Consumer complaint received 2021-01-21
Product: Debt collection — Credit card debt
Issue: Communication tactics — Frequent or repeated calls
Company: DISCOVER BANK (PA)

Paragraph 1 : I started falling behind on my Discover card late last XXXX. Ive been a faithful customer for over five years now. I have talked to them probably close to 20 times starting from as soon as I knew I wasnt going to be able to make full payments. Ive given them full disclosure on my situation every time. Ive been helping my XXXX-year-old mother through her Chapter XXXX bankruptcy since XXXX. In XXXX, my brother moved into my home and basically crashed for a year, putting more lasting strain on my finances. He finally went into rehab in XXXX. I love him, I support him, I want him to succeed, but he will NOT be moving in with me again. Leading into this situation, my father died from XXXX  XXXX XXXX and my stepmom botched the inheritances, to put it lightly. Initially she told my brother he was going inherit one thing. Then he ended up inheriting something else, but by that point he had already made commitments ( some good, some XXXX ). That threw him into financial chaos, which ended up throwing me into financial chaos trying to help him. There is no one major event that caused my payments to fall behind. Its a situation thats been four years in the making, and it will last indefinitely. 

Paragraph 2 : The other reason my step family is tied into this mess is because its HIGHLY likely my stepmom leaked my credit card number at the beginning of XXXX, resulting in someone anonymous going on an online shopping spree for expensive womens shoes and cosmetics. I cant verify who actually stole the card, who is covering it up, and whos just trying to stay out of this mess because every single person Ive reached out to who could possibly have something to say has taken the total radio silence approach. Its been throwing me through a constant emotional and financial loop for the past couple of years. 

Paragraph 3 : Discover rings my mobile phone six times per day, I either answer one of them or I call back, we spend 15 minutes having the exact same conversation weve been having for three months now ( while Im always informed its being noted and recorded ), they leave me alone for 1-2 weeks ( I dont think they even waited a full week this last time before XXXX ), and then they start right back up again. This has been going on since XXXX. We have talked so many times that I can recite the phone call almost verbatim. Hi! This is So And So from Discover. We were just reviewing your file and we noticed youre XXXX XXXX behind. Has anything changed recently? Is there anything we can do to help? Let me just make you aware of these payment plan options Every time, its a totally different account specialist acting like its the first time Ive ever been contacted and they have absolutely no idea what is going on. 

Paragraph 4 : Discover apparently thinks that calling me six times a day is somehow going to make me richer. There is no logical reason or justification for that business model. Youre not helping your customers when you do that. Youre harassing and pushing them into paying you more than theyre actually able to. If reality worked the way Discover thinks it does, I would gladly be inviting you to call me six HUNDRED times per day, because I could use all the financial help I can get. But since it doesnt work that way, I seriously question why do they need to keep calling me at all. Ive pointed this out before on a feedback form one of your phone reps sent me months ago, but thats evidently fallen on deaf ears. Ive been sorting out a lot of debt calls lately, but Discover is easily the # 1 reason I have to keep my phone on constant Do Not Disturb mode while Im at work. I noticed theyve slowed down a bit since XXXX XXXX ( now at 1-2 calls per day ), but on Tuesday XX/XX/XXXX they switched tactics. I received an Express Mail letter telling me if I dont get on a repayment plan by XX/XX/XXXX, they will forward the matter to an attorney next. 

Paragraph 5 : I also feel I should point out Discovers corporate message has been a little bipolar. The agent I talked to two phone calls ago ( late XXXX/early XXXX ) actually suggested it would be better if I stopped paying Discover COMPLETELY for the next several months and saved up whatever I could. The other agent I talked to in the most recent phone call ( mid-XXXX ) wouldnt stop urgently pressing me to send bigger payments. She kept asking me Well, when can we expect the {$130.00} payment? My response is : You can expect me to resume full payments when either work doubles my salary or I win the lottery. The third possibility is someone from my family reaches out to me totally out of the blue to say Oh my gosh! We REALLY messed up here! We are SO sorry! HERES what we owe you! ( whatever that might be ), but Id consider that to be the least likely outcome at this point. 

Paragraph 6 : What constantly haunts me is back when I called Discovers fraud department about the stolen card in XXXX, I explicitly remember someone mentioning Ohio. Either the charges were originating from Ohio, or one of the vendors was registered in Ohio? Im not exactly sure. The person from Discover asked me if I have traveled to Ohio recently. That didnt mean anything to me at the time, but I came to find out later my stepmoms home state is Ohio. She probably still has friends somewhere in Ohio. That strikes me as more than just a coincidence in hindsight, and if its NOT this credit card thats making every single member of my family act like guilty nutcases, I have no idea what else it could be. But since someone from Discover was asking if Ive ever been to Ohio, that indicates to me you have some form of system in place that tells you when a charge is coming through an unusual location. Somewhere, in some form, you probably have more evidence of who was actually using my card than I do. 

Paragraph 7 : I know my stepmom had access to the Discover credit card because I gave her the number as a gesture to help her with plane tickets to my fathers funeral in XX/XX/XXXX, and she is the only one who had access to it barring some completely random hacker. A couple years ago, I went to my local police department to report this issue after it started becoming clear the problem was a lot worse than my stepmom just innocently fuddling the inheritances. They couldnt do anything for me because it crosses out of state boundaries. They advised me to contact the police in the county of Michigan where my stepmom was living when the theft occurred. I must have called around four times spread across several weeks in XXXX. Every time I tried calling, I got the voice mail for the investigators department. I left my name, number, and the basic problem I needed to report, and nobody ever called me back. Ive contacted various private attorneys in both my state and my dads state. Ive contacted DA offices. Ive contacted all the vendors involved directly, and they cant tell me who was using the card without a court order first. And after all other outlets failed, I even tried submitting it as a tip on the FBIs website since credit card fraud in itself is a federal crime. Ive hit dead ends every single time and I lost around {$700.00} on this venture alone. 

Paragraph 8 : At this point Im more concerned with just having a basic conversation with my family than Im concerned with prosecuting anyone, but Im also aware of the fact that conversation is never going to happen because, in all likelihood, it would lead directly to prosecutions. Anyone from my family could just sit me down and calmly tell me why Im wrong, but everyone just seems to think its hilarious how my dad died from XXXX and everything that happened after his death is just one big joke. I was sitting at the mans bedside four weeks before he died, and he was so happy that everyone was back together, and everyone was getting along, and Id finally gotten over my phobias of talking to him, and how decades of family drama I could write about forever were all behind us. Then he was gone and everyone else decided Nope. We have other plans. The entire thing is completely sinister and disgusting. 

Paragraph 9 : When I was going through all this with Discovers call agent last month ( XX/XX/XXXX ), she was saying they would have no record of who committed the fraud because Its not like we have camera recordings showing who was using it. For one thing, they wouldnt be video recordings. They would be incoming IP addresses. All of the fraudulent purchases were through online vendors. Discovers position here seems to be theyll do everything in their power to pry their customers for money they dont have, but you care little or not at all about protecting your customers rights. I have an aunt on my moms side who seems to be talking pretty regularly with my stepmom ever since all these legal questions started coming out, and last month she just restarted her antics of popping in and out of my online life without ever actually communicating with me. Im done trying to figure out whatever her deal is. Im not going to claim that getting toyed around by various family members caused 100 % of my debt, but its not a completely unrelated issue, either. Rest assured, IF there ever turns out to be a legal case over this, and IF there are any punitive damages owed to me ( in addition to what Im almost certain are criminal convictions ), it will be my first priority to repay my existing debt. 

Paragraph 10 : As long as no one is suing me, I WILL maintain monthly payments. The amount might not be very much ( right now its looking around $ XXXX {$30.00} ), but they WILL be monthly payments. The moment someone sues me, Ill have to stop paying ALL of my unsecured debt immediately so Ill have enough to hire a bankruptcy attorney. Im not saying that as a threat. Im not making any kind of dare. Im simply saying what I have to do to survive. I understand I took a risk by using this credit card, but you also took a risk offering the card. Lets not playing Completely Blame the Consumer here. 

Paragraph 11 : Your Express letter is utterly unnecessary. Hypothetically, if you sued me tomorrow, all youre going to do is lose yourself thousands of dollars just to flex muscle for no reason. I dont own any real estate. The only car I own is financed for the next five years. I can count my potential bankruptcy inventory on one hand. I havent consulted with an attorney, but I own MAYBE a XXXX dollars worth of beat up sci-fi books, MAYBE a couple XXXX worth of DVDs ( and I mean DVDsnot Blu-Rays ), a 8-year-old TV, a {$50.00} DVD player, a {$200.00} gaming console with no physical games, a {$400.00} mid-range computer required for my software job, and some clothes. I used to have a significantly larger DVD collection, but I pawned off the vast majority of it for spare cash several XXXX ago. I make {$2200.00} per month post-tax post-healthcare, Im effectively living paycheck to paycheck, and Im a Pennsylvania resident. Wage garnishment on unsecured debt doesnt exist in PA. 

Paragraph 12 : The only other thing I have is {$14000.00} sitting in my Roth 401 ( k ), but no one ( including me ) is touching that for the next couple of decades. If I cashed out everything I had in that account right now as an emergency fund and I gave all of it to Discover to settle my debt, Id still have six other unsecured creditors to contend with. In other words, its not a viable option. 
Paragraph 13 : Im not facing a monthly deficit, but I only have about $ XXXX- {$300.00} left each month to split between seven different unsecured creditors. In all honesty, the past few months have been somewhat of an experiment because its the first time in several years that Ive gone on a cash-only budget for all of my basic groceries and utilities. Ive already gone through Discovers recommended credit counselors ( I cant even afford a third of the plan they put together ) and Ive cut back on how much I put in my 401 ( k ) from almost {$150.00} per month to just {$100.00} per month. If I cut out my 401 ( k ) deposits entirely, I also lose my employer matching. 

Paragraph 14 : Mom will be out of her bankruptcy by XXXX of this year. By my calculations, she will be able to save enough money on her own that its going to save me about {$200.00} per month. But I also have to keep in mind that my school loans ( which have been forebeared for almost an entire year due to Covid ) will resume in the next couple of months. Im already on XXXX income-contingent plan and my payments are right around {$200.00} per month. Basically, moms bankruptcy ending is going to amount to a net zero difference to me.