Synchrony Bank accounts
 

Over the last several months several stores we deal with have been using or changed to using Synchrony Bank, which has in turn imposed a $2 per statement fee unless you use paperless banking.
Here is my question: if your account has a zero balance and you have not signed up for the paperless banking do you still get a $2/monthly charge?
My analysis is that I can use my money back credit card instead of the store card and come out ahead on most accounts and most months. Based on this I am planning on dropping most if not all of the store credit cards and just use the money back card.

Thank you for your info and thoughts.

We just opened up a Best Buy credit card that was issuing a 15% reward. On an $800 TV certainly better than the cash back. Kohl's sometime had 10% back (Sometimes). Target is a 5% discount on every purchase.
Bottom line sometimes it's better to use store cards.

I recently received a similar notice for my Bealls store card. They will impose a $3 fee for each statement unless I sign up for paperless billing.

The only reason I have the card is because it is linked to their rewards program. With the statement I sometimes get a credit for my next purchase, the amount based upon how much I have spent recently.

So I signed up for paperless. Not happy about it as it is too easy to miss the email announcement that the statement is ready among the onslaught of emails I receive. However I refuse to set up automatic payments. I want to see and verify the accuracy of the bill before I pay it.

We will see how this goes.

Not sure why you guys are opposed to paperless billing. The USPS is a dumpster fire. I get 100%* of my bills online and also autopay them electronically. Way less errors and problems than snail mailed.

I also gave up store cards ages ago. Get yourself a good Visa or Mastercard that has a nice cash rebate (Citibank Double Cash MC 2%, Fidelity Rewards Visa 2% if deposited into a Fidelity account, etc) and you can streamline your finances as well.


*except for the few bills that do not have online option, like the guy who cuts my grass

The only time we have used Synchrony Bank is purchase of furniture or appliances thru vendor with interest free for one year. After the balance paid and no activity they closed account.
Routinely I’m finding use of credit cards business are charging up to 3% for purchases never to return.

Wait till you see the hoops to go through to pay by check, and the fact that if you setup a password through Bealls to get to Synchrony, you will also get any other linked accounts, and if you accidently setup a password through say Lowes, your Bealls password will no longer work. Then we found an additional account linked that neither me or my wife have ever heard of. Called Synchrony and they said ' Oh yeah there is a problem, we are working on this!!!!!'

For whatever it is worth we have a Sams M/c thru Synchrony bank and do not charge for mailing statement

While I understand the frustration of a new fee, I do suppose it costs the bank about 2 dollars to send you the monthly statement. Those who are paperless have been covering that cost while not receiving the service.

We have a Dicks sporting goods Credit Card through Synchrony Bank. I have it set up to automatically pay the balance each month by debiting our Bank of America checking account, but they still send me a monthly statement in the mail free of charge. I would dump them if they refused to send me a free monthly statement as I like to go through all the charges each month and file the statement for my records. I’m not interested in logging into yet another account each month and have to print out the statement for my records.

Agreed saves me the trouble from printing out the statement.

95% paperless. My choice. Problem,the other half doesn't even know how to turn the computer on. Anything happens to me or the power source there will be a bigger issue! Thus I spend time printing out statements, filing them and making sure they are paid. I have also witnessed situations where a spouse dies or is incapacitated and the other half knows nothing about paying the bills. Top that with getting hacked and now every card is compromised. No easy solutions. Favorite card, Discover. Great cash back.I say do what works for your life style but make sure someone in your life can pick up and continue if you cannot. If peace of mind is a two dollar fee or frequent notification from a monitoring company go for it. Also lock/ freeze credit reports and cards not in use .Rather be dancing then time on line changing passwords because of compromised accounts. Or just pay cash.

Luvthevillages....I too received the notice there will be a $2.99 statement charge unless I sign up for paperless billing. So, I did. And like you, am concerned about missing the e-mail that my bill is ready. If you all are lucky enough to not have this charge....in time, you will guaranteed.

Unless there is a benefit greater than your cash back account close the other card accounts. Go paperless on others. Place a notification both on your calendar and with your bank bill pay 10 days before due date. Traveling between 2 homes I have no confidence in snail mail.

Store cards are rarely a good deal. That 15% reward is not the same as cash back, its a hook to get you back into the store to buy something you probably don't need at a higher price that could be found elsewhere. It would have been a nice deal if it was 15% off the price, but now you are taking your $12 reward back to BB to buy something that costs more than $12....leaving you with no savings off your TV, a new product you probably don't need, and a store credit card that you'll probably buy more products from instead of comparison shopping.

Same philosophy with Kohl's cash...here is "free" money on your next purchase. Come back by this day or you lose "free cash"!

When you have auto pay on anything, you are notified when the bill is ready on line prior to the due date. You can review it before auto pay. This has been going on for years. I don’t know of any place that just takes money without prior notification and an opportunity to view the bill.

Print???? Just save it to an external hard drive, disconnect that drive when not in use.

You will get an E statement earlier than a statement sent via snail mail. You actually get more days to verify the accuracy of the charges before the auto payment comes out of your account.

You are right. We use the Synchrony/Sams Club card for gasoline purchases, and restaurant purchases because of the 5% rebate. That has been better than 15 cents a gallon. Using the Loves truck stop app or Walmart+ appgets an additional 10 cents a gallon off the price. The rebate is only usefil at Sam’s Club, but we have no trouble spending that much there, and it more than pays the membership fee. So far, no fees from Synchrony, but I download a PDF statement.
Otherwise, we use the cash back card. We reserve a third card for online purchases, too.

Unfortunately that paper reminder is going to be history. Anytime I miss the "going paperless" notification from a company and receive that $2 charge, I call them and have them waive the fee.

Not good. When we got the Sam’s account through Synchrony, we discovered an old long forgotten Bealls account. We just closed it.
AMEX is offering an affinity card with Marriott Bonvoy that might be worthwhile, no fees and enough sign-up points for about 5 nights free lodging.

Since we are now paperless for all of our bills, we have 2 ways to remind us to pay credit cards online.
1) Put a recurring reminder on your electronic calendar to pay the bills.
2) We have a white board calendar which we have all of our appointments, meetings, tee times, etc for the month. Along side that, I have the monthly due date for the credit cards.

On the average month, I check each account twice. Given the amount of fraud, it is a small layer of protection.

I just make a note on my ToDo list to pay the bill a couple of days after I use the card. It takes 1-2 days to post. I don’t wait for the email. Works great.

I’ve canceled my 3 store cards, Synchrony being one of them. I’m over the store rewards…they are not really rewards anyway.

Try viewing only, why print the statement?

I am take a bucket trip on Amex points.
 

An actuary once told me use my Amex for everything I possibly can. “If you have to pay for something why not get something in return” were her words. She said she had enough points to cover two round-trip first class airfares anywhere on earth. I have been following her advice, and now I am redeeming my points for a fly/drive trip from San Francisco to San Diego and onto the Grand Canyon…all on points I have accumulated. The fights, the hotels, and the car rental inclusive. I even received a few upgrades and perks just for being a member.

The best advice is to use the card then go into your online checking and send them the payment right away. No big surprises at the end of the month and no interest charge.

We even has some left over points and points from other cards that can be used if need be.

California here we come!

I'm confused. Why not just sign up for paperless banking?

I don't have any store cards, but I do have a second credit card that I occasionally use for risky online purchases. When I do, I make an immediate online bill payment for that amount from my checking account, so my balance goes to zero. I never need to deal with a monthly statement for that card. Credit card companies will accept a payment at any time or multiple payments, regardless of the statement date.

Zero balance
 

[B]Here is my question: if your account has a zero balance and you have not signed up for the paperless banking do you still get a $2/monthly charge?

Lowe’s notified us a few months ago that they would charge for paper statements. We have had a zero a balance with them since then and have not received any statements.

I haven’t cancelled the card but I certainly would if I got a zero balance statement with a printing charge and I doubt I’d be alone in that action.

I'd be curious how dropping them all impacts your credit rating. I was always told credit, length of credit, and balance impact the rating, as well as too many credit cards impact it too.

If it doesn't work out well maybe setting up an email for this account only and just check it around the time they send statements out.

great advice!

Verizon/Synchrony Bank
 

I have Verizon Synchrony credit card . I downloaded their Mobile app . I receive 4 % back on groceries and gasoline. Less on other purchases. I am paperless . I’ve opted to use my rewards monthly to reduce my Verizon mobile phone and 5g internet bill .automatically. I get a notification when my statement comes out .
I get notified when my rewards are used to decrease my phone and internet bill . Do not miss
paper statements.
I believe my Kohl’s credit card is switching to synchrony bank this month .
I receive some good discounts when using my Kohl’s card at their stores .

What's missing (so far) is a reason for receiving a paper statement. For a cash-back card, I recommend the CITI Visa through Costco. It costs the price of a Costco membership. It gives back 4% on gas, 3% on travel and restaurants, 2% on Costco purchases (which is matched by CITI), and 1% on everything else. We use this card to pay every bill that doesn't charge a fee (car and home insurance, etc.). We have paperless statements for it (as well as bank and other credit cards). When the statement cuts we download and print the transactions, balance them against the receipts, then shred them all. At the end of the year we download the annual statement and keep them for historical purposes. For our bank account, the first of every month we reconcile transactions to entries in our check registers (credits and debits). We make and keep paper copies only of whatever we will need to file our taxes.

Costco cash-back happens in February when CITI emails a barcode. You have to take that code to a Costco to redeem it for cash. At the register, they will either count out the cash or issue a paper check. The Costco purchase 2% cash-back comes in the mail as a separate paper check.

https://www.costco.com/my-life-benef...here-visa.html

Have your spouse download the mobile app on her phone . No computer.

We have had a Synchrony Bank account through Lowes for many years with paperless billing. No problems so far. The closing date/due date is always the same +/- a day every month. I keep a Google calender and set up a repeating reminder about 7 days before the due date each month. If we don't have anything for that month I just delete that individual reminder. Easy-peasy. With Lowe's rewards you get an instant 5% off each purchase (10% if you are military or retired military) plus every now and then a coupon for 10% off instantly for everyone with the card.

I also pay everything through my bank, even if they have to send a check to do it. There is a record that I did it and no one can say that I didn't. I do as much paperless billing as I can so that if we go away for awhile I have access to the bills to pay them. And I also print out the statements as well. I check each statement against the receipts I have and then discard the receipts and file the statements so they are in my tax file box for the 3 years I keep them. The only auto-pay I have is my car payment and that will go away in about 6 months.

My husband has always said if anything happens to me he will never find all the money or be able to pay the bills. I keep saying that one of these days I will sit down and make up a cheat sheet with all the info. Guess I better do that! But I"m sure our daughter an easily figure it out for him because of my filing system and payment notations I have made on each bill and statement.

Paperless, can get my statements wherever I'm at.. don't have to worry about how USPS is screwing up and giving my statements to somebody else. Ask me how I know..

Yes!

I totally agree with you. Rather than create -yet another - online account and password, as well as, supplying my email and phone number to to be stored online, sold, etc., I just closed my JC Penney credit card.

Why would you print it? Save it in a pdf file on your computer. I have a separate folder for SECO, Massey, VCCD, Munn's, etc, which are all sub-folders of Villages. That one is in Documents.

Saves paper (JimJam approves!), saves ink, saves closet space for other useless garbage. ;)

My father took care of all the finances back in the 70s. Mom was clueless. Then Dad died and Mom had a near nervous breakdown from the stress of ignorance.

Do your significant other a favor and teach them, while you are still able.

I love our fantastic economy ! Such awesome credit card rates. Someone touted using “store cards” I love Best Buy’s interest rate “ Standard Purchase APR is 29.99% for non-promotional purchases. Account must be in good standing. Subject to credit approval.” Keep on paying peeps