Attention Online Shoppers: Stay Safe When Shopping Online

If you’re like me, the thought of going out to a store during the holidays can be daunting. Instead, I prefer to shop online in my pajamas while blaring holiday music and sipping on hot chocolate loaded with marshmallows.

While my idea may sound stress free, many consumers find shopping online even more frightening than fighting crowds because they are skeptical about whether or not it’s safe.

Thankfully, Discover has a few ways for you to add additional layers of security when shopping online to ease your stress. And extra protection means more time to spend with your family and less time on the phone with us discussing fraudulent charges.

Secure Online Account Numbers
Our Secure Online Account Numbers (SOAN) service allows you to generate a temporary card number for safer checkout every time you shop online. With SOAN you can generate a temporary card number so your real account number is not revealed, create and save a number for every online purchase you make, and re-use the same generated number for the same retailer each time you shop with them online.

Click here to learn more about Secure Online Account Numbers.

Real-Time Fraud Alerts  
Fraud alerts help you stay ahead of possible fraud with advanced early warning by offering quick notification of unusual activity on your account. The alerts are free, and we can contact you through multiple channels such as your mobile device, home phone or email.

Click here to sign up for real-time fraud alerts.

Keep Your Computer Safe
Making sure your system is safe also helps prevents fraudsters from hacking into your account. Before you dive into your holiday online shopping, make sure your operating system, browser, and antivirus software are up to date and current; install a firewall to keep hackers out; and educate yourself regarding “common scans.”

Click here to learn more about how to keep your system safe.

And remember, we also offer a $0 Fraud Liability Guarantee, which means you are not responsible for any unauthorized charges on your account both online and offline.

Happy Shopping and Happy Holidays!

Pending Transactions – You Asked For It, You Got It!

Pending Transactions on Discover.com

One of our most requested features is the addition of Pending Transactions to the Recent Activity section of the Discover.com website.  We heard you, and it’s here!

Some of you might be wondering what a pending transaction actually is.  Well, let me tell you… when you use your Discover card to make a purchase, that transaction is immediately authorized to ensure the credit card is valid and you have enough credit available to make the purchase.  This authorization creates a pending transaction.  The transaction is “pending” because it has not yet been through the full transaction life cycle (I won’t bore you with the details).  However, just know that it takes up to a few days for your transaction to fully “post” to your account.

In the past, you could only see transactions after they were fully posted to your account.  With the new Pending Transactions feature, you are able to view transactions on your account as soon as minutes after the transaction has been made!

Keep in mind that there are situations where a merchant might get a pre-authorization for a transaction–this occurs most often at gas stations, car rentals, hotels and restaurants.  These merchants don’t always know what the final amount of the purchase will be at the time of authorization, and pre-authorization ensures that sufficient funds are available to cover the transaction’s cost.  So don’t worry when you see that strange amount in the Pending Transactions section–it will reflect the proper amount when it finally posts to your account a few days later.

Have questions about Pending Transactions?  Let me know and I’ll do my best to answer them all!

Are you Secure with Discover? The Different Ways We’re Protecting Your Personal Information (or Identity)

One of my favorite activities is traveling.  When I was younger I use to travel with my family and friends across the different continents to view the exotic landmarks that other parts of the world had to offer.  One of my favorite trips was vacationing to China/Hong Kong as a grad student for five weeks.

When I came back I received a phone call from my previous credit card company asking me if I recently traveled abroad.  The Fraud Specialist on the phone said “Mrs. Hedderman it appears that you recently travel to Paris and had $3,000 in expenses.” My heart sank.

The Fraud Specialist told me since I had traveled internationally frequently, my overseas expenses didn’t alert them­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­—- what prompted them to contact me was the limo service fees and numerous electronics I purchased one weekend in Paris.

It took me several weeks to prove that I wasn’t in Paris living out of a limo and buying an amazing sound system to take back to the United States.  

I’ve since learned a lot about how to protect myself online.  Working at Discover has taught me how a Credit Card Company and Cardmembers can work together to protect one another from fraud and identity theft so others do not have to endure the same experience.

Important Information to keep you Secure

• Set up Enhanced Account Security Questions (Strong Authorization Questions) to validate your identity when you login to Discover.com­­­—they provide an extra layer of protection when navigating through the site.
• $0 Fraud Liability Guarantee- You’re not responsible for any unauthorized charges on your account—online-offline, anytime, anywhere, with absolutely NO deductible
• Advanced fraud early warning that’s quick and automatic-we’ll call you right away if there’s unusual activity on your Account
• Fraud Specialist dedicated to helping you 24/7—we assign a personal Fraud Specialist to help you until your issues are solved.
• Sign up for paperless statements and keep your account information out of identity thieves’ hands by viewing your statement online (http://www.discovercard.com/customer-service/statements/paperless.html)
• Online security tips (http://www.discovercard.com/customer-service/fraud/id-protection.html)
• See our lost/stolen checklist (http://www.discovercard.com/customerservice/fraud/lost-stolen.html)
• Tips on how to keep your account safe: http://www.discovercard.com/customer-service/fraud/howto-keepsafe.html

Discover was among the best of 23 card issuers in identity fraud resolution according to a 2011 report by Javelin Strategy & Research, a leading financial services research and analysis firm.

What are some of your identity protection tips?  Please share them with us.

Customer Experience: Thinking about You, the Customer

More and more, companies are creating customer experience teams, thinking about “the customer,” conferencing about “customer experience best practices” and even designating “C” level management who oversee customer experience departments. 

But what does that really mean?  It can mean different things to different companies. It can even mean different things in different divisions and departments in a company. 

To me, there is no “the customer.”  There is no one entity that represents everyone.  There are many voices and many customers with different needs and wants. 

Which makes you guys like a chorus.  Except, you’re not all singing the same song or melody.  (Though in many cases, you are singing the same thing for a phrase or two.)  And for those songs, it’s pretty easy to know what we need to do to make it easier for you when you’re trying to manage your account online.

But we’re not just trying to listen to the big choruses, we’re also trying to listen to those solo voices as well.  And in those cases, it sometimes goes from the idea of a chorus to more of a detective show. We have to look at the clues to figure out what’s really happening. 

This can be challenging online.  Sure, if you click on that floating plus/minus sign and submit a comment, we have information directly from you. But sometimes we need more details—details that you may not even know, because a lot of factors affect your online experience—the browser you’re using, how you connect to the Internet, all kinds of technical stuff. 

Getting those details is becoming easier, because we’ve added a few tools–kind of the like the forensics tools you see on those TV shows. But like those forensic tools, they only go so far.  Someone here still has to put the pieces together and figure out what we can do to help. Sometimes easier said than done, but there’s a team of us working on it every day. 

And yes, when you click on the “feedback” links on the site, or if we pop up a comment card at you when you’re on our site, and you share your thoughts, we are reading all those comments.  In fact, quite a few of us—our whole department plus more—are reading your comments.  Every comment, every day.

Call Centers

On a recent trip to two Discover call centers in Phoenix, AZ and Lake Park, UT, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with some of Discover’s best and brightest – our call center Account Managers.

They take hundreds of calls every day, and are also on the other side of your click-to-chat online conversations, handling just as many chats as phone calls on a daily basis.  That’s a lot of calls and chats, but it’s not about the numbers.

I learned quickly after listening to just a few calls that the Account Managers truly care about their customers’ needs, which is refreshing in today’s automated world where it can seem virtually impossible to get a real person on the phone (and when you do, you’re just another number, or even worse, you get Peggy).

When I had the chance to talk to our Account Managers one-on-one, they told me stories of how they had helped customers who aren’t web-savvy navigate our website.  One Account Manager helped a customer sign up for Direct Pay online, our automatic bill pay option.  The customer always mailed in a check (and was skeptical of paying online), but was willing to give the website a try after the Account Manager explained how easy it was and that she could always switch back at anytime.

It made me realize that as technology continues to advance and self-service becomes more prevalent, there will never be a replacement for a warm smile and understanding ear when customers have a situation that requires a little help.

Have you recently talked to a Discover Call Center Account Manager that made your day (or just made you smile)?  Post your story here.  I’m listening……

Introducing Interaction, Design and Development

Tammy McMiller, Sr. Manager, Interaction, Design and Development

Each time you visit the Discover website you experience pages that an entire interaction team has touched. Your digital experience on Discover.com is our primary responsibility—and your thoughts really matter. We’ve decided to start blogging to help you learn more about what we do and to help us learn more about you.

In the coming months you’ll learn:
• What new projects we’re launching to continuously improve your experience on Discover.com
• Tips about how to get the most out of your visit to Discover.com
• Information about contests you can enter

Drop me an email! I want to know what your Discover.com experience is like—because giving you the best experience on our Discover.com site is my primary goal.

Is there something you want to know about our site or how things work online? Let me know. I’ll do my best to answer your questions or comments!

Test Driving with Customers

I’m “the woman behind the glass.”  That’s how my director describes me, anyway.  I spend a lot of time in the dark behind a one-way mirror observing our customers test parts of our site. For anyone who has participated in focus groups or usability testing or any market research in mirrored rooms, your suspicions are correct. There are people watching and listening. 

While some people want to hear you say that everything is great, I really want to hear what you really think. Really. Really. Seriously. I’m not about getting pats and praise. If I wanted that, I’d hire actors to go around pretending to be customers and give them a script to follow. That might make some managers happy at first, but ultimately it wouldn’t make you, our customers, happy, which wouldn’t make those same leaders happy.  And while I can’t make your life nirvana, I can certainly do my best to ensure what we build is easy to use for most people. 

That’s where the testing comes in. Who better to show us if it’s working than actual customers who use our web site! We invite customers to a testing facility to complete specific tasks on a laptop or a mobile phone and we ask them questions (nicely), observe, and record everything. We promise it’s for internal use only and we’re not going to put it on YouTube.  And while we’re all different, we’re all wired pretty much the same way, so we can learn a lot with just a handful of customers.  It’s my job to organize these tests and make sure the results get incorporated into the final site. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s not, but we’re always working in the background on making things better.

If you live in the Chicago area and get an e-mail asking you to participate in a research study about Discover’s web site and you actually get selected, give me a wave through the one-way mirror.

Edited to add:  If you are interested in participating in a test, you can send an e-mail to social@discover.com with your name and e-mail address and indicate in the subject your interest in participating in our usability tests. We’ll add you to our list for consideration. We usually have specific criteria for the customers we want to bring into tests, so if you qualify, we’ll definitely send you an invite.

Help donate up to $125,000 to Operation Homefront!

Semper Fi!

Do you have a friend or family member in the service? If you do, I’m sure you know pride doesn’t even begin to describe the heartfelt love and support you can have for such a brave individual. My brother is a Marine (that’s him on the left). So, it was my great pleasure and honor to be part of the team who built our latest social media contest. As the Social Media and Brand Manager, I can tell you that we learned a lot from last year’s card art design contest and kept your feedback top of mind— from prize structure and functionality to helping a worthy cause. It’s called “Works of Art, Acts of Charity”. The contest is in partnership with Operation Homefront. With your participation, we can help military families in need. Your submissions and votes will mean donations up to $125,000 to Operation Homefront. The winning design will be produced and made available for all our cardmembers. I can’t wait to see the designs everyone comes up with!

Here’s a quick recap of how it works:

• Submit your design by July 4th. We’ll be donating $1 for every U.S. inspired card design submission.
• Vote July 5th till July 15th. For every 10 votes we’ll donate $1.
• If you or a friend wants to become a cardmember, we’ll donate $20 for every approved application.
• A winner will be announced at the end of July. Imagine your design in our cardmembers’ wallets as a regular reminder of our military!
See the official contest rules.

Check out the contest, submit a design,  vote for your favorite and tell your friends.

Leave a comment, I’d love to hear your feedback and ideas!

Paying people just got easier!

We’re proud to announce our new endeavor for helping people spend smarter. You may have seen us hinting at this new service we’re calling Money Messenger or may have even caught the announcement at the PayPal X Developer Conference last year. Well, it’s finally here, and we want to know what you think!


We partnered with PayPal to bring you a service that lets you send money to friends and family using your Discover card. Why? It saves you from needing to have cash on you during those social outings with friends. It lets you send money to out-of-town family as a gift or just to pay them back. Forgot your checkbook? No worries! Your friends get their money fast, and you get Cashback Bonus for using your card.

It’s easy. All you need is your computer or mobile device and your friend’s e-mail address or mobile phone number. You punch it in, along with the amount to send, and the money gets deposited directly into your friend’s PayPal account.

Your friend can shop online with PayPal as a payment method or transfer the money straight to their bank account. You get charged no fees to send the money and the amount goes on your card just like any other purchase. Yep, it’s FREE for you to send the money!

Log in and give it a try and then leave a comment here to tell us how you used it!

Please note that you must be a Discover Cardmember with an eligible account and be registered for the Account Center on Discover.com to use Money Messenger. There are many factors that cold influence your eligibility, some of which are temporary. Therefore, you may become eligible in the future even if you are not currently. Business, Corporate, and titanium cards are currently not eligible to use Money Messenger.

Maximizing Redemptions with Discover Cashback Bonus

This post comes from Tim Chen, founder and CEO of NerdWallet.com, the web’s premier website for comparing various rewards credit card offers.

At NerdWallet HQ we’ve spent a lot of time analyzing how to best earn credit card rewards, and how to best save money with credit card purchases.  In addition to shopping at online rewards malls like ShopDiscover, consumers can also use their credit cards to earn up to 1 – 5% Cashback Bonus on everyday purchases. 

But earning rewards is only one half of the equation – what are you supposed to do once you’ve accumulated all those credit card rewards? 

Cash isn’t Your Only Option

Cash is the most obvious redemption option in Discover’s Cashback Bonus program. You can either have it directly deposited into your checking account, or you can have it applied as a credit to your account statement. But you can do even better with gift cards, which are often less valuable than cash with other credit card reward programs. With Discover, however, gift cards are more valuable, especially for travel.

Below are a number of options for increasing your credit card rewards.

Redeem for Gift Cards

A number of restaurants and fast food places allow you to turn $45 into $50. Chipotle, Starbucks, Applebee’s and Red Robin all offer gift cards that not only save you money, but can also be great gifts for the family.

A number of electronics, clothing, and household goods stores are also available via Discover, which allow you to exchange $20 in rewards for $25, increasing the value of your rewards by a big chunk.  Ace Hardware and Crutchfield are two merchants that have gift cards available as well as DSW and Men’s Wearhouse.

The Health and Beauty category is an excellent choice for gifts, or even to use on yourself.  At Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door Spas, you can use $20 of rewards for $25 worth of services, or for a better bargain, you can exchange $80 in rewards for $100 at SpaFinder, which gives you access to spas all over the place.

Get More

Discover has a number of ways for you to save money with your credit card rewards.  If you know how to both earn and redeem rewards with the More credit card you can maximize the value of being a Discover cardmember.

Check how it pays to Discover and read inspiring stories from Discover cardholders about how they redeemed their rewards.