Thread: Discover didn't post my EFT payment then cuts my credit line due to their mistake

I took a few moments to compose what I felt was a very reasonable letter to Discover laying out dates and facts to attempt to resolve the issue. The letter was mailed towards the end of October and was also sent by email on the discovercard.com website the same day. My letter asked for a response in writing so that there would be no question about what was said or what was heard. Three weeks later, after no written response, I followed up with another very business like letter to corporate management, again asking for a written response.
Guess what? So far no written response to the substance of either letter, six weeks oafter the first letter and roughly 8 weeks after Discover misaaplied the payment..
The facts of the matter are quite clear. But even if there is still a disagreement of some sort, to not respond to a customer's reasonable letter is simply very poor business practice and bottom of the barrel customer service.
In the meantime I'm happily using my other cards. I will use Discover once for a very small transaction merely to keep it active each month. Its hard to believe that anyone in a responsible position can accept that standard of behavior.

Well I finally got a letter back from Discover. We will simply agree to disagree on what makes for a reasonable solution. The credit line was cut due to the account being delinquent. The delinquency only happened because Discover posted my payment incorrectly to someone elses account. Rather than fix the full problem, Discover wants me to in effect reapply for my line. So they create the problem, penalize me for their error then tell me its up to me to fix what they did. Seems fair to me - not.
I've already moved this card to the back of the wallet. I think it will stay there for a while. I've attempted to reason with them and constructively work through the issue. They have a very rigid process that appears to treat corrections of credit line errors as requests for credit increases. While somewhat understandable, it is not something that is not at all responsive to this set of circumstances. I had really thought that they were better manged than they appear to be. Eventually, competitive forces will catch up with them, ot "walla" someone will come up with a "great, new" customer service idea LOL. I'd stay away from these guys unless you don't have other card options.

I've has the card in the back of the wallet now for a while. Keeping activity on Discover down to just one or two very small transactions a month just to keep it active. No outstanding balanced carried. We'll see how long it takes for an automated account review. They usually do that around every three to six months or so. The marketing/ credit genius' will see reduced activity , no balance, no credit issues and then what? Someone (or program) with real insight will say something like, lets try an activation or stimulation effort? what about a credit line increase? And then of course expect that the "Peggy" commercial will have had some positive benefit. Hmmmmm, interesting way of doing business. I think Discover stays in the back of the wallet.

You don't even need to spend monthly transactions. Once a year should be enough.

You know, I've heard that too. But I've also heard that many card issuers use their own scoring models and do so by buying raw data from credit bureaus rather than scores and calculating their own scores which are mixed with their own internal views of what you buy, where you buy it and how you pay. I am also persuaded that rules from the past about what they do may not be reflective about what they may be doing now or doing in the future.

So at least once a quarter and probably one or twice a month with at a range of types of merchants consistent with their "special offers".

But this is not a card or for that matter not a company to be depended on based on how they seem to operate or the decisions they make.

Received a nice CLI, unsolicited, from BofA. Bof A line is MANY multiples of Discover, as are other cards; Chase , Citi, Amex, CpoOne. Discover is really stuck in the mud...happy to give business to those where it is appreciated. My guess is Discover will do a routine account review in April..."oh there was really was no delinquency" only a Discover internal misposting. hmmmm. Not the brightest bunch IMO. But I tried reasoning with them. "Discover, the card for the back of the wallet"

Just providing an update. Things were finally reestablished in full to where they were last Ococtober when Discover mistakenly applied a payment incorrectly and cut the credit line due to their internal error of showing the account was delinquent.
In the subsequent periods, my charging activity was moved almost totally to other cards based upon their unreliability. While not paying close attention to how individual cards really operate before the October error by Discover it has become pretty apparant to me that Discover "talks" a good game, smiles a lot on the phone, advertises a lot (although not effectively), but also has credit processes which are not well engineered at all and in those cases not reflective of risk. These are not risk reduction practices that are broken, they are simply not well well thought through ways of doing business or are just very poorly executed.

My sense is that Discover certainly has strengths. It is a card worth having, and I do. But it is still a card that should not be relied upon, the card to get when you have 3 others first and a card that should be used selectively. I 've now seen this in not only the situation where they errored with me, but heard it in stories from other people and in material available online about activity at organizations like the Better Business Bureau.

They certainly "pissed" this customer off, took an amzingly long time to fix their own error, and in the final result did very little constructive for anyone: themselves included

Discover was amazingly inflexible on an error that they created. Discover did not fix the problem at all. I simply walked away from dealing with them for a few months after very reasonably attempting to have them fix the issue. In effect I moved the card to the back of the wallet and gave my business to their competitors who had no issue at all with me (but then again they didn't create the false issue by misposting a payment that Discover felt needed to be acted on) . They misapplied the payment that I made correctly, then they corrected the payment application but the credit people saw the internal and false delinquency and acted silly. I simply waited a few months for Discover to "cycle" through their processes and then requested the credit line that was had before. Not a problem ( but there never was in all reality). Simply amazing.

Fun story told many times and not a flattering one to Discover. They talk the talk but they are not the card to be relied upon IMO. Their customer service people try hard, but their credit operations can be highly disjointed and nonsensical. Still a card for the back of the wallet given their credit line management and competitiveness of their other fundamental features.