Consumer complaint received 2025-10-16 00:00:00
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems — Privacy issues
Company: DISCOVER BANK
State: TN

Complaint narrative:
FACTS I am a current credit card holder/customer in good standing of Discover Financial Services , Inc. , d/b/a Discover Credit Card Company, a subsidiary of XXXX XXXX XXXX  ( hereinafter Discover ) . On XX/XX/year>, I contacted Discover by phone to ask a billing question that was not related to the substance of this complaint. Toward the end of the call, the person that I spoke to then asked me if my address on file was current. She then read aloud my current mailing address, which I have not provided to Discover. I then asked her how Discover obtained my address without my knowledge or consent, and she replied that she did not know. She then asked if I wanted to leave my address as unverified. Notably, it logically follows that if an unverified address exists in a credit profile, such an address was inherently not provided by the customer. 

Subsequently on the same day, I contacted Discover via live chat to provide them a good faith opportunity to directly resolve and explain this matter, and submitted to them the following inquiry : Please explain how/why my address was updated without my consent. 

Discover then immediately connected me to the department who has information on your address change. The next agent that picked up the conversation stated that Discover has been informed of my address by XXXX. The implicit suggestion embedded in this response was that XXXX has the legal right to give out customers addresses to anyone at will ( see enclosures ). In reality, they do not have any such authority. To the contrary, XXXX has strict rules that prohibit this. If this is accurate, I would like to know what other sources Discover is being informed of my private personal information, without my knowledge or consent. The agent also stated that they are not showing an address update in their system ( see enclosures ). This further confirms the fact that I did not provide this information to Discover or consent to Discover unilaterally updating my credit profile. 

Notably, the most likely reason that information about how my information was obtained was not provided to customer service is that it involves unlawful misconduct committed by Discover management. I pointed out that these responses do not adequately address my question. The agent then responded with a statement about fraud concerns and the phone number to customer service, which I had already contacted earlier that day, and they were unable to explain anything related to this matter. ( see enclosures ) CONCLUSION The above-described misconduct appears to be an egregiously improper disclosure and clear violation of section 804 of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and XXXX privacy provisions relating to strict consumer privacy prohibitions on communicating customers private information to third parties. Further, it is evident that this is a predatory lending practice committed by Discover to illegally track and intimidate customers by disregarding state and federal laws and any other privacy regulations as it sees fit to accomplish this result. Such practices are manifestly contrary to public policy and must be redressed. I am without the means to hire independent counsel to address this on my own.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation