I’ve been, for the last 13 years, a pretty happy holder of a Discover Card. After today, not so much.
I got a new card in the mail yesterday with the following:
Why you’re getting a new card – A merchant has advised us that your current Discover Card account information may have been compromised. For the security of your account, we upgraded the security features of your card without changing your account number.
If you’re wondering what those “upgraded security features” are, it looks like all they did was issue a new card with different CVVs.
The letter said my old card would be deactivated in a week, so I called to activate the new one.
Activation was simple, but then the representative on the phone launched into a schpiel about “protecting” my account, boring me with details about all the wonderful things that service does (perhaps to hide the bit about how much it would cost), finishing with, “I’ll get that set up for you, okay?”
No, that’s not okay. That’s Discover Card trying to trick me into adding a paid service to my account. I was not pleased.
He then launched into another long schpiel about some other service I really had to have for some other kind of “protection”. He finished this second schpiel in a similar fashion. No, let’s NOT enable my account with this lovely other feature that you want to charge me for.
I asked to find out why exactly they had to issue me a new card. He replied that he did activations only and transferred me to a CSR.
I asked the CSR what was going on, and she gave me a generic blurb about how their security department does periodic screens and how they sent cards out to everyone. Everyone?
“You’re telling me you sent a new card out to every single Discover Card holder this month?”
“No…” A couple minutes passed, and she returned to tell me that they sent 3,118 cards out for this particular merchant issue.
I asked for the merchant name. She said she didn’t have that information. I asked her to find out.
A few more minutes passed. I was told that she couldn’t tell me the merchant name because the case was “under investigation”. I asked how long an investigation would take. She didn’t know. I told her I still wanted to know the merchant name. She said she’d transfer me to the security department.
Click. I got a recording that told me to press 1 if I wanted to rate my service experience, otherwise, hang up.
Transfer, my ass! I pressed 1.
Click. I got another recording. This one said that my call could not be completed, and disconnected me.
So let’s see here. One of the merchants in the Discover network can’t keep my information secure, Discover won’t tell me which merchant it is, and when I press for that information, they hang up on me. This is in addition to trying to bullshit an initial answer to my question, pretending to care about service experience feedback, and trying to trick me into adding pay services to my card, twice.
Guess which card I won’t be using much from now on.
Update: I sent them an e-mail about it. Let’s see what they say.
Another update: I went to cut the old card and accidentally cut the new one. How appropriate.
Two days later update: They replied to the e-mail with “I am unable to provide any further information” and the usual schpiel about how I should feel safe using my card. Not that I don’t; I just want to know which merchant isn’t properly protecting my card info so I can decide how to deal (or not deal) with them in the future. I guess I won’t be replacing that cut up new card they sent me for a while. Still unhappy.
Pretty craptastic customer service there, Discover. I was thinking about getting one of their “cash back reward” cards for the upcoming business travel I’m going to be doing. Guess I’ll pass.
From the Ars Technica article
:
Heartland Payment Systems announced today that it may have exposed up to 100 million credit and debit cards to theft late last year. This revelation doesn’t just set a data breach record, it may explain the surge in credit card fraud we saw last December.
I get computer related security articles/emails at work, and they have been plastered with this story for the past week or so. They say it makes the past TJ Maxx scandal look like a minor slip-up. Good job folks that watch over our money and information.
Better to go with a cash back reward Visa for travel, as Discover’s not as widely accepted. Also, it’s “up to” 1% cash back on your purchases; you have to use it a minimum of x number of dollars per year to reach the 1% tier. Most other 1% cash back cards don’t have that minimum. I consider “up to” similar to “I’ll get that set up for you, okay?” in terms of deceptiveness.
I stopped using my Discover after they were routinely processing my payments late. Send it in a week and a half before the due date, see that it gets processed the day after the due date. Have that happen on and off for a few months, and I gave up on ‘em.
Recently they sent me a “you haven’t used your card in 10 years, we’re gonna cancel it” message, which I promptly round-filed.
So, yeah, I’m not surprised by your Discover experience.