Discover Bank

An Honest Review Of Discover Bank
- iLoveBanking - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - 11:16 AM

Discover is a giant. They have been around for a long time (since 1911). Discover Bank recently joined the family of Discover in 2000. So, their banking sector is new. Some people have really ripped Discover apart for errors and customer service. But, considering their newness, they are putting forth a lot of effort and seeking to be competitive and helpful. Just look at thtier website. It has a ton of information and very useful calculators.

Discover's rates are one of the nations best. If you have a discover credit card, then it would make sense to bank and with them and correlate the accounts via bill pay.

Before you jump on the "I hate Discover bank" band wagon.The following site has an honest overview of Discover's accounts and evenmore indepth reviews for each account.

Check out the Discover Bank Review at BankTruth.

Will Never Open Another Account With Them.
- cdratesearch - Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 6:35 PM

The rates are great, but that's the only thing that is good.  Their customer service is not well trained and can give multiple wrong answers.   They say they will respond to e-mails within 24 hours, but it can be up to a week.  I have called several times and been given incorrect answers or they said that they would check on the problem and call me back.  They have never called back. 

I did receive a letter requesting that I call them on one of my accounts, but had to read the letter to customer service and they still didn't know how to get me to anyone that could answer my question.  Just promised to call me back and then did not.

They definitely make their money on fund transfers, since they can take up to a week to transfer the $ from an external account into the Discover account or from the Discover account into an external account.

Would not recommend them to anyone. 

 

 

High Yield Savings
- garion - Thursday, February 3, 2011 - 1:57 PM

Was about to open a savings account online but then read on the web how they have a minimum withdrawal restriction. I confirmed it by calling them. It's a $50k/month withdrawal. You can ask them to cut you a check or wire more than the 50k for a fee, tho. I think that's ridiculous.]

I gave it 3 stars, because maybe the account is fine and for those who withdraw less than 50k it might be fine. I just don't like the principle of how we are giving them money to loan out and yet when we need it, we are stuck with a withdrawal limit or fee.

Discover Bank Is Starting To Make Me Nervous (Savings)
- livresrares - Saturday, December 11, 2010 - 11:11 PM

My Etrade Financial savings account was sold to Discover Bank a while ago.  I'm starting to have problems with the amount of time when I simply cannot get access to my money...  Discover's excuse is that the website is down for maintainance.

 

When the website is down, not only do customers have NO access to their accounts, but NEITHER DO THE CUSTOMER SERVICE REPS!!! So even if you call, there's no way to set up a transaction until their website goes back up again.

 

Their website goes down EVERY DAY for about an hour.  Additionally, there are special weekend outages when the website goes down overnight.

 

I wonder if banks could use 'website maintanance' as an excuse to steal people's savings or to prevent a bank run or something.  Discover bank shuts down completely for about 7 hours every week.  Could it gradually decrease its opening hours to 1 hour per day?  Per week? Per month? Then it would be very difficult for us customers to get our money out.

Better Check On Your Signature Card
- larkin - Monday, November 7, 2011 - 6:03 PM

I have opened 12 CD accounts with Discover over the past 2 years.  Each one requires a signature be mailed back.  The first 11--no problem.  Today I noticed a debit on my most recent CD.  I called and was told they never received the signature card so I am subject to backup withholding.  I explained that I mailed the signature card back the same day I received it and reminded the CSR that I have had multiple accounts showing that I am not subject to backup withholding.  It was like talking to a brick.

Bottom line--they may have decent rates but if you open a new account make sure to double-check that the signature card got back to them. 

Very disappointing...

Very Pleased With Discover Bank
- sluigij - Sunday, November 13, 2011 - 10:04 PM

I have a few accounts with Discover Bank and have been banking with them on-line for a few years. The on-line services are very easy to use and I have had no glitches whatsoever. Rates are usually better than my local banks.

Good And Fast Service!
- Jojo - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - 11:19 AM

I have had a money market account at Discover Bank for over ten years. The rate has always been higher than any of my local banks. Of course, today, that does not mean a whole lot.

As far as fast service, this is something that I discovered (no pun intended) several years ago. Say I wanted to deposit $250 in my money market account. If I did online banking at my local institution and transfered the money, it took almost ten calendar days for the deposit to show up in my Discover account. If I MAILED a check, I have seen it posted to my account in a few as THREE days. Discover obviously posts a deposit the day it is received. Electronic = 10 days, snail-mail = 3 days...Hmmm...probably something with my local bank. That is why they are used for paying bills and nothing else.

Because of this I called Discover and asked if it was possible to get more deposit slips and postage paid envelopes so that I could keep a regular savings schedule. In a couple weeks I received an entire book of deposit slips (not blank, but with my name and account number) along with a stack of postage paid envelopes.

 

Caught With Fees
- johndoe - Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - 8:11 AM

 

There was some confusion with some transfers between Discover and Chase where I believe I was incorrectly charged fees.

 

Chase quickly refunded their fee without admitting any fault, making this customer happy with Chase.

 

Discover didn't do the same.

Slow Transfers + 100K Limit A Month To Get Money Out
- yoman121212 - Monday, October 24, 2011 - 10:48 AM

American Express Bank (similar rates as Discover Bank) - you initiate an external transfer and the money is in your account the next day.


Discover Bank - you initiate an external transfer and it takes a week to get the money out.


Discover also limits your withdrawals to 100K PER MONTH.  Usually you have limitations like this per day...but per month?  Useless!  If you reach the 100K limit when transferring money TO Discover, then a phone call to them can have them override the restriction.  But to get $ out, they say they have to follow the rules.  The only exception to that is if you close your account - which is kind of odd since that lets you transfer 100K out without any problems.

Although this started out as a great experience turned into a bad one given the two issues recently faced...American Express Bank is the way to go when compared to Discover.

Great Comfort
- faizan - Sunday, February 20, 2011 - 8:18 AM

I am a regular customer of this bank it provides allot of services and very comfortable lone conditions. I Have a current saving account in this bank and I am very happy with it as it gives a very attractive profit package. I have a credit card also with very easy return conditions. I will recommend others to have an account in this bank. I love it.

Online Opening Long Term Cds With Discover Bank
- Mike - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 9:36 AM

October 2008.  I opened more than one.  It was straight forward and efficient.  I think I had to sign some forms via snail mail, but it did not hold up the process at all.  The start date for the CDs was the moment I was online.  I believe I had the money PULLED from one of the, then, high interest savings accounts. 

I have had a few questions over time, that I handled via the logged in messaging method.  That has been problem free.

My only drawback:  I am a Discover customer in four ways... 

-(2 logins) separate credit card accounts

-(1 login)multiple CDs

-(1 login)Savings customer (thanks to E-trade)

...and I have to have completely separate logins for these.  They are not connected.  Cannot be connected.  I've asked.  Not available.

I've still got a long wait before the CDs mature (unless DISCOVER is taken over/bought/bailed out, etc), so I am unable to comment on how easy it is to handle the money at maturity.  I hope it is problem free. 

So far, so good.

3.00% APY for 5 Year CD
- Jeanne - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - 12:15 PM

The early withdrawal penalty is 6 months (see http://www.discoverbank.com/cd-faq.html), so for example, if you need to withdraw at 18 months, you would still earn close to 2%.