Consumer complaint received 2019-11-18
Company: DISCOVER BANK
State: OH
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers
Sub-issue: Confusing or misleading advertising about the credit card

Complaint:
Today XX/XX/XXXX, It was brought to my understanding, by way of a customer service rep, that Discover has completely mislead me and intentionally manipulated how my payments are applied to my account during a promotional offer period. 

I opened my Discover account using a balance transfer promotion of 18 months ( set to expire in early XXXX ). Since I have available credit beyond my initial transfer amount, I have been using my card for daily transactions since they offered a 0 % intro APR thru XXXX XXXX. I make a payment EVERY Monday morning to offset any transactions I made from the prior week. For example, if I made {$300.00} in transactions last week, I make a {$300.00} payment that following Monday to offset the increased balanced on the account. As my intro period is drawing near, I called today to ensure the amount I had calculated as my overage amount ( daily transaction balance above initial balance transfer ) was indeed accurate as I planned to make a payment bringing the " overage '' amount to XXXX. It was on this call that I discovered that EVERY payment that I had made to " offset '' my daily transactions was indeed NOT going to that amount but rather being applied to my initial balance transfer promo that doesn't even expire for another 12+ months. When I suggested to the CSR that essentially, I should have not used the card in ANY form until the balance transfer was completed, she agreed and said that she apologies for this not being explained to me when I opened the account. 

This entire experience has left me completed frustrated and feeling mislead, manipulated and on the wrong end of deceptive practices by Discover. Had I known that any payment that I made above and beyond my minimum payment would be applied towards a promo that ends 12+ months from now and NOT a promo that ends 30 days from now I would have NEVER used this card in any shape or form. Now I'm left holding a considerable balance subject to a HIGH interest penalty in some 30 days because I was misled by advertising and the poor practices of Discover and because my payments were misapplied. Both the CSR and a Supervisor are both telling me that the payments can not be re-applied to the correct promo, which I believe to be incorrect, based on the fact that I currently work for the largest issuer of private label credit cards in the world and payments are effortlessly re-applied to the correct promo often. 

I will never use this card again ( plan to cancel the very second my payment posts that brings my account to a XXXX  balance ) and NEVER use a Discover product again in my life. Social Media, my family, friends will surely know about this terrible experience that I've had with Discover. I'm completely floored right now that this is happening and that Discover can care less and keeps offering the same slap-in-the-face " talk-off '' that not only doesn't true address my issue but gives NO effort to help resolve and keep what would have been a life-long customer.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation