Consumer complaint received 2021-03-18
Company: DISCOVER BANK
State: CT
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Their investigation did not fix an error on your report

Complaint:
My credit score dropped 100 points from XXXX in XXXX of XXXX to XXXX in XXXX of XXXX. It hasn't improved. The cause of this remarkable hit to my historically impeccable credit is deeply disconcerting as it concerns a {$20.00} payment, Discover Financial Services ' inability to contact me in writing ( they said they didn't have to ), and failure to get any relief in providing a statement to each of the major credit bureaus : XXXX, XXXX and XXXX. It's been over 4 years and my credit score has not improved at all due to this one matter in which Discover is culpable. 

Years ago I elected to receive Discover statements by email. For years, my statements arrived in that manner. In months where there was no activity ( most months ) I received no statement. I did not regularly use this card and had set up the paperless statements to alert me to when/if I needed to make a payment. Discover 's policy during that time was to only send a statement when a payment was due. From my perspective, the fact that I was not receiving statements was not unexpected. I apparently used my Discover card in XXXX of XXXX for a one-time XXXX order for {$19.00}. Theres no reason I would have held off paying the statement had I known about it. 

For reasons Discover is unable to explain, I stopped receiving emailed statements in XX/XX/XXXX. I therefore did not receive a statement about the {$19.00} charge, which was not a memorable event since my XXXX account is connected to another card I prefer to use. Discover proceeded to report a delinquency to the credit agencies in XXXX, XXXX, XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX relating to the {$20.00} XXXX $ XXXX interest ) payment that I missed because I was not seeing electronic statements. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I spoke to a representative at Discover and was told that they had stopped sending paperless statements to me in XX/XX/XXXX ( although I stopped receiving them in XX/XX/XXXX ). Why? Because he said they have the right to stop sending paperless statements when an account is in arrears. Their rationale is they switch to that in case an email is invalid, but they also say if the email is invalid they would know that, and so it doesnt make any sense that if the email is still valid that they just unilaterally stop sending the electronic statements entirely. It just made the situation worse. They did not send any kind of notice in writing, either. 

My credit had been above XXXX for years. Because of they stopped sending notifications, I missed the fact that I owed them a balance and it reduced my score from Excellent to merely Good. 

I contacted all three credit bureaus to indicate that I dispute the reporting by Discover and I also called Discover again in XX/XX/XXXX to initiate a formal dispute over how they handled the billing. They refused to take any responsibility and did not make any effort to address their part in failing to notify me. 

It's now XXXX of XXXX - almost five years - and my FICO score has not improved. Please help. This kind of reporting is not right. I'm XXXX XXXX XXXX. I had Excellent credit my entire adult life until I made the mistake of getting a Discover card.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation