Consumer complaint received 2025-03-21 00:00:00
Product: Checking or savings account — Checking account
Issue: Closing an account — Company closed your account
Company: DISCOVER BANK
State: MA

Complaint narrative:
I am submitting this complaint to formally request further investigation related to my complaints Case XXXX. XXXX and XXXX about Discover Banks handling of my account, particularly regarding : - Inconsistent application of their overdraft policy to approve a charge that should have been rejected. 
- Unjustified rejection of a charge-off payment that was previously accepted, raising concerns about retaliation after my previous CFPB complaints.

1. Inconsistent Overdraft Policy Application. Discover states that their Overdraft Protection only applies if a linked deposit account exists. However, I never had a linked account, and for past transactions, Discover consistently declined overdraft transactions, effectively preventing my account from going negative. In this instance, a merchant ( XXXX XXXX ) increased the transaction amount, which caused my account to go negative. Discover could have rejected this increase, just as they had rejected similar overdraft attempts in the past. This proves that Discover does not apply their policy consistently, meaning their argument about requiring a linked account is meaningless if overdrafts were previously prevented without a linked account. Why was this charge allowed to go above initial charge when previous overdrafts were declined? This suggests an error on the banks side and an inconsistent enforcement of its own policies, which ultimately led to the unnecessary closure of my account. Additionally, the negative balance in question was only {$0.00}. This is an insignificant amount by any reasonable standard, yet Discover has escalated this issue to the point that multiple representatives have now spent time reviewing and responding to this complaintat a cost far exceeding the amount in question. Any employee reviewing this complaint likely has an hourly wage many times higher than {$0.00}. The fact that Discover is willing to dedicate extensive resources to problematizing such a minor amount instead of applying a reasonable resolution demonstrates bad faith handling of this issue. 2. My Charge-Off Payment Was AcceptedThen Wrongfully Rejected. After my account was closed, I properly wrote off my account balance by sending a check that included Charged-off and my full account number in the memo line, as instructed by Discover. My final account statement shows that Discover accepted the charge-off payment, confirming that it was properly written and the negative balance was resolved. I attached a screenshot of the memo included in the check I sent. However, after I filed my previous CFPB complaint, Discover reversed their decision and falsely claimed my payment was invalid because it lacked account details. This is false. The check I sent clearly included my account number and the Charged-off note. Why did Discover initially accept my charge-off payment, only to later claim it was invalid? 
The timing of their inaccurate reversal suggests retaliation, they altered their decision after I escalated my complaint.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation