I’ve noticed that Discover Card sometimes gets a bad rep with people. I’ve never understood where this comes from. ALL of my dealings with them have been absolutely phenomenal, and their customer service is top-notch. Since we live in a society that emphasizes facts and proof, here are some concrete examples.

I pay all of my credit card bills online, and I do it the last day of the month after I get my monthly MIT paycheck. So come April 30, I go to pay my Visa and Discover Card bills. Surprisingly, I couldn’t log in to Discover Card and was told there were “technical difficulties.” I chalked it up to website issues, and tried again on Monday with the same “technical difficulties” message. Today, I got an email from Blockbuster Online (whom I have set to automatically charge my Discover Card once a month) that my credit card didn’t go through. Discovercard.com still says “technical difficulties”. Weird.

So I call 1-800-DISCOVER and was transferred to the fraud department. It turns out that they froze my account because they wanted to check on a few charges made on my card. It was used at Budget Car Rental and was swiped twice at a Shell gas station this past Sunday. This raised a red flag with their fraud detection system.

Here is what really happened: my students and I took our spring house trip this past Sunday where I used my Discover Card to pay for 2 van rentals at Budget. Additionally, I swiped my card at two different pumps a minute apart to pay for both vans’ gas at the end of the day. Their system registered this “double swiping” as someone having to try twice before the card went through. Ding ding ding, coupled with the van rental charge, POTENTIAL FRAUD! Talk about security.  I explained the situation to them on the phone, and when I hung up with the customer service woman, she said “Remember, you NEVER have to pay for fraudulent charges made to your card.” Thanks lady :)

Sure, it was a hassle to have had to call them to assure them that I did indeed make the charges and to please reset my account. However, I would much rather have had this hassle than to have fraudulent charges on my credit card.

This actually reminds me of when there WAS a fraudulent charge on my card. My fourth year at UVA, there once was a suspicious charge of ~$3000 made on my card over the internet. As soon as the purchase was made, Discover automatically froze my card. They then called me to let me know of potential fraud, and after I told them I did not make the purchase, they closed out my old account, opened me a new one, gave me a new card, and even sent me a report summary of their fraud investigation. All of this was done automatically out of THEIR initiative. It wasn’t as if I saw my monthly bill, caught the suspicious charge, and called them. They called ME before I even got my monthly statement.

I have also messed up on paying my bill on time where I was just plain irresponsible and forgot. When I called them to explain, they said “sure, no problem”, no questions asked, gave me the benefit of the doubt, removed all late charges, finance charges, and saved my credit.

Discover Card rules.