Consumer complaint received 2020-01-17
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Incorrect information on your report — Account status incorrect
Company: DISCOVER BANK (NJ)

The following is detailed account of the events that lead me to request that the Delinquent mark Discover recently submitted to the credit bureaus be removed from my cre dit report and their response to my request. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, I made a payment of {$5200.00} that I honestly believed based on the information presented to me on Discovercard.com, covered the entire statement balance. Believing that I had paid off the card In Full coupled with the next day, seeing the Current Statement Balance read {$0.00} and the Minimum Payment Due read {$0.00} I did not give the account a second thought. 

Its important to note that Actual Statements for some reason, are unavailable on my Discover Card online account, only Transaction History is available. This should be investigated. 

I have had this credit card account with Discover since XX/XX/XXXX ( 16 years ) and have never had a single late payment. In fact, I have not been late on any debt Ive held in my lifetime, including my home mortgage, even during my most extreme hardship - the financial crisis of XXXX. I have spent my entire life treating my financial responsibilities with the utmost respect and as a result, have maintained a perfect payment history, until this most unfortunate circumstance. 

If I had known that I still needed to make a payment on this account I would have paid it immediately without question. In fact, I would have gladly paid triple the amount, not to have my credit blemished for the next 7 years! However, since this account had been on auto-pay for many years and I had stopped using the card for purchases several years ago, all of the contact information Discover had on file for me was out of date. Therefore I did not receive the notifications or statements that were sent to me attempting to inform me of the outstanding balance of {$80.00}. 

As soon as I was alerted by XXXX XXXX ( A Credit Monitoring Service ) via email on XX/XX/XXXX, that Discover had reported me as Delinquent resulting in a 100 point reduction in my overall credit score, I immediately called Discover and made the payment of what was described by Customer Service Supervisor XXXX of XXXX, AZ as the result of Residual Interest. I made certain that the absolute final amount owed was in fact {$80.00}, and paid it on XXXX XXXX XXXX. 

In an attempt to keep this from ever happening again, I updated all of my contact information and also reinstated auto-pay - though as I said to XXXX, I did not remember ever having deactivated auto-pay in the first place and I would like this to be investigated. 

My long activity history shows that this account has been on automatic payments for many years without interruption. Only after I had paid the entire balance In Full ( Or so I thought ) with the amount of {$5200.00} on XXXX XXXX XXXX, did the automatic payments suddenly stop, unbeknownst to me, which meant that the Residual Interest I was not aware of, would not be payed automatically either as I had been accustomed to for years. 

It is my hope that Discover would recognize this was simply a perfect storm of misunderstanding and out dated contact information that resulted in this incredibly damaging and disproportionate negative mark against my otherwise spotless payment history. My honest intention was and always has been, to pay my debt In Full to Discover - and this Fact is proven by my entire lifes perfect payment history - over 20 years! 
After several calls to Discover Customer Service and their FICO Team in attempt to resolve this matter more favorably, it has been made clear to me by several customer service members and supervisors that their reason for not removing the Delinquent mark is because Discover is required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act ( FCRA ) to report accurate information to the credit bureaus, however : 1 ) Discover is not required by any law to report anything to the credit bureaus. Reporting to the credit bureaus is described in the FCRA as being a Voluntary and therefore Discover does in fact have the ability to retract the information reported with zero risk of liability or adverse action of any kind. 

2 ) Discovers own Corporate Code of Ethics declares their desire to, Follow both the letter AND THE SPIRIT of the law ( emphasis added by me ). Therefore it stands to reason that if Discover has been made aware of a consumers misunderstanding, inability to have been contacted, has access to evidence of the consumers perfect payment history, a record of an obvious attempt to pay the account in full and has received the remaining final payment immediately upon his learning of the oversight, Discover has, according to its own Code or Ethics, the responsibility to act in the best interest of customers, and retract the damaging mark from his credit report because : a. The letter of the law is to report accurate information to the credit bureaus, if the Furnisher voluntarily chooses to do so, for the express purpose of being converted into a score which is then able to be interpreted by financial institutions to determine a prospective borrowers Creditworthiness. I contend that the information Discover has voluntarily furnished the credit bureaus in this case, is more Inaccurate than it is Accurate as the information submitted would lead financial institutions to believe that I am a risk of late payment, when in fact that couldnt be further from The Truth as evidenced by my perfect payment history of over 20 years and my having paid the remaining balance as soon as I learned of its existence. Interpretation of the information submitted by Discover would lead other institutions as well as Discover itself, to come to untrue determinations about my creditworthiness, character, and general reputation. 660.4 Fair Credit Reporting Act b. If the spirit of the law as stated in Discovers own Code of Ethics is in fact to Act in the best interest of customers, Discover has violated its own Code of Ethics along with the spirit of the law of both the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 where the Missions of each statute are stated plainly on the government website ( ftc.gov/enforcement/statutes/fair-accurate-credit-transactions-act-2003 ) as to Seek monetary redress and other relief for conduct injurious to consumers and most simply for Consumer Protection. I contend that this Delinquent report to the credit bureaus for the remaining residual interest in the amount of {$80.00} is Unfair, Inaccurate, and Injurious to me as a consumer, due to the disproportionate financial repercussions I am now exposed to for a simple misunderstanding coupled with unfortunate circumstances that I immediately rectified upon my learning of it. Today, it is commonly known to be standard practice for not only financial institutions to utilize credit reports, but other institutions as well, such as : insurance companies in setting rates, businesses making employment decisions, landlords determining whether or not to rent to a prospective renter, auto sales and more. As a direct consequence of Discovers voluntarily reporting to the credit bureaus, I will incur costly and undue, but lawful discrimination from countless institutions for the next 7 years.