I just had a horrible interaction with Synchrony Bank. If you have done one of those 0% APY deferred interest plans from any major retailer, you probably have a plan with Synchrony.
For those considering it - do not do a deferred interest plan with Synchrony, and if you do - be very, very careful - they are extremely manipulative in how they set up autopay for you - and will do it wrong on purpose so they can charge you massive fees!
Just today I got slammed with $3000 interest out of absolutely nowhere on a $3000 mattress - which was on a 0% APY deferred interest payment plan that they put on auto pay for me.
I figured autopay would pay what I needed to pay, and didn’t think much of the payment plan after setting it up.
I bought the mattress two years ago, and did a plan with Synchrony Bank. Deferred interest plans basically let you pay 0 interest as long as you make all your payments and pay off your balance in time.
It turns out, that if you naively set up autopay with them like I did, they will set you up with a minimum payment that actually will not cover the balance of the mattress in time - and won’t tell you of this.
The autopay they set up would cover it in 36 months, but the balance needed to be covered in 24 months. Thus, I get slammed with the entire $3000 interest that was supposed to be waived.
Why would they intentionally set me up with an autopay plan that would miss their own payment deadline??
If I’m using autopay, shouldn’t the assumption be that it will automatically pay everything I’m supposed to?
It really feels like I got scammed, and I don’t think I have much choice but to pay it.
But I figured I would let everyone else know in case they are considering one of these plans: be sure you know exactly the amount being set up for you when you are put on autopay for a deferred interest plan.
You will need to explicitly tell them to use a higher payment than what they set up by default, or you will end up in the same mess I found myself in.
If you have a deferred interest plan with Synchrony, please go back and double check that your autopay is set up properly - as they will intentionally do it wrong!
OP issues a PSA to shine light on the clever trick of minimum payments. This genius couldn't figure out that his $83 monthly payment x 24 didn't equal $3,000 and gets charged with two years of accrued interest. OP is of course not to blame since he didn't look at his bank statements closely for two years?
I guess my mattress seller wasn’t transparent. At no point did anybody mention to me that autopay would not meet the 0% APY.
Ok but he’s not a financial advisor, he sells mattresses. It’s your responsibility to calculate the payments, you never thought, hey how are these $83 payments going to cover my 24 month’s no interest on a $3000 mattress?
I wasn’t looking closely at the transactions in my bank statement. This was all done over phone so it was all in real time - less time to think and ask and dig about that. I agree I should have paid better attention.
Even better is he setup everything on the phone and didn't even ask what the amount was going to be (this is from another thread).
Thank you, this is helpful.
The part that bothers me is that autopay isn’t really laid out in any document I signed - so even though I tried to do my due diligence, setting up autopay is something that was done outside the contract itself.
When something is done by phone call, and it isn’t being communicated clearly to me what is being done, and I thought I was clear in what I was asking for, I don’t have any documentation I can point to that informs me that the autopay amount that is set by default and the minimum amount needed to apply for the promotion are different. Due diligence is tougher when it’s happening in real time over phone call - and there is much more room for miscommunication or manipulation.
A few days later, another thread is posted by someone else.
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