Aaron feels he was tricked by a Discover cold-caller into enrolling in a pricey payment protection plan. His cautionary tale is evidence that giving a credit card-affiliated phone salesman the go-ahead to send you an information packet can backfire.

Here’s the letter Aaron wrote to Discover customer service:

I’ve been a loyal Discover card user for a while now, but I’m now seriously considering closing my account.

Two weeks ago, I was cold-called by Discover with an offer of a Platinum Package, as a premium cardholder, whatever that means. Since it was vague and ambiguous, I was explicitly clear to your employee, more than once, that I do NOT accept registration or enrollment in anything over the phone, but that I’d be willing to read the program terms if information was mailed to me for review. Your employee was adamant, and repeatedly answered that I would NOT be enrolled in anything, that I was only giving them permission to mail me an information packet, and I could choose to enroll or not when I had reviewed the package. The next day, another employee called me back, apologizing and saying a computer glitch had corrupted my call information; I reiterated my position, and again received assurances that I would not be enrolled in anything. Since I was clear, received repeated assurances that I wasn’t signing up for anything, and had thus far had a wonderful experience with Discover, I agreed to receive the package.

Imagine my surprise when, in the mail today, I received an enrollment confirmation for Discover’s Payment Protection plan, to be billed at $0.89/$100 every month. Not only that, there were no clear instructions on how to cancel, although I did manage to do that by calling the information number and getting a representative on the line. That rep was at least courteous and apologetic (or a good faker).

I’ve often recommended Discover, due to your good cashback offers, but I’m not sure I should continue to do business with a company that blatantly lies to me to tack on extra profit-making features to my account against my clear instructions. I would appreciate a response on why I should continue to do business with Discover, and how you will ensure this does not happen any more.

One reason cold callers result to these hard, shady sales techniques is the products they’re peddling Payment protection plans generally aren’t worthwhile.

(Photo: phototaker)

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