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Discover Financial Services Backdating transactions and/or inaccurate account information on website Nationwide
Discovercard.com is not posting and/or backdating transaction dates for purchases. On the website, it is not possible to see a current balance within a few days of the end period. No matter what I do, I cannot pay off the balance "in full" because they do not disclose the actual balance due and do not post recent transactions in a timely manner such that I may pay off the balance before the due date.
Example: I purchased an item on Sept. 15. I logged into the website on the 16th. The transaction had not posted to the "recent activity" portion and the total balance for purchases did not reflect that activity. Therefore I concluded that the transaction had not gone through. I paid the entire balance that was available on the website on Sept. 16. On Sept. 17 I logged in and printed out the recent activity section, which still showed no items purchased on Sept. 15, but did show that I paid off all open transactions in full and there was a zero balance on Sept. 17 (the last day of account period).
On Sept. 18, the first day of the new account period, I logged in to see that my statement of account for the previous period showed the charge from Sept. 15, which was never accounted for on the website. This means that there WAS a balance, but that balance was NOT reported to me until AFTER the closing period under which I may have paid it off.
I went to the printable statement for the period ending Sept. 17, and lo and behold, the charge from Sept. 15 magically appears for that date of Sept. 15, which is inaccurate because it did not show up on the website on that date or on the two business days after (though another charge does show up on the 16th) under the recent activity or outstanding balances sections.
This is backdating transactions to make it seem like I carry a balance each month. It exposes any subsequent charges to double cycle billing practices by this company.
To Discovercard: Stop backdating transactions. Your website earlier this year did account accurately balances up to the due date and you changed that. If transactions do not show up on the website prior to the end of the billing cycle, they should not be charged as part of that billing cycle or reflected as being "posted" at that time when in fact they were not posted.
I have time-stamped PDFs of the website and the transactions to back up this claim.
This is a fraudulent accounting practice and needs to be stopped. It is an attempt to expose previous cycle activity to double cycle interest rates for any future balances, by not allowing consumers to completely pay off their balances within a cycle. Since Discovercard changed their website earlier this year I have been unable to EVER pay in full before the end of the grace period, as there are always transactions that did not in anyway show up on the website or in the recent activity balances due section, but did show up on the statement AFTER the period was over, complete with inaccurate posting dates.
V
Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
John
SLC,Utah,
U.S.A.
Posting date for charges
#2UPDATE Employee
Mon, October 27, 2008
The charges are not posted immediately because Discover does not get charged at the time of purchase. When you run your card through a machine, the merchant location obtains and authorization to charge your card. Basically all that happens is they are provided a code to confirm that the amount they authorized is infact going to be paid WHEN they process the actual debit. It does not show on Discover's end as a charge until they actually debit the account because authorizations are not necessarily the actual amount to be charged (example is gas pumps that authorize anywhere between 1-100 dollars) and is not garunteed to even end up being charged (you set up a new service, they ping the account for an authorization to make sure it is a valid account, but dont really start charging for 1 month or something along those lines). So if you are having an issue of the charges posting late...look for a merchant that does not batch up 1-2 days worth of transactions for processing as Discover has no way of knowing what the actual amount is or if it is really a charge until the merchant actually debits the account.
Regarding your balance in full payments, you do not get charged interest if your statement balance is paid. For example, if your due date is the 15 of month and the cycle (cut off date for charges) is the 16th, and you get a statement stating your balance is 1,000, due by 11/15/08 (meaning this is all the charges from the prior cycle, so 9/16-10/16). To avoid finance charges once you are in the grace period, you just pay the 1,000. It does not matter how many charges you make after 10/16. Just that statement. On 11/16/08 you would get another statement with the due date of 12/15, and again, you just need to pay the balance on that statement.
So summed up, 1) Discover has no control over how quick the merchant posts the actual charges, and that date where you state they are backdating, that is the transaction date, it is when the transaction took place and is just a reference for you (post date is the date it posted as a debit and is what is used for finance charges). 2) You do not need a 0 balance on the account when the statement is to be sent to avoid finance charges, you just need to have covered the last statement recieved in full.