Discover Card Canceled: Who is Diana’s Dad?
In an effort to get rid of all debt and opportunities for debt I canceled my Discover card this morning. First I called their toll free number and spoke to Penny in Utah. After telling her that I wanted to cancel my card she asked why. I asked her if she knew who Dave Ramsey was and she said, “No.” So I said that he was a financial adviser and I was closing my account on his advice. She said she was sorry to hear that I wanted to close the account and that I would have to be transferred to someone else to close the account. Apparently she didn’t have permission to close the account. Right. And monkey might fly out of my bum. A recording told me I was headed to Arizona.
So I was on hold for a good while, just in case my patience would run out and I’d choose to keep the Discover card. Diana in Arizona picked up the phone and began by re-assuring me that I was a valued card member since 2006. She then asked me what she could help me with. I told her I wanted to close the account. She told me that closing out the account would take a bit of time and began her script/schpiel/drivel. She had numerous reasons to keep the account alive. At one point in time she was telling me that her dad earned $400.00 a year from Discover card. Who is Diana’s dad? Why does his financial practice of utilizing the card effect me? Should I also have named my daughters Diana 1 and Diana 2 so that I could be even more like her dad? What kind of car does he drive because surely I would want to be like this wise, older man!
Then the gasoline prices came into play: I could make money on gasoline! Like my car didn’t have any expenses except gas and that Discover was going to pay me to have gas in my car. Nope. No dice. Please cancel my card.
Ah! Credit scores impact various things in life and I should keep this card so that my credit score could go up and the world would be a better place! Nope, please cancel my card.
So I pulled out my big gun, the one that you’re looking at right now: I told her I was going to blog about this experience because it was abnormal and not customer friendly. Miracle of miracles she said the account was closed and that I would still have 90 days to call back and ask them to re-activate it. No thanks, I think I’ll avoid that headache a second time.
Related posts
November 1st, 2007 at 10:30 am
And a BIG high Five for you! While you probably didn’t help your credit score, you probably din’t hurt it either. And you’ve “DISCOVERED” one of the key ways out of Debt! Congratulations!
November 1st, 2007 at 10:37 am
Discover is the worst for this sort of thing. Even just calling to change your address (before you could do it online) would result in an endless barrage of sales offers and such.
I recently paid my Discover card off in full (via CCCS - a credit counseling service, took just over 2 years, I think) and applied for another card with my boyfriend on it (to help build his credit). They refused the application because of “charge off or collections activity” on my existing Discover. Um, no. I’ve never gone to collections, and I didn’t do any charge offs (for this precise reason). They can kiss my backside - I’ll take my 11 years worth of business elsewhere.
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:26 am
[...] Watch My Money Maker - Discover Card Canceled: Who is Diana’s Dad? [...]
November 25th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Your first mistake was responding to Penny’s question. Simply tell them up front that you’re aware of all the benefits of their card, but you have no need for it and want to cancel. They might still give you the runaround, but don’t ever engage them. Don’t play games like “Do you know who Dave Ramsey is?” They don’t care. They’re just looking for *any* sort of opening to get you talking. Just tell them plain and simple that you have no need for it, you want to cancel, and you’d appreciate them doing it straightaway rather than spending time trying to change your mind.