Comenity & Synchrony and Why?

[AyaMai]

I have these cards from these 2 financial institutions, never had issues, the minute my charges are posted, I pay them immmediately which I do in general but with the negative comments I read about them, I am far careful to have my balance with them to be zero ASAP. In my opinion many of the card holders tend to blame the issuers for their mishandling their finances. I am aware of Comenity Bank IT meltdown in the past which many cardholders got screwed. I always wonder why people bank with them knowing that there are complains against them. What are your thoughts positive or negative about them. My number one financial issuer is American Express

Comenity Bank 

1. NFL Extra Points Visa® Credit Card
2. Toyota Rewards Visa
3. AAA Visa Signature® credit card
4. The Bread Cashback™ American Express® Credit Card
5. The New York Yankees Mastercard® Credit Card

Synchrony

1. Google Store Financing
2. Amazon Prime Store Card
3. Sam's Club® World Elite Mastercard
4. Synchrony Premier World Mastercard
5. Venmo Visa
6. PayPal Credit
7. PayPal Cashback World Mastercard.

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

I had no problems with either until recently. Comenity breached their agreement with me. I'm currently in the process of closing all my cards with them. 

[UncleB]

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@AyaMai wrote:

 In my opinion many of the card holders tend to blame the issuers for their mishandling their finances.

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While this is true in some cases, it's not universal.  Specific to Synchrony, at times they'll do "bulk" closures of accounts that have never had an issue and the cardholder has strong credit.  At one time, a common thread for closures was the cardholder had recently added an authorized user to the Synch account... nothing else had changed. 

Specific to Comenity, at times they've been known to approve a new account only to summarily close it down days later on further review.  Sometimes this has been for reasons as dubious as too many inquiries.

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@AyaMai wrote:

 I am aware of Comenity Bank IT meltdown in the past which many cardholders got screwed. I always wonder why people bank with them knowing that there are complains against them.

This one's easy... people will bank with them in spite of the complaints because the rewards outweigh the risks.  Based on the number of accounts you have with Synchrony/Comenity, this is likely the same conclusion you came to.

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@AyaMai wrote:

What are your thoughts positive or negative about them.

So far I've always had a positive experience with Synchrony - I have five accounts with them (Care Credit MC, Sam's Club MC, Venmo Visa, Lowe's, Belk).  I'm aware of their nature, though, and I know that if I do anything 'out of the ordinary' I could find my accounts closed with no notice at all. 

I keep them around because I enjoy the rewards (and they are some of my oldest cards) but I would never rely on a Synchrony card for something important or a situation where I would be embarassed by a decline.

I've never had anything with Comenity.  Once things settle down a bit I might consider the AAA Visa to use at Walmart, but if I do so I'll always keep in mind how squirrelly they can be and plan accordingly.

[AyaMai]

 AAA Travel Advantage card or AAA Daily Advantage Visa Signature are great cards to have, which they would allow to have both. I use mine at Costco for gas, use it along Discover at Love's on road trips when no Sam's Club. 

Will not ask for CL increase for Comenity Bank cards since the limits are fine with me, as with Synchrony I ask for $500-$1000 increments CL increases when I do unusual extra spending. 

Decreasing credit limit isn't an issue with me, since my 4 Capital One cards have the worst credit limits, once awhile I use Capital One Walmart since I have Walmart+ through Amex Platinum. Both issuers have been good to me.

[longtimelurker]

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@UncleB wrote:

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@AyaMai wrote:

 In my opinion many of the card holders tend to blame the issuers for their mishandling their finances.

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While this is true in some cases, it's not universal.

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Right.   Firstly nearly all issuers go through some bashing here, e.g. Barclays, but Sync and Comenity get a lot more, which might merely be because more people here have cards from them.

A long time ago, I was defending an issuer here and someone said, quite rightly, something along the lines

No-one has a problem (with X) until they do

and I've seen posters here change from boosters to haters when their "No issues whatsoever" lender took action "for no reason"

And while some of those "for no reason" stories may be less compelling once details emerge, there are certainly times, as @UncleB says, some mass cull of the customer base is made on a set of parameters, which may have nothing to do with a customer's behavior.

(And in fact I am going through my very own For no reason with SoFi!)

[SUPERSQUID]

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@AyaMai wrote:

I have these cards from these 2 financial institutions, never had issues, the minute my charges are posted, I pay them immmediately which I do in general but with the negative comments I read about them, I am far careful to have my balance with them to be zero ASAP. In my opinion many of the card holders tend to blame the issuers for their mishandling their finances. I am aware of Comenity Bank IT meltdown in the past which many cardholders got screwed. I always wonder why people bank with them knowing that there are complains against them. What are your thoughts positive or negative about them. My number one financial issuer is American Express

Comenity Bank 

1. NFL Extra Points Visa® Credit Card
2. Toyota Rewards Visa
3. AAA Visa Signature® credit card
4. The Bread Cashback™ American Express® Credit Card
5. The New York Yankees Mastercard® Credit Card

Synchrony

1. Google Store Financing
2. Amazon Prime Store Card
3. Sam's Club® World Elite Mastercard
4. Synchrony Premier World Mastercard
5. Venmo Visa
6. PayPal Credit
7. PayPal Cashback World Mastercard.

I have had Comenity cards going back to the mid 2000's before my BK7. I have never had an issue.

When I filed for bk in 2019 I had one Comenity card with a 4k limit and a zero balance so I didn't burn them.

There are 2 Bread American Express cards now, Bread Amex cash back and Bread Amex rewards. I have both of them and never have problems.

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[CorpCrMgr1]

I have several Community cards gotten during my rebuilding utilizing the Shopping Cart Trick. All started off with decent SCL. Except for some being closed because of the dissolution of the card I like Comenity.  

I have had issues with its online site. A phone call to a CSR took care of what I was trying to do.

Only having one Synchrony card, I will only comment that once lost the card and my replacement card was treated like a new card in terms of aging.

[youngandcreditwrthy]

@AyaMai  firstly, consumers have had accounts open with them for  awhile, and as consumers.. many had no way to know comenity ws gonna change to bread financial..and I think that's what's caused so many problems for so many... that transition is ongoing, incomplete, and downright awful. 

secondly, synchrony was GECRB, and before that it was GEMB. that also involved transition. 

I think they had a lot of fraud (remember they also got a 126 billion USD GUARANTEE from the Feds back in the GFC circa 08-10 so essentially even though they are a "shadow bank" they were somewhat bailed out.

Yeah, I think 80% of the complaints are people not fully understanding before they take on debt and then realizing it too late like their little "deferred interest" trick (which no normal bank operates in similarity too) Sync will make you pay BACK INTEREST lol if you dont PIF.

at the end of the day, neither of these banks are retail banks per se, afaik they are part of the "shadow banking" system which just means they are not in the Federal Reserve pool, they are not FDIC insured (although I've noticed some products by Sync recently have become FDIC insured)

in short, they just aren't really traditional banks and because they do allow lending to 580+ scores (subprime) their terms are onerous and have to compensate for that additional risk.

otoh, if you're smart about it, you can use Sync specifically to get really good large starting limits, increase them quickly, and use them to build up to higher lines. They are very robotic and operate very heavily with the mindset that anyone can commit fraud. Its understandable.

Comenity doesn't offer any retail banking services as far as I know, so there's no "banking" with them in the checking/debit/401k /savings way..

imo, these banks are the result of the repeal of Glass Steagall in 2000 being replace with the Financial modernization act of 2000 or Graham Bleach Lilley.

Folks have gotta watch these shadow bank subpprime issuers very heavily when doing business with them. Otherwise, they're reliable for CLIs and building credit. in my book, they are best for building credit. and I mean the 0% offers can be good esp when I was in college and needed stuff from Amazon (ie laptop, tv, etc.)

P.S. I never had any issues with other but I also kept them zeroed out and when folks were getting shut down accounts an tons of AA by Sync after the GECRB transition, I lowered most of my 25k cls down to 10/15/20k to avoid it, but I rarely ever revolved any balance unless I had 0% offer and the cash in savings to PIF. I had 100k in exposure with sync right after the GECRB transition and never had an AA although they did block my accounts once nd make me prove my identity which was fine. kept all the accounts and the CLs. have closed quite a bit since then and no issues.

[Quinn]

I'm new here and I ran into these forums because I was doing some research on Comenity Bank. I have history with them and it's not a good one.

Back in 2017-2020 I was using their cards to help rebuild my credit after some personal situations blemished my credit history. Their practices caused my score to severely plummet, even worse than before, in 2020 and because of that I will never use them again.

I had 3 cards with from retail stores that utilize them which I would use at the stores and then set up them up on auto pay to rebuild the on time payment  history. The majority of the time I would log in and make well over the minimum payment so there was always a running balance but the cards were never maxed out or over 50% (I know under 30 is the best the limits were small to begin with). My payment history was perfect on all 3 cards for years. My personal credit score had gone up and was 660-670ish. Which isn't great but it wasn't horrific either. I requested credit limit increases on all three cards and they tripled or quadrupled the limit on each card.

After the increase I always carried a slightly larger balance for the payment history except it was around 25% utilization max at this time. Once I would pay a card off I would go buy something else to continue the process. 

I paid off 2 cards within a week of eachother and less than 3 weeks later Comenity dropped my credit limits to those two cards without any warning by 60-75% each. The third card I still had a $450 balance on and they dropped that credit limit to $100 so now that card showed I was over the limit by $350. 

That process absolutely tanked my credit score. Then they closed both 0 balance cards without warning three weeks after lowering my credit limit and their reason? They closed them due to my credit score...  causing my score to drop even more. Mind you, I had never had a late payment or deferred payment in the 2.5-3.5 years I had accounts with them.

Their practices are abhorrent and unethical. I would caution anyone who utilizes them to be very careful.

[xenon3030]

To minimize financial risks, do not put several of your eggs in the baskets of the lenders that are known doing AA without reason.

You might be in trouble, if suddenly Synchrony or Comenity or both decide to close several of your accounts (up to 13 cards would get impacted). It certainly raises several flags and the other lenders may decide to do AA.

Do you really need all these cards? How many times do you use each card per year? If I were you, I would keep only the cards that I really need and close the rest, maybe closing 1 card per month or per two months, to avoid raising flags. There are plenty of cards in the market that give ~3-5%.