topic Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover in Credit Cards

High Minimum Payment from Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 02:19:41 GMT

My Discover More statement just cut. My minimum payment is $40. That's a lot. You might think I charged a lot this month. Well, the balance total is only $220. I already paid it off today. I have, however, never seen such a high minimum payment with such a small balance. Is that Discover's very own way of calculating minimum payments? Other Discover More users?

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

DI — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:26:44 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
My Discover More statement just cut. My minimum payment is $40. That's a lot. You might think I charged a lot this month. Well, the balance total is only $220. I already paid it off today. I have, however, never seen such a high minimum payment with such a small balance. Is that Discover's very own way of calculating minimum payments? Other Discover More users?

That minimum amount is 18% of the total balance. That's far from the 4% minimum payment requirement set by Discover. I always PIF, but I noticed one time when I had a small balance of less than $20, the full amount was due.

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

andre181 — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:36:48 GMT

That is definitely strange. The highest balance I've had on my discovery more card is ~$325 and my min. payment was still only $15

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:36:32 GMT

The terms and conditions for the Discover More card says:

The minimum payment each billing period will be $40 or 2% of the new balance, whichever is greater.

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

andre181 — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:38:02 GMT

Weird. My min. payment has never been greater than $15

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

bostonte — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:47:11 GMT

This is a result of the CARD act.

It requires penalty fees to be "reasonable and proportional", and made the Federal Reserve / OCC/ etc. determine final rules regarding what that means.

One of the main conditions they came up with: a late payment fee cannot exceed the amount of the required minimum payment that needed to be made to avoid the fee.

So if Discover wishes to continue collecting $39 late fees, moving the minimum payment to $40 was required.

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 05:11:45 GMT

Wow! I've never paid attention to it because I always PIF the balance by the due date. This thread got me curious. Ok, my November statement balance is $116 and minimum payment is $40. This is since 2010 Jan statement, either $40 or full amount. On my 2009 Dec statement, the balance was $58 and the minimum due was $15.

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

tsquad131 — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 05:29:04 GMT

Every bank is changing their minimum payments to be higher cuz of the card act I already received letters from capital one and hsbc about the revised terms

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 13:51:10 GMT

I see. Good information from other posters. It makes sense that the revised CC rules have triggered this change in minimum payment charges.

It might be an issue for those who, say, have 0% introductory offers on their cards and have yet to make higher payments every month. In other ways, though, I think it's not too bad because the more you pay off, the better for you. I know for sure that Discover doesn't do this to help customers but to protect themselves. That's certain.

I have yet to see these high minimum payments from my other cards...

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:23:00 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
The terms and conditions for the Discover More card says:

The minimum payment each billing period will be $40 or 2% of the new balance, whichever is greater.

Not sure if I agree with this. I just checked my discover account and min payment due is $20.00. The card is always auto paid from discover on due date for full amount since I got the card. I checked the statement going back a few months and the min payment is always $20.00 - this too on varying balances of 271.xx, 204.xx etc....

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

MarineVietVet — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:31:18 GMT

I went back through all my statements since January. With ending balances ranging from a low of $79.76 to a high of $763.35 the minimum payment was $40 each and every month.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 9/09 pulled by lender 802, EQ - 10/10-813, TU - 10/10-774

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:41:16 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Not sure if I agree with this. I just checked my discover account and min payment due is $20.00. The card is always auto paid from discover on due date for full amount since I got the card. I checked the statement going back a few months and the min payment is always $20.00 - this too on varying balances of 271.xx, 204.xx etc....

Hi MyFicoAddict,

Hmmmm. Do you have a Discover More or a different flavor of Discover Card?

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

athensguy — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:49:04 GMT

@bostonte wrote:
This is a result of the CARD act.

It requires penalty fees to be "reasonable and proportional", and made the Federal Reserve / OCC/ etc. determine final rules regarding what that means.

One of the main conditions they came up with: a late payment fee cannot exceed the amount of the required minimum payment that needed to be made to avoid the fee.

So if Discover wishes to continue collecting $39 late fees, moving the minimum payment to $40 was required.

Please provide your source for this information.

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:17:56 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Not sure if I agree with this. I just checked my discover account and min payment due is $20.00. The card is always auto paid from discover on due date for full amount since I got the card. I checked the statement going back a few months and the min payment is always $20.00 - this too on varying balances of 271.xx, 204.xx etc....
Hi MyFicoAddict,

Hmmmm. Do you have a Discover More or a different flavor of Discover Card?

Hey BeamMeup,

I have the Discover More. Just double checked again and yep... $20 min payment required. PIF though,,,

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

larinoriani — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:28:11 GMT

Who's got their "Credit Card Agreement"? It should be in there under "minimum payment calculation" and it could differ from other cards/companies...

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

Imhotrodcrazy — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:28:42 GMT

My US Bank Plat shows min payment of $51 on a $161 charge I made this month, which amounts to 31%. However, this doesn't matter to me since I PIF every month. I just wanted to pass this along to everyone for added info.

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

DI — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:34:01 GMT

Below is the last time I had a balance to report on my Discover More card. The minimum payment amout was $40.

New Balance	$ 40.68
Minimum Payment Due	$ 40.00
Payment Due Date	Jun 2, 2010

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

bostonte — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:44:51 GMT

http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20100615a.htm

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

athensguy — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:47:43 GMT

@bostonte wrote:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/20100615a.htm

Thanks. My Google-Fu was weak earlier.

Re: High Minimum Payment from Discover

larinoriani — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 19:10:00 GMT

So basically the CARD act was just enough to make issuers play around with their rules and not to help consumers...? I guess by now they have found a way to go around each of the CARD new "rules"...