Consumer complaint received 2020-03-10
Company: DISCOVER BANK
State: KY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Closing your account
Sub-issue: Company closed your account

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, I received an email from XXXX  titled 'ACTION REQUESTED : Please eSign the required IRS Form 4506-T '. I  also received an email from Discover that asked me to give Discover a call. I called Discover and asked them what was happening and I was told that they just wanted to verify me. I thought it was very strange since my longest Discover card is over 10 years old so at first I thought this was some sort of Phishing attempt. After confirming it was Discover I signed the form they requested. They informed me that this is usually resolved within a week and then I could access my accounts again. I explained what an inconvience this was including the fact that I had mutliple charges that I was expecting to my credit card. They said that in flight charges should be approved. 

Next, on XXXX I received another email from Discover that stated " Dear XXXX XXXX, We need to talk to you right away about your Discover card account. Please take a moment to phone us at XXXX. '' I called Discover immediately on XXXX and was told that all they needed was to check that I completed the form request which I confirmed and apologized to me and said it should just take a few more days. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I received an email from Discover stating " Dear XXXX XXXX  XXXX, We are writing to notify you that we have closed your Discover it card account effective immediately. We regularly conduct reviews to evaluate our customers ' accounts, and during a review, we were unable to verify personal information on your account. We evaluated your account and under the terms of your Cardmember Agreement, a business decision was made to close your account. Our credit decision was based in whole on the information found on your account. 

Any Cashback Bonus or Miles rewards balance will be applied as a credit to your account, or, if the account has a XXXX  balance at the time of closure, a check will be issued. If your account has a credit balance, you may request a refund check, or one will be sent automatically after four months of the credit balance being on your account. 

We will report to the credit bureaus that the account was Closed by Grantor. Questions on how this may impact your credit score can be addressed by contacting the credit bureaus directly. '' I called immediately on XX/XX/XXXX around XXXX XXXX  ET. I spoke with XXXX from Customer Protection and then I was connected with supervisor XXXX. I explained that I had my longest Discover account for over 10 years and I can't understand why Discover is now saying " we were unable to verify personal information. '' This is very very concering beyond just the fact that Discover has closed all of my credit cards beyond just the impact of the closure. I was never contacted beyond this signed form. I asked for details as to what the root cause was for the closure. They said they did not have it. I asked whether there was something with the IRS that was wrong. They couldn't tell me. I told them how concerning this is that no one can tell me anything. Its very surprissing that Discover never did something similar such as ID verification or something else that could have quickly cleared this up. I have significant concerns about my personal information as a result of this.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation