Thread: Discover card users. Help me out

The activity alert when a purchase is made or the card is otherwise used has a FLOOR of $300.

I want an alert for EVERY charge that comes thru. It's how I immediately caught some fraudulent charges on another card (would you believe the paypal debit card) which gave me an alert for everything. I had used it on a website that eventually got hacked and had a number of cc accounts copied.

If we get enough people to call/email about it then enough tickets will be submitted to force the change.

This is a great fraud protection option.

My Amex green has a floor of $10. Not ideal as I want an alert for EVERYTHING lol ......... but I'll live with that.

Thanks.

what do you mean a floor of 300 on one card and the other card at 10?

if you bought something online as opposed to going to the stores I won't help you.

if somebody has your Discover card account and they are using it in the stores how did they get your account number?

Do you have a certain pattern of stores that you went to or go to, that's different than whoever is walking around and spending your money on your Discover card or any other credit cards?

your paypal debit card which you used on a website, I won't help you with this. but the other ones I will try to help you.

Here is where I think he is going:
He wants to set an alert for any activity on his credit cards. Does not matter how small the transaction he would like to receive some alert (email, text, etc) that a transaction was authorized.

He has this ability on another card (Paypal Debit ?). He has used this type of notification to find faulty transactions in the past on this other card.

Currently the smallest transaction alert you can set on Discovery Card (More in my case not sure about others) is $300. In other words transactions for $299 or lower will not generate an alert.


While I see how this could be useful I am not sure it is required on major credit cards. Most cards will give you 100% immunity from fraudulent charges. All you have to do is call up the company dispute a charge. They will take it from there. If you confirm that it is unauthorized activity they will ship you a new card in a few days (or overnight upon request).

In the past you had to wait for the bill to arrive. Remember back through all month's worth of charges and look through the bill to make sure they were for the right amount. This system much more difficult (in my opinion). Given that most cards come with online access it is easy to find bogus charges. These days I spend no more than a 30 (usually a lot less) min a week usually Sat or Sun morning going over my charges for my cards online. I only have 5 cards (4 personal, 1 Corp) so hitting all of them to check balances and charges is not that hard (yes I check the ones that have been in the safe for years also).

Again I am not opposed to the idea of having it available to people that want it. It would mean a huge amount of alerts that I would have to organize every month. I would never want an alert for every charge. That being said I usually set up alerts for charges that are 25% to 50% of my credit line. The "%" depends on my usage of the card, example; $100 on my "gas card" in 1 transaction should cause me to be alerted as my car usually only takes about $60 to fill.

^^^
exactly.

I don't want to wait till I log on or get a bill to see that there were 6 fraudulent charges.

*Alert* ........ yep, that was me

*Alert* ........ what's that? $100? for what? Oh for the gasoline, that's just the pre-authorization.

etc

Heh, this feature is something I haven't cared about since I check my balance online regularly, but I have to admit it is pointless if the minimum is so high. The one fraudulent charge I've had since getting my first card was on my debit card about a year after opening the account. I'd gotten a call from my bank asking if I had made two large purchases (both in excess of $100) and I confirmed I had made them. Check my balance online two days later and at the same time I made those charges (they were on the same day) there was a charge for something like $93 at a site I'd never heard of before. I couldn't believe it.

Your experience with debit card fraud is why I do not use them for anything but ATM transactions (and would not do that except it is faster than waiting for a teller). Finding fraud on a CC has little impact to my finances, it is more of an annoyance. Even though I know the bank will cover the fraud, finding problems with my checking accounts is not something I want to deal with. Depending on the size of the transactions, other drafts bouncing is something that always concerns me. I have been very lucky (and very diligent) in keeping my accounts safe.

Back on topic:
Again I agree that a lower threshold for those that want it would be nice. I am not sure how flexible Discover will be with the request. I am sure that others would like that type of alerts also.

Originally Posted by danpass

^^^
exactly.

I don't want to wait till I log on or get a bill to see that there were 6 fraudulent charges.

*Alert* ........ yep, that was me

*Alert* ........ what's that? $100? for what? Oh for the gasoline, that's just the pre-authorization.

etc

I have a question for you. do you like to pay shipping and handling or is going to stores a better idea?

I do both. I start online and sometimes I follow thru online. Otherwise I go to the store. Its an expense either way (time and fuel) as you well know.

Then of course there is the free shipping option.