I've heard of this happening a few times now. Aside from screwing with the account holder's schedule, is there a real, legitimate reason for shuffling due dates around?

Whoa. Thanks for the warning--they did it to mine too. Which puts it just before my payday.

I shall now call them and request a reversion.

As a sidebar, Wells Fargo moved my due date up to the 2nd of every month. If not for mint.com, I'd have hit late fees. Wells Fargo cardholders may also want to check.

Luckily I checked my account last week and saw that. I never received an advanced warning as well.

Shouldn't you always check your credit card statements closely? Even if you ignore due dates, you still want to verify all your purchases before you pay them. If you don't do that to stop fraudulent charges, why would you worry about the bank charging you interest and a late fee?

Yep, mine did the same. Which is irritating.

I still love my discover card. The rewards program is pretty BA since I use it for everything that I possibly can.

A notice about this change appeared on my March, April, and May bills, as well as on discovercard.com. In my case, my due date is now about a week later than it had been.

Keep in mind that, with some limitations, Discover lets you pick your own due date. On discovercard.com, go to Customer Service, then under Manage My Account, click on Change Payment Due Date.

They did it to me too, but mine started in March. They DO notify you... by emailing you that there's been a change in terms. There's also a notice in your account inbox on the Discover site. Apparently it's all because they're going from 30-day cycle (payment due the day before the statement cuts) to 25-day cycle (payment due 5 days before the statement cuts) like everyone else. All in all, better than the terms of one of my Chase cards, which is on a 20-day billing cycle... my payment is due 10-11 days before the statement cuts. EXTREMELY IRRITATING.

I just got a note saying Discover is closing my account. They've been begging me to use the card for a couple years but the incentives weren't worth it. There goes my first ever card.

@lockers: What's your point, exactly? There's nothing to preclude someone reading each individual transaction, recognizing it as valid charges they made and not happening to notice that their due date which had been the same for years (in my case) had been moved up 4 days. Happily, it was moved to the same day on which my payment was scheduled to arrive, so no harm no foul, but if I scheduled it for day-of rather than several days before (to help protect against sneak attacks by credit card banks) I might have been assessed a late fee I'd have to fight about.

Mine did it, and I just changed it online without issue. This one is still 4-days earlier, but the rest are on the normal date. It's not that I need it on that date, it's just how I've gotten used to it.

I got hit with the earlier due date as well, but I signed up for billing reminder email alerts and got an email stating the due date about a week or so ago. I get one every month about two weeks before my payment is due. I highly recommend it.

discover card? is that like Diner's Club for the 80's?

@GearheadGeek: Go reread the article gung ho johnny. Here, I will even quote it for you: "You may want to have your readers closely check their Discover Card statements." My point is you should always closely check your credit card statements, regardless of the due date issue.

I had serious credit problems after college. $10.50 an hour living in downtown Chicago will bury you in unexpected expense debt.

So don't think I am doing holier-than-thou proselytizing.

But when I did start using credit cards again, paying them when they arrived, not when they were due, relieved a lot of stress. I do that will all my bills now, and it's liberating.

Of course, I make a bit more than 20k a year now, which makes it easier. But it only takes one month of getting on that schedule to stay on that schedule.

They moved mine up, and also jacked the interest rate to 19% due solely to "difficult economic times". Thanks, Discover, for alienating a loyal customer of 11 years. I'm leaving the card open for credit score reasons, but its paid off and i'm sure as hell not going to charge anything more to it.

@lockers: A lot of people have their bill paying coordinated with their paychecks. Personally, just because life is so damn busy, I have two monthly reminders that pop up for bills (mid month and month end) and they're several days before the due dates, but I have had a CC due date move back TEN DAYS for no reason with no warning.

Nope they never notified squat. I have been checking and noticed it too, and open ALL my Discover card mail (since it usually consists of those stupid checks I have to shred)

I am also in the proses of paying off the card. Just not worth it to have credit for anything but dire emergencies where you need access to the money right then and there and wont take check.

Hm, I don't see a change. I'll keep an eye out though. I AM getting an APR increase though, so yay for that. >:(

@azzy:

If this account is as old as it sounds (your first ever) that closure could damage/reduce your FICO score. I would have used it at least once so it would not have been closed. You'll have to see what happens to your score.

Mine did change by 4 days, which I thankfully noticed by check my on-line statement. I was never informed about the change (probably because I have paperless billing set in my preferences).

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I cordinate my checking around my payments as well. I wasn't making any judgments about how people should maintain their checking accounts. My only point was arguing that you should always carefully check your statement.

@PLATTWORX: People obsess way too much about FICO scores. Just pay your damn bills on time, and your FICO score will take care of itself.

Mine seems to have moved up 4 days as well, and I don't recall any notice. It's now due one day before I get paid, but I guess that doesn't really matter, other than being psychologically annoying to me for some reason. ;)

@Underpants Gnome: They did the same thing to me with the interest rate as well. I also recieved a limit increase to go along with the rate increase, for being such a good customer!

They just recieved a check paying off the full amount and a phone call to close the account.

I know its not great to close credit for your FICO score, but I am not making any big purchases in the next few years and having credit for credit's sake is not the best thing either.

@supercereal: If you miss your due date even by a day they can raise your interest rate to 35%. Many people if their payments made automatically by bill-pay or the equivalent so as the dates move around the consumer doesn't know and gets hit with the new interest rate. Its happened to several people in my family to go from 7% to 30% over night over a new bill date.

I remember them sending out a notice around March 2009 about due dates will change in May or June. In the same notice was something about the APR and a change in the rewards program. The notice was electronic for me. What I don't like, is I requested a change online for my due date and it won't take effect until Julyish. I don't use this cc very often anymore, the rewards program has just gotten worse and worse.

I have a routine to check the due dates of all my bills when I receive an email notification every month. Even though they USUALLY don't change, I don't want to get caught with fees should this very situation happen.

Discover turned off e-bill notification through BofA several months ago, which is a pain, and is another reason I check when I receive the bill notifications.

I'm sure that Discover notified card holders of the change, but I rarely read their change of service notices. Not very "Consumerist" of me.

Thanks for the heads up!

I call BS. My date was moved, yes, but they sent me one of those "we're changing your account" things with last month's bill. I remember it distinctly because it said they "may be changing due dates on my account" so I should check my online account, sure enough my date changed. I think people just aren't reading the notices that discover puts on the bills.

@azzy:
They've been nagging me too, so I started auto-charging my cell phone bill to it (and paying it off right away) so they don't cancel it and take down my FICO score.

I received notice of the impending change on a bill dated two months ago.

I have a Mastercard that over the last 3 years has gradually had the due date moved from the 22nd of each month to the 13th. Its just another attempt to make you miss a payment.

@lockers: Ah. See, I generally check the *amount* the day it comes in the mail to ensure it's about what I expect, but not the due date. They go right in the sorter to all be dealt with at once. If I start perusing them in detail as I open them, I tend to misplace them as I walk around the house with the mail and then later find them in odd places like, um, the freezer. Much better if I sit down to do them all at once. But if my due date gets bumped back 10 days, there's a chance I won't catch it in time.

I had a Fidelity Visa card do this to me a few years ago. No notice was sent. I was hit with a late fee of $29.95. After I called to complain, the fee was reversed and I was assured the billing date would not change again. The next month, sure enough, the due date had been moved back and I was hit with another fee. I immediately canceled the card.

Just called Discover ...

They pulled this same crappy stunt with me too.
Got transferred to the Arizona call center.
Expressed my displeasure 7 told them if its not returned to the first due date I would simply stop using the card.

they sucked up to me 7 returned it to what it had been although she rambled something about this being my anniversary month with Discover and that it wouldn't go into effect until next month.

I also KINDLY informed the agent that consumerist has posted their crappy stunt and to expect more calls from people like me.

@floraposte: Aargh, same for me. Granted, they've always had a much, much later due date than my other credit card (usually 1 day before my next statement date compared to around 9 days for my Chase MC), and it's still later, but those extra couple of days were nice to have.

i love discover. nine years ago i had an engine fail in a 5 year old car. it seems they had problems with these engines and notified the original owners. no one told me when i bought this as a used car.Ford wouldn't budge and so i put $3500.00 on my discover card and then proceeded to dispute the charges. i downloaded everything about this problem and to make a long story short after i submitted a file about 2 inches thick, discover reversed the charges. i tell everyone how much i love discover.

My due day was also moved up by four days without notification. I've had the same Discover due date since at least the early 1990's.

@JamesBenjamin: I don't think most of us are saying that they failed to notify us properly, just that we didn't notice the notice and it's an annoying change. Ironically, I look at the online account every few days, but I didn't think to check the due date.

Fortunately, they were quickly willing to change the date back starting with July.

@HurtsSoGood: Another popular myth... your FICO scores don't "take care of themselves" because you pay your bills on time. There's a lot more to it than that. Actually paying your bills on time is only about a third of your FICO scores. The rest is stuff you often have no control over... such as creditors arbitrarily lowering your credit limits, which can cause your utilization to skyrocket, which most of the time will lower your FICO scores. Even though you've paid your damn bills on time. God, I wish people wouldn't make boneheaded pronouncements about things they have no knowledge of!!

@thomas_callahan:

The card companies are doing this on purpose so that people who don't look closely at their bills or have auto-bill-pay set up will have their rates jacked up before the new laws take affect. This way when the your rates get locked, they will be locked in at the new and improved higher rate.

I received a notice from Discover indicating my due date would be changed.

Then I received a notice to disregard that notice.

Then I received my statement, which had a due date four days earlier than normal.

Hmm.

(as an asside, Citi changes the dates due within four days of previous statements all the time. I carefully check the dates no matter what kind of notice they send because I'm paranoid of being late and being hit with a universal default fee)

Yea they moved my due date up for June by like 10 days. I don't remember seeing a notice, but I could have just skimmed it and filed it 13. I am glad I glanced at the bill, because normally I have all my bills pretty clustered and get paid on the first of the month so I pay all these bills around the 5th (due between the 10th and 18th). My new due date WAS the 5th so I would have gotten hit with a late fee for sure. I tried to change my due date back on the website but it said I can't because it is my anniversary month.

I received notice in March. I received a paper notice in April along with an email. I also received another notice in May. I think the issue is people not checking their accounts. BTW, I'm on paperless billing.

@Brad Mohr: Yes, thank you for this info/reminder. I just changed mine since my due date was bumped from the 19th to the 15th. I changed it to the 20th :3, starting in July. The calendar I see is kind of odd, though, because of the pattern of the unavailable dates (2,3; 9,10; 16,17; 23-27) and the "available date (may vary)" (28-31). One thing that I have really liked about Discover Card is having the SAME DATE every month which keeps me from missing the due date.

I wonder if the card companies do this on purpose to trip people up so they pay late, get charged a late fee, take a credit score hit, go into universal default, then all the other companies get more money due to higher interest rates, etc. Back in January one of my cards went from the 20th of the month to the 18th, all of a sudden, and this happened to be the Sunday before Martin Luther King day, and the next business day to apply payment was Tuesday, Jan 22. I caught this and paid it on the 16th.

thanks to this article I just noticed they moved my date up by FIVE days... and it WAS due on the 29th. I hate them now.

Happened to me too, but to Discover's credit, they waived the late fee that resulted.