topic Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover in Credit Cards

Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

llecs — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:48:36 GMT

About a year ago or so Discover called my office. I thought that maybe they were going to offer some sort of credit protection or worse, tell me someone else tried to use my CC. However, none were the case and the rep on the phone said that they are encouraging their cardholders to get on their automatic payment program. I always paid on time via their wbsite, but actually considered the automatic payments for some or all of my CCs. The rep then said that they'll cut the APR by 1%. I didn't care about the rate reduction but was intereted in the auto-drafts and I said "Yes".

Fast forward a year later. I received this e-mail:

Dear Mr. llecs:

Congratulations on successfully completing the special payment program for your Discover Card Account.

Your Account has now returned to the regular terms of your Cardmember Agreement.

We hope you continue the progress you have made. If you have already made arrangements for your next payment, thank you. If not, then please send your payments on time when you receive your regular monthly statements.

We were pleased to help during times of financial difficulty. Please call toll free, 1-800-347-0423 if you have questions.

Sincerely,

xxxxxxxxx
DFS Services LLC

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

This is an attempt to collect a debt and any information obtained may be used for that purpose.

This e-mail was sent to xxxxxx for account number ending with xxxx.

You are receiving this e-mail because you are a Discover Cardmember.

Please do not reply to this e-mail as we are not able to respond to messages sent to this address. ......

They are making it sound like I was on some sort of hardship or modification program. The portion about debt collection is really ominous .

Anyone else ever get anything like this? Is it worth a phone call? BTW, I PIF at least 4x per year, as I do with most of my CCs, and never was late.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

smc733 — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:53:28 GMT

Discover is sub-prime, dump them and move on.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:58:24 GMT

Sounds like they just sent you the wrong form letter, llecs. It happens.

You keep on top of your CCs and your reports. This has got to be a glitch at their end, but it's worth a call for your own peace of mind.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:59:32 GMT

@smc733 wrote:
Discover is sub-prime, dump them and move on.

I'm starting to agree with this thought.

I have the following CLs:

Barclay for $10,500

2 AMEXs for $8500 & $8500

3 BoAs for $7,500, $5,000 & $5000

CITI of $7000

...but my Discover....$1000 CL....so lame. I'm sitting at about a 22% UTIL...and Discover won't budge (without a hard pull that is)

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:59:41 GMT

@smc733 wrote:
Discover is sub-prime, dump them and move on.

I strongly disagree, and I'll leave it at that.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 13:15:28 GMT

I prefer the word 'conservative' as they dont seem to be the easiest card to get and ive always had get experience with customer service.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

smc733 — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 13:32:53 GMT

Cash access checks, this crap (this thread), pushing me to do a BT, cash advance, the "cash over" feature, et cetera...

Going to dump them myself shortly.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

Alcibiades — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:08:39 GMT

@smc733 wrote:
Discover is sub-prime, dump them and move on.

Don't know if I can agree with this, I just signed up with them, they gave me a $4000 limit recently (I have $6,500 and $4,050 as my other biggest limits) and do offer decent cash back. On the other hand I can't get HSBC to raise my $300 limit on the subprime card I got a year ago (which is why I dumped it last week).

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:23:24 GMT

Discover is a odd duck they gave my mother 1750 cl when chase around the same time gave her a 20k cl. Whats up with that?

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

smc733 — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:59:07 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Discover is a odd duck they gave my mother 1750 cl when chase around the same time gave her a 20k cl. Whats up with that?

Because they're garbage.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

smc733 — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:29:08 GMT

And they try to sell you "protection" whenever you call, and charges take FOREVER to post to the account.

Seriously, a supermarket charge from last Monday posted TODAY. Starbucks from last Monday posted today too!

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

daytrade5 — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:38:30 GMT

@smc733 wrote:
And they try to sell you "protection" whenever you call, and charges take FOREVER to post to the account.

Seriously, a supermarket charge from last Monday posted TODAY. Starbucks from last Monday posted today too!

For me, it never matters when the charge actually "post" to my Discover account because as soon as I swipe my card my balance reflects what i've spent. I'm not sure if this is a valid reason for your dislike of Discover. Every card company has something that they probably could do a little better, but Discover is still pretty prime to me.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

DI — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:42:41 GMT

It seems like they put you on a hardship program. Did you have a high balance at the time of receiving a call from them?

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

llecs — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:10:59 GMT

@DI wrote:
It seems like they put you on a hardship program. Did you have a high balance at the time of receiving a call from them?

I don't think so. My high balance was ~$2100 of $2600, but I do PIF at least once quarterly. And if I don't PIF, then it's a minimum of $300-$500 as a monthly payment (vs. forking out $2k at once, as an example). And I recall the conversation with the CSR too. No indication at all that it was a hardship. Also after getting the More, they gave me automatic CLIs every quarter or so up to this event ($1500 to $2600 in a year or so w/ the card being opened 7/2009). I hope I didn't hurt my chances for future CLIs, though haven't tried for a manual CLI since getting it.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:42:54 GMT

Why not just call Discover and ask what happened? Tell them you were confused by their email as you didn't know you had signed up for a hardship program.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

llecs — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:45:53 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Why not just call Discover and ask what happened? Tell them you were confused by their email as you didn't know you had signed up for a hardship program.

I'm certainly going to do that today when I get into the office. I'll post back if they say anything.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:58:56 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@smc733 wrote:
Discover is sub-prime, dump them and move on.
I strongly disagree, and I'll leave it at that.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:01:14 GMT

@smc733 wrote:
And they try to sell you "protection" whenever you call, and charges take FOREVER to post to the account.

Seriously, a supermarket charge from last Monday posted TODAY. Starbucks from last Monday posted today too!

That's never happened to me. But serioulsy why don't you cancel the card and move on??? Have you had the card for 6 months? Maybe after 6 months you will get a credit increase. Sounds like your bitter because they didn't give you a high cl. Heres a tissue.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

smc733 — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:09:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@smc733 wrote:
And they try to sell you "protection" whenever you call, and charges take FOREVER to post to the account.

Seriously, a supermarket charge from last Monday posted TODAY. Starbucks from last Monday posted today too!
That's never happened to me. But serioulsy why don't you cancel the card and move on??? Have you had the card for 6 months? Maybe after 6 months you will get a credit increase. Sounds like your bitter because they didn't give you a high cl. Heres a tissue.

I'm not worried about the CL, in fact, I haven't mentioned that in this thread.

It is the:

-Constant sales pitch on the phone

-Cash access checks

-BT Offer harassment

-Slow posting of transactions

-Ads on the crappy website

...just to name a few.

Re: Hope I didn't goof up with Discover

UFGuy2006 — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:22:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Why not just call Discover and ask what happened? Tell them you were confused by their email as you didn't know you had signed up for a hardship program.