Consumer complaint received 2015-06-08
Company: DISCOVER BANK
State: ME
Product: Credit card
Issue: Payoff process

Complaint:
I have a credit card account with Discover Card. During the past year, I have been unable to pay my minimum balances and the debt has been in danger of charging off. 
I was finally able to afford to start a payment program with Discover in XXXX, 2015, and began a five-year plan to pay off the debt with regular payments for {$97.00} to come out of my checking account on the XXXX of every month. 
On XXXX XXXX, I received several calls from Discover ( there had been no prior calls from them in XX/XX/XXXX ). I returned their calls on XX/XX/XXXX and was told that my payment for XX/XX/XXXX had been rejected by the bank. 
When I talked with the Discover representative on XXXX XXXX, I was told that there was no clear reason for the payment to have been returned, but when the representative manually forced the payment through during the phone call, it went through and the payment was successfully made. 

However, I was told that since I was at the beginning of a new payment program in which all the payments had to be made on time and that this payment was late, I would need to give Discover another payment of {$97.00} by XX/XX/XXXX to keep the debt from charging off. 

I did not have an additional {$97.00} to make an additional payment to Discover for XX/XX/XXXX. I explained this to the supervisor, and also expressed dismay at the situation, since it was not my fault ( I had set up the payments properly and had money in the account ). The supervisor said that I had to make the payment or the account would charge off on XXXX XXXX. 
On XXXX XXXX, I visited my bank and talked with a bank manager. She looked over the account information and confirmed that there were sufficient funds in the account to pay the {$97.00} on XXXX XXXX and that no issues or problems were showing up on the account. 

On XXXX XXXX, I called Discover back and talked with another representative, and after I explained the issue and was told that there was nothing he could do, and he transferred me to his supervisor, XXXX XXXX. I offered XXXX XXXX the number and name of the XXXX XXXX manager and reiterated that this was not my fault, that I had money in the account and the payments set up and that I had responded to Discover as soon as they had called me. 

She said that there was nothing she could do. I would have to pay an additional {$97.00} by the XX/XX/XXXX, or the account would charge off on XXXX XXXX. I was unable to provide the additional {$97.00}, and Discover Card has since charged off the debt. 

I have been very frustrated in general with talking with Discover representatives, and it was a great relief to me to finally have a payment plan set up so that I would n't have to talk to them anymore. I am beyond frustrated that for a glitch that has nothing to do with me, and because I do not have another {$97.00}, that now I will not only have a debt charged off, and all of the fallout from that, but that I now will have to deal with continuous calls from the collections department again. 
I have been in tears more than once dealing with Discover representatives. It is not just every call that I am asked why I do not have money, but several times within a phone call, in circular conversations that seem to go nowhere. I 've had some bad luck this past year and made some poor choices, and I know that I owe Discover money, but that does not mean that they get to repeatedly ask me to drag out the embarrassing details of my life over and over again.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief