Discover Card "Security Upgrade"
When I logged into my account today, it randomly said my account number had changed. I called and they told me that "many account numbers have been changed due to a necessary security upgrade." Not sure what the heck that means (sounds like a security breach of some sort), but evidently our card is valid until we activate the new cards that will soon arrive in the mail.
Discover Card holders might want to check their accounts.
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14 comments:
Same situation here. I talked to a CSR who insisted that there was no security breach "We are just upgrading our account holder security". May be true, but they did the same thing a couple of years ago when a web merchant I used got hacked and gave up 200K credit card numbers. Why else would changing your account from one 16 digit number to another make it more secure?
Exactly! Oh well, at least the transition seems to be going smoothly.
I too received this surprise when I checked my account online and no plausible explanation. I have several automatic charges to the account. I was assured Discover would notify the merchants but, "you might want to verify they made the change." In other words, I get to spend a lot of time making calls, emailing, broadcasting a new account account number I did not ask for. Have yet to receive the new cards. Something's up.
Got the same thing -- a surprise notice upon logging in, and the same security upgrade song and dance. Pure nonsense. I'm sure some news organization will eventually uncover the truth. As for all those automatic charges each month, I switched them to a Visa card since my faith in Discover has dwindled.
Exactly the same thing here. I've had the same card number since 1995 with not a single fraudulent charge in that whole time. I charged ~$15k to mine in the previous 12 months. I've stopped using mine completely as they refuse to explain the REAL reason they changed my number. I'd encourage all of you to do the same.
Same thing here. I searched their letter and their website for some mention of what "security upgrade" was happening, but I could find nothing. I emailed customer service with that same question, and they did nothing but repeat the same vague language of the letter and website. That's a dead giveaway that they had a breach, and worse, weren't sure of the scope, or were and it covered everyone. I've transferred all of my billing to debit and dropped this card, refusing to activate my new card and refusing to ever use Discover again, just because of the lousy way they are handling this and their LIES about the "securtity upgrades in the future". Trust me folks, there is NO 16-digit number on the planet that is any more secure than any other, so this excuse is total BS.
I just called for something unrelated and a CSR told me that Discover Card account info was stolen from about 20 merchants, (the only one I remember is Sam's Club because that's where mine apparently was snagged).
He said they were getting about 20,000 fraudulent charges per month from this group of thefts, so they decided to just issue new numbers to every affected account.
Nice of them to tell us...
It sounds like a bunch of card numbers were stolen. They told me it was a "security upgrade", too. But, they said all Discover More card members were being issued new numbers. A Google search turned up no news on this story. This is a major disruption for someone who has had the same account number for 16 years.
I got a notice a couple of weeks ago that my account number was changing and I would get a new card. So far I don't have the card.
Today (7/11) I got email notifying me that my balance is over a threshold I set to get a warning. Not necessarily a sign of a problem since my spending is a little erratic, but worth checking out.
I checked online, and the website told me my account number had changed. It also said my payment which was due 7/9 had not been made, which would explain a high balance. I make my payments online, usually at least a week in advance scheduled to post on the due date. I was sure I remembered making this payment, but maybe I forgot.
I checked my checking account, and the payment had not been deducted, so at least Discover hadn't taken the money and lost it. So I figured I might as well enter the payment again.
So I went to the payment page, and my checking account info that it remembers for me wasn't there any more. And I didn't have my checkbook with me, so I couldn't enter it.
I called Customer Support, and the rep said my last payment was entered on 6/1 scheduled to post on 6/9. There was no record of the one I entered approximately 7/1.
She mentioned that my account number had changed on 7/9 ... the day my payment was due. I suggested that maybe the change had somehow lost my scheduled payment and my checking info. She sounded skeptical, but was willing to give me the benefit of the doubt and wipe out the late penalty and finance charges. She asked if I wanted to pay over the phone, but that required the checking account info that I didn't have. So she told me to just pay online when I could.
So I came home tonight, picked up my checkbook, and went to the Discover website to enter the checking account info ... and it was already there! They still thought I hadn't paid my bill, so I paid it.
So either I'm totally losing my marbles and forgot to make the payment and then hallucinated that the checking account info had disappeared and reappeared, or they lost some of my account info in the transition, and coincidentally got part of it back after I called about it.
Does not instill confidence.
I received the new card yesterday after being surprised last week when the online account alerted that a new acct # was coming. I just called Customer Svc (Ohio Center). After being told I could not keep my existing acct # and that the new account number would identify me as an elite cardholder (what bunk), I was transferred to a supervisor who supposedly could answer my question on how one 16 digit # could be more secure that another 16 digit #. The supervisor couldn't answer that and agreed with me that it "seems illogical". She only had the info the company gave her and assured me that there was no fraud or compromised of the old acct #. I told her I was considering cancelling but would not do so today. I actually felt sorry for her being armed with so little info. She admitted to getting many calls on this but she "believes her company"
I had the same situation as previous anonymous of June 6. I had the same number since 1991, used it all the time, had it memorized (was easy number) no fraud, charged and paid off about 3,000/mo. When I asked them why they arbitrarily changed it they just claimed it was for "better" security.
Same this here, but it went a step further. I was issued a new card number in June for "Security upgrades" after having the same number for 11 years, shredded the old card and started using the new one. They did not acknowledge theft or a security breach. Now, a couple months later, I have several thousand dollars of charges/authorizations on the old number (which was supposed to be deactivated per the letter they sent with the new card). I called and asked what was going on, and the fraud investigator told me that there was a security breach and that is why a new card was issued a few months ago. I asked why the old account was not deactivated if they knew about a security breach, and he said that although it should have been closed, they left it open in case there were any automatic bill payments scheduled. And, apparently it is my responsibility to keep an eye on the old account that was supposed to be deactivated. This is utterly ridiculous, and I am considering leaving Discover because of the way this situation was handled.
I also received a new Discover card and shredded the old one as directed. About a month later I found charges on my account that I didn't make. After multiple phone calls I found out the charges were made to my old account number that I thought was deactivated. It would have been nice to know if there was a security breech so I would have monitored the account more closely. I am still trying to clear this up!
The exact thing happened to me this month. Thanks for the blog post... I thought I was the victim of credit card skimmers but it looks like Discover is still dealing with breaches in security.
If Discover wants me to pay the $50 bucks for the hundreds of Dollars in unauthorized charges to my card since they sent me a new credit card as part of a 'security upgrade,' they have one coming to them!
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