The news: Bilt cardholders are reporting missing, bouncing, or delayed rent and mortgage payments after attempting to pay Bilt, per Fintech Business Weekly.

Rent payments are also reportedly being debited directly from external accounts, a potential violation of the CARD Act. 

When cardholders attempted to remedy the situation with Bilt’s customer service, many members found only AI-powered chatbots to assist, with dayslong waits to reach human representatives.

How we got here: Bilt recently refreshed its co-brand card with fintech Cardless, after Wells Fargo departed amid portfolio losses as high as $10 million per month. 

Since the shift, cardholders have experienced multiple snags on top of the failed rent payments:

• Users found the reshuffled rewards program’s Bilt Cash and points model based on Bilt’s members’ tiers excessively confusing.
• Members with outstanding balances at Wells Fargo found settling payments difficult after the portfolio shift.
• Users received Wells Fargo Autograph cards regardless of whether they opted in for enrollment or not.
• And members reported frozen cards and declined transactions during key promotional rewards windows.

Why this matters: Bilt’s failure to provide a clean, hiccup-free transition for its credit card could crater consumer trust. 

Bilt has attempted to build a lifestyle brand with Bilt Neighborhoods to encourage cardholders to place not just their highest expenses on the card—rent and mortgages—but also bar tabs, gym memberships, and smoothie shop runs. Failing to provide security or effective customer resolution for major payments dissuades young professionals from using the card or even keeping their account open.

Implications for payment providers: While AI chatbots can easily handle simple customer service requests, human representatives are still needed to handle major, emotionally charged issues. 

Letting consumers connect to a live agent from a chatbot is an easy way to balance the benefits of AI with customer service professionals’ expertise: 29% of respondents to our US mobile banking emerging features benchmark called the feature “extremely valuable”—second only to live chat notifications, at 31%.

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