Consumer complaint received 2017-08-23
Company: DISCOVER BANK
State: DE
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Savings account
Issue: Problem caused by your funds being low
Sub-issue: Non-sufficient funds and associated fees

Complaint:
I opened a checking and savings accounts with Discover Bank on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX. The entire customer experience of opening the account was awful, but that is not the reason for the complaint. I eventually opened both accounts successfully and set up an initial deposit ACH from my XXXX account. Monday XXXX/XXXX/XXXX I received an alert my account had been frozen and Discover must be contacted before the hold could be lifted. I called as instructed and a Security agent, who asked me why I was calling even though he knew, reviewed my account and said there was an issue with the account generation, but he fixed it and I would no longer run into any issues. 

Come Thursday XXXX/XXXX/XXXX when the initial deposit still had not come through and purely showed as pending on the website, I called Discover concerned that the ACH was not going to go through. I was then alerted by the phone agent that there was an issue with my account caused at opening that needed to be resolved. The comment made it seems like this happens all the time. 1. The first agent I spoke with on XXXX did not fix the accounts as promised 2. If this is a common issue it should be resolved. I was transferred to a web team agent, XXXX, who fixed the account, which caused my account to lose all the preferences it had and my verified external accounts. Annoyance and extra work required on my part, but again not the reason for the complaint. XXXX informed me that the initial deposits were not going to occur and I must reschedule them, so I took her advice and proceeded to reschedule the transfer. 

Come Monday XXXX/XXXX/XXXX Discover completed all of the transfers causing my account to go negative. I immediately called to alert them and request the duplicate funds back. I have had several phone calls with Discover since then, and even representative tries to instruct me how an ACH works. I know how it works, I work for a bank ... The funds had left XXXX and they had no control over the funds at this point. Discover would not make the funds available to me until XXXX. When instructed them I required the money to pay for my mortgage come XXXX there was no empathy or real care to my situation. Discover refused to return my funds or escalate my issue to their executive office. They simply stated that their policy is there is a 30 day hold on all funds on new accounts for " fraud protection '' and this policy could not be overridden. This is a stupid policy plain and simple. My career has been spent designing Fraud and Non-Fraud processes for credit and retail banking and there are far better ways to prevent fraud then impact your newly acquired customer. On top of that I find it had to believe no one can override a fraud policy on an erroneous transfer. If I have a customer being negatively impacted by a fraud policy/strategy,  I simply reach out to that team and they remove that policy for that particular customer. The same must be possible here. Discover refused any type of resolution to return my funds and forced me to  contact XXXX to file a dispute on all the transfers to receive my funds back. This is not acceptable.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief