topic Re: Discover Insanity in Credit Card Applications

Discover Insanity

MattReno64 — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 11:03:22 GMT

Okay. So. Credit Karma keeps telling me that my Credit Line on my Discover Card is way low, only 7,400 when the average card holder like me has 11,700. I decide to pay off all my credit cards, make my FICO go way up, which it did-- 806 according to Discover, ten points higher at a few other places. After my score goes up, I apply for CLI, they shoot me down instantly. Get letter in mail a week later stating reason for decline:

LOW USAGE ON EXISTING LINE OF CREDIT IN PREVIOUS MONTHS

Not even kidding. Paying off my debts and raising my FICO was a bad thing. I guess having more debt and a lower FICO would be a good thing?

To add to the insanity, it gave other reasons on back of rejection letter, on of them was

TOO MANY CONSUMER FINANCE COMPANY ACCOUNTS

You probably think I'm one of these Financial Chads who has 19 cards, right? Nope. I have 3. And one is my Discover Card. Yes, I have a Citi Simplicity, an Amex, and a Discover Card.... that's it. Two cards besides Discover. And I guess that's two too many.

Phone call did not help. Loud chatty girl at first who can do nothing but be loud and chatty. Switchs me to poor guy I felt so sorry for, he {Moderator Edit - no need for this} had a speech impediment, but he did his best, I couldn't get mad at the poor fellow. Said I had to wait 30 days and try again, nothing he could do.

Nothing I can do but come here to share my pain, read your horror stories which are worse than mine. They're lowering credit limits now, are they? Use it or lose it? We are not winning this losing battle.

Re: Discover Insanity

CA4Closure — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 04:35:49 GMT

Same complaint. My fico score by Discover started in January 2020 at 802. Flipped to 806, then 804, then 808, then now 812. Last CLI request was in December 2019. So I hit that love button, REJECTED! Same reasons as you! I spend about $8,000-$12,000 on my Discover and pay it off by the end of the month. I guess they want us to carry a balance so they can profit off of us!

Re: Discover Insanity

recoveringfrombk7 — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 04:52:34 GMT

Discover is on the record as saying they are pulling back on CLIs given the economy/COVID-19. Unless you're consistently putting heavy use on the card/approaching at least 50% of your limit each month, I doubt it's going to happen right now. Discover is fickle and hard to figure out under normal circumstances. Are both of you putting signficant spend on the card or you just want CLIs because you feel like you should have one?

Re: Discover Insanity

NaaryalHead — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 06:01:11 GMT

I think given the current situation - banks are extra wary with handing out more CLIs.

I'd personally open a 4th card if I had the same situation and good scores like that if more credit is what you seek - but thats just me. I'm saving up for my current target card by not apping for anything right now.

Re: Discover Insanity

CYBERSAM — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 06:17:55 GMT

Its not you, its Discover! They are being very stingy. Even when people get CLI is 500 to 1K max. Few years back they use do CLI 10K+

Wait till next year and hopefully scare goes away!

Re: Discover Insanity

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 06:22:38 GMT

@recoveringfrombk7 wrote:
Discover is on the record as saying they are pulling back on CLIs given the economy/COVID-19. Unless you're consistently putting heavy use on the card/approaching at least 50% of your limit each month, I doubt it's going to happen right now. Discover is fickle and hard to figure out under normal circumstances. Are both of you putting signficant spend on the card or you just want CLIs because you feel like you should have one?

I wish this was true for me. In my case I always charge at least 90% of my 1k limit, but I PIF every month and still no soup for me.

Re: Discover Insanity

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 08:22:20 GMT

The reason code "TOO MANY CONSUMER FINANCE COMPANY ACCOUNTS" isn't referring to credit cards. It's referring specifically to installment loans. There are some companies that will get you a minor credit score ding if you finance through them. Companies like Affirm, for instance, or financing offers from auto manufacturers like Honda. A lot of personal loan companies code as CFAs too like I found out after getting a Best Egg loan.

Disco is very stingy right now though and honestly you have a decent limit with them anyway.

I suggest you ignore Credit Karma for anything other than credit monitoring because they make money off of selling you credit products. Of course they're going to find reasons you should have more.

Re: Discover Insanity

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 08:36:03 GMT

See you referenced Credit Karma ... you need to know they are consumed in their own world which is not generally the reality of it all. Another poster already said it too.

Take their comments and if it is in question come to MyFico or research your own solid answers!

Re: Discover Insanity

Anonymous — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 12:31:36 GMT

@MattReno64 wrote:
Okay. So. Credit Karma keeps telling me that my Credit Line on my Discover Card is way low, only 7,400 when the average card holder like me has 11,700. I decide to pay off all my credit cards, make my FICO go way up, which it did-- 806 according to Discover, ten points higher at a few other places. After my score goes up, I apply for CLI, they shoot me down instantly. Get letter in mail a week later stating reason for decline:
LOW USAGE ON EXISTING LINE OF CREDIT IN PREVIOUS MONTHS
Not even kidding. Paying off my debts and raising my FICO was a bad thing. I guess having more debt and a lower FICO would be a good thing?
To add to the insanity, it gave other reasons on back of rejection letter, on of them was
TOO MANY CONSUMER FINANCE COMPANY ACCOUNTS
You probably think I'm one of these Financial Chads who has 19 cards, right? Nope. I have 3. And one is my Discover Card. Yes, I have a Citi Simplicity, an Amex, and a Discover Card.... that's it. Two cards besides Discover. And I guess that's two too many.
Phone call did not help. Loud chatty girl at first who can do nothing but be loud and chatty. Switchs me to poor guy I felt so sorry for, he was obviously mentally ill and had a speech impediment, but he did his best, I couldn't get mad at the poor fellow. Said I had to wait 30 days and try again, nothing he could do.
Nothing I can do but come here to share my pain, read your horror stories which are worse than mine. They're lowering credit limits now, are they? Use it or lose it? We are not winning this losing battle.

"Financial Chad" here with 21 credit cards... 21 is better than 19, right?

Discover gave me a credit limit increase on Friday; it was only for $500 but it was an increase nonetheless. The customer service representative I spoke with was neither "loud" nor "chatty." In fact, she could not have been more helpful, even offering to transfer me to another person who had the ability to further raise the CLI but I declined. Given that you had issues with two seperate Discover reps I have to wonder about the obvious commonality.

Re: Discover Insanity

AverageJoesCredit — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 13:06:01 GMT

@MattReno64 wrote:
Okay. So. Credit Karma keeps telling me that my Credit Line on my Discover Card is way low, only 7,400 when the average card holder like me has 11,700. I decide to pay off all my credit cards, make my FICO go way up, which it did-- 806 according to Discover, ten points higher at a few other places. After my score goes up, I apply for CLI, they shoot me down instantly. Get letter in mail a week later stating reason for decline:
LOW USAGE ON EXISTING LINE OF CREDIT IN PREVIOUS MONTHS
Not even kidding. Paying off my debts and raising my FICO was a bad thing. I guess having more debt and a lower FICO would be a good thing?
To add to the insanity, it gave other reasons on back of rejection letter, on of them was
TOO MANY CONSUMER FINANCE COMPANY ACCOUNTS
You probably think I'm one of these Financial Chads who has 19 cards, right? Nope. I have 3. And one is my Discover Card. Yes, I have a Citi Simplicity, an Amex, and a Discover Card.... that's it. Two cards besides Discover. And I guess that's two too many.
Phone call did not help. Loud chatty girl at first who can do nothing but be loud and chatty. Switchs me to poor guy I felt so sorry for, he was obviously mentally ill and had a speech impediment, but he did his best, I couldn't get mad at the poor fellow. Said I had to wait 30 days and try again, nothing he could do.
Nothing I can do but come here to share my pain, read your horror stories which are worse than mine. They're lowering credit limits now, are they? Use it or lose it? We are not winning this losing battle.

Ok, first off, stop listening to Credit Karma. Your cl with Discover is actually good and no one knows what limit they should have even though many here will feel that a certain limit is their birth right.

Usually Discover cli denials are for either not enough experience , which just means no not at this time, or the one you got, which means you arent using it. So before reading too much into the denial letter, actually start using it. Hard to get increases if they really arent warrented , especially in their eyes.

Its always better to pay off debt regardless of scores imo. Please refrain for characterizing a Discover phone rep as mentally ill as i highly doubt you are a licensed physician and its really not called for here. Horror story? I think not, you got denied a cli which happens to all of us. Ive gotten like 20 or more in a single month lol. Discover may lower limits at their discretion but i havent seen alot lately and if you research here you will find Discover is basically keeping prior customers line in check and not handing our many cli during the Pandemic. New customers definetly are getting more scrutiny. Thanks for sharing your story but you can get much better credit advice here than on a site that gets paid to push others agendas

Re: Discover Insanity

AverageJoesCredit — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 13:09:17 GMT

@CYBERSAM wrote:
Its not you, its Discover! They are being very stingy. Even when people get CLI is 500 to 1K max. Few years back they use do CLI 10K+
Wait till next year and hopefully scare goes away!

Its not stingy lol, that i would label Capitol One . Those 10k cli from years ago were an anomaly , the " Gravy Train " . Right now is just a bad time for everyone so its understandable huge cli aren't plentiful.

Re: Discover Insanity

CreditCrusader — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 15:05:52 GMT

This is another sort of post that has me scratching my head.

Put yourself in the lender's shoes. You have customers with CLs of $7,000+ who are asking for MORE during a time of great economic upheaval and uncertainty. To me, that would not signal managing the 700-850 FICO credit score jamboree tha takes place in MyFico. That would signal the possibiliy that my customer(s) may need to run up gigantic balances that they may or may not pay off.

Now, I'm NOT saying that the latter is what you or anyone else here has in mind, but you cannot be surprised that lenders are at least contemplating the notion and limiting lines somewhat. I can assure you that Discover is not the least bit interested on Credit Karma's opinion (or yours) of what your line with them SHOULD be. They are only interested in limiting their risk during difficult economic times. I know that sounds harsh, but it's the cold, hard truth.

Re: Discover Insanity

Wavester64 — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 18:54:42 GMT

@MattReno64 wrote:
Okay. So. Credit Karma keeps telling me that my Credit Line on my Discover Card is way low, only 7,400 when the average card holder like me has 11,700. I decide to pay off all my credit cards, make my FICO go way up, which it did-- 806 according to Discover, ten points higher at a few other places. After my score goes up, I apply for CLI, they shoot me down instantly. Get letter in mail a week later stating reason for decline:
LOW USAGE ON EXISTING LINE OF CREDIT IN PREVIOUS MONTHS
Not even kidding. Paying off my debts and raising my FICO was a bad thing. I guess having more debt and a lower FICO would be a good thing?
To add to the insanity, it gave other reasons on back of rejection letter, on of them was
TOO MANY CONSUMER FINANCE COMPANY ACCOUNTS
You probably think I'm one of these Financial Chads who has 19 cards, right? Nope. I have 3. And one is my Discover Card. Yes, I have a Citi Simplicity, an Amex, and a Discover Card.... that's it. Two cards besides Discover. And I guess that's two too many.
Phone call did not help. Loud chatty girl at first who can do nothing but be loud and chatty. Switchs me to poor guy I felt so sorry for, he was obviously mentally ill and had a speech impediment, but he did his best, I couldn't get mad at the poor fellow. Said I had to wait 30 days and try again, nothing he could do.
Nothing I can do but come here to share my pain, read your horror stories which are worse than mine. They're lowering credit limits now, are they? Use it or lose it? We are not winning this losing battle.

I recently had a weird thing happen with Discover. A fellow MF'er mentioned once a while back that they request a CLI every 35-days and that has worked for them with getting approved all the time. A few months ago I started doing this and every 35-days another $500 CLI added to my account, except for last week. Tried like I usually do and I got an AA notification. Got the mail today, and it mentioned "Insufficient experience with current Discover Card Credit Limit". Interesting, never saw that one before. I do decent spend on it and I have a balance every month because of a 0% APR offer. No big deal, I figured the gravy train was going to end soon, and I am sure it's a sign of the current situation in the economy as well. Doesn't mean I wont try again in 35, 34, 33.........

Re: Discover Insanity

AverageJoesCredit — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 01:09:37 GMT

Before the Pandemic i was hulk smashing every day. Since, maybe 4,5 times just to see. Playing with fire sure but at the end of the day i have bigger worries than having a credit card

Re: Discover Insanity

Meanmchine — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 01:50:35 GMT

My monthly begging and pleading is next week. Im bracing for a denial too. Sorry OP