment to be posted, if I make it on the due date, it must be initiated before 7pm EST. To me that is before 4pm Pacific Time.

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Nope. As stated in my post, I requested the payment on the night of 12/15 with a pament date of 12/16 which is the official due date of my account. I wasn't even one minute late or past any cut off, of which the CSR reassured me.

I even received email confirmation on the night of 12/15.

What you're describing would only be the case if I scheduled the payment the night of 12/16 with a payment date of 12/17.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

It looks like you missed the cutoff time. As an example, some lenders require that you must make your payment before a certain hour in"their" time zone, not necessarily yours, for it to be considered paid on that date. As an example, for my Capital One payment to be posted, if I make it on the due date, it must be initiated before 7pm EST. To me that is before 4pm Pacific Time.

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Nope. As stated in my post, I requested the payment on the night of 12/15 with a pament date of 12/16 which is the official due date of my account. I wasn't even one minute late or past any cut off, of which the CSR reassured me.

I even received email confirmation on the night of 12/15.

What you're describing would only be the case if I scheduled the payment the night of 12/16 with a payment date of 12/17.

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Ahhh, the due date was the 16th, not the 15th. I apologize, for I didn't read it right. Yep, they messed up.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

It looks like you missed the cutoff time. As an example, some lenders require that you must make your payment before a certain hour in"their" time zone, not necessarily yours, for it to be considered paid on that date. As an example, for my Capital One payment to be posted, if I make it on the due date, it must be initiated before 7pm EST. To me that is before 4pm Pacific Time.

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Nope. As stated in my post, I requested the payment on the night of 12/15 with a pament date of 12/16 which is the official due date of my account. I wasn't even one minute late or past any cut off, of which the CSR reassured me.

I even received email confirmation on the night of 12/15.

What you're describing would only be the case if I scheduled the payment the night of 12/16 with a payment date of 12/17.

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Ahhh, the due date was the 16th, not the 15th. I apologize, for I didn't read it right. Yep, they messed up.

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No worries. I'm definitely not one to cry foul when I might be in the wrong. In this case, I was doing what anybody who manages the number of credit cards I do does and making payments and micropayments all of the time; in this instance, right on the due date. I wouldn't normally carry a balance on this card anyway, but I decided to shift funds around this month to optimize my wife's util at the expense of paying interest.

[Anonymous]

My Bestbuy card was good for doing that, but a day later an auto reversal for the late fee would go into effect and mind you I was on auto payment when it would do it.  Sometimes computers are stupid.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My Bestbuy card was good for doing that, but a day later an auto reversal for the late fee would go into effect and mind you I was on auto payment when it would do it.  Sometimes computers are stupid.

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Yep. I'm a software engineer by trade, so I know all about silly computer bugs lol.

My concern is because of how glitchy their systems obviously are, what's keeping that "late payment" from causing me CLI denial or CLD/AA in the future? I did document my concerns and the call in case that ever happens.

[UncleB]

I recall reading another thread a while ago where somebody had the exact same experience with an Amazon store account (also Synchrony).  They also called the CSR, and were told the exact same thing.  In their case, the fee was auto-reversed by the system, no intervention was necessary.

I completely understand your concern, though, especially with Synchrony being known for AA across all accounts when you have an issue with one.  I agree that they really need to do something about this - at a minimum, their software folks could come up with a way to 'hide' the fee for a day for those cases where it's auto-reversed.  For the cases where it's not auto-reversed (a genuine late payment) having the fee hidden for a day woudn't make a difference.

I'm glad you got a CSR who seemed to care, though... it's nice when they actually listen, and perhaps the notes they took down won't fall on deaf ears! 

[JagerBombs89]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

My Bestbuy card was good for doing that, but a day later an auto reversal for the late fee would go into effect and mind you I was on auto payment when it would do it.  Sometimes computers are stupid.

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Yep. I'm a software engineer by trade, so I know all about silly computer bugs lol.

My concern is because of how glitchy their systems obviously are, what's keeping that "late payment" from causing me CLI denial or CLD/AA in the future? I did document my concerns and the call in case that ever happens.

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I wonder how many late fees were "accidently" accessed to other accounts and no one caught it...

[alexl22]

I forgot what synch account it was that I read it but it specifically states if you make a payment on the due date and are assessed a late fee it will automatically be credited back to your account. Now if this holds true accross all accounts I have no idea!