Consumer complaint received 2017-07-24
Product: Checking or savings account — Savings account
Issue: Managing an account — Banking errors
Company: DISCOVER BANK (VA)

Dear FDIC and CFPB I am a customer of Discover Bank, which is regulated by FDIC and which does substantial consumer financial business. On XXXX XXXX XXXX, I received two identical false letters purporting to be from Discover Bank that alleged that we had changed our address from a stated address to the same stated address. We had neither made nor authorized any address change. Puzzled by this repeated false allegation, I feared it might signal that someone had breached Discover Banks security and that this was a signal that account holders files had been breached and that addresses were being changed, or were subject to being changed. I learned from an earlier breach at Discover that account hackers sometimes change account addresses to misdirect the next statement, while they raid the account. So I called a trusted number at Discover and spoke to a Discover employee XXXX XXXX, in XXXX [ All Discover employee name spellings in this message are my phonetic spellings based on verbal exchanges on the phone. ] XXXX referred me to XXXX in XXXX XXXX XXXX a Document Specialist Supervisor who orally reassured me that this is a known problem in which Discover sent out many of these false letters, in duplicate to customers whos addresses had not changed. I explained that I needed a written explanation of what happened that caused this. XXXX explained that they would not be willing to provide a written explanation other than that this was a mistake, and that our account had not been compromised. I said OK send me that. She said she couldnt guarantee that would happen but she would submit a request, and it would take 2-3 business days to submit and any response would take 7-10 business days to reach me. She said they would let me know if they chose to refuse to even confirm this error. She did not. Having heard nothing back from Discover Bank on this inquiry, I called Discover again on XXXX XXXX XXXX and got XXXX XXXX in XXXX who checked and determined that that letter request was declined on XXXX XXXX by one of Discovers customer advocacy agents, XXXX XXXX in our Delaware office, and no one had relayed that information back to XXXX, which explains why I did not hear back from XXXX. XXXX XXXX XXXX MON XXXX I called Discovers Executive Office of Customer Advocacy at XXXX, got XXXX, who transferred me to XXXX XXXX, who several times confirmed that it was declined and finally, on the third request, admitted that she was the one who had declined it, and said that was according to their procedures. I asked who ( individual, executive or office name ) had written that procedure and she said she could not provide any of that information about the authorship of that procedure. She said their email address was XXXX. This letter is to : 1. Notify you, if Discover Bank has not already done so, that Discover Bank says it has sent out many of these duplicate, false letters to account holders, but has declined to provide any written acknowledgment to an affected customer, nor any reassurance that this was not a failure of computer customer data security. 2. Request you, as cognizant government agencies, to require this regulated bank to follow up with all affected customers with at least a reassurance that this was a blunder within the bank and was not a signal of any customer account data breach.
3. Request that you prevent regulated banks from positioning employees in the risky position where they take actions with bank customers based on anonymous Procedures, but are commanded not to reveal the office or officers in the Bank who dictate those procedures. Such managerial cowardice puts customers and individual employees in the position of being unable to identify who is actually responsible for bank actions ( good or bad ) that may hurt consumers, or violate rules, regulations or laws. Recent public reports of employees at XXXX XXXX being disciplined or discharged for evidently following procedures regarding opening new accounts in customer names without the customers knowledge or permission make this a frightening possibility for any bank employee, and a threatening one for consumers. Sincerely, XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX. Consumer p.s. I will be on the road XXXX XXXX XXXX, so I will appreciate any response in the normal course, and will be unable to provide substantive email communication during that time.. cc : XXXX