"please, just cancel the card..." (UPDATE - Page 1)

[Mish19]

I decided to clean out my wallet last night and also decide which credit card I don't need. Well my Discover card did not make the final cut, just don't need the hassle of all these companies and bills.
Well I called to ask to cancel the card and boy was it tough!! They ask for a reason (which is really none of their business), so I say "personal and finance". Then they try to discourage me from
leaving with - we'll offer you a transfer balance of 3% (I said please cancel), of 1.5% (no please cancel), ok 0%!! Now I was getting annoyed and said no again. They continued to offer me those credit guard things, they even offered to be "my back up security card" (Duh! What the heck!?). Well Discover offeres a money back rebate and I have 3 dollars so far so the rep tells me I won't get it unless I wait till October so I said ok and hung up (yeah dumb, I know). So my mother decides to cancel her card and gets the same woman and goes through the whole thing but she just canceled hers and before my mother could finish asking for a letter stating it's her choice to cancel the lady hung up. So we called back spoke to someone who gave her the letter and I decided to cancel (dont care about the 3 dollars). I got transferred, got a guy this time went through the whole thing AGAIN but this time he says "you've had a card here for 7 years and NOW you're having financial trouble?" Now between you guys and me I don't have problems I just didn't want so many cards. I just told him to cancel it and FINALLY I was Discover card free!!!! I understand no company wants to lose a customer but I find it so frustrating and harrassing. Sorry for such a long post but I wanted to vent.

**UPDATE**
I get the mail today and I see two letters from Discover. One letter says how happy they are I decided to come back to Discover (EEEEk, what?!)
The other letter is the letter stating I canceled the account. Too tired to do the whole run around with them tonight so I will call tomorrow to find out which letter is the most recent. It better be the cancelation one! LOL.

 

[cindala]

I wonder if this is something only Discover card does, since it doesn't always seem to be as readily accepted by the public, as say a Visa, or MasterCard. Maybe they are desparate not to loose any business!

 

[DixieDreamer]

I have had the same experience with other "cancellations". AOL was a BEAR to cancel with - I swear they were going to come and take my first born before they would let me cancel. VERY ANNOYING .

I have canceled other credit cards when I changed to another that had better terms and conditions (rather than just build up a collection of cards that charge annual fees). I found that a written cancellation works very well. It is formal, it is easy to keep a copy for your records, and you don't have to sit and listen to them make their darn spiels for a half hour.

 

[nativetxn]

It's very aggravating. I thought I would never get AOL to cancel my membership, they kept billing my credit card for something like 3 months. Finally got it straightened out but it was frustrating.

Some of these credit card companies are just <b>NOT</b> going to let you cancel without a fight

 

[Princess Michelle]

What I really hate is when they try to up your credit limit when you want to cancel a card. I have one card that has a good size limit so I cancelled some store cards and a mastercard that I never used. When they asked me why I was cancelling I was like because I have a different card that has a limit 5 times higher than this one and immidiately they were like well we'll give you that too and I was like I don't need two cards with that amount, one is fine. I must have been on the phone with this man for 30 minutes just trying to cancel the stupid card! They are sooooo rude and talk down to you so bad. I was glad that was the first one I canceled because when I called the other ones I was done in less than 5 minutes. I wasn't putting up with that again!

 

[browneyes]

What I hate is when I have a card and the same card people call me and tell me they're gonna send me out a packet of info so I'll try their card. I try to patiently explain I've got their card, and if I'm interested in getting another card, I'll do the contacting. The last one that did that was Discover, btw. Very annoying.

 

[ead79]

I remember when my dad tried to cancel our old VISA (we changed banks and got a new card from our new bank). They offered him a lower interest rate to get him to stay. It makes me mad to think that I have to threaten to cancel the card to get a lower interest rate. Never mind paying my bills on time, that doesn't make a difference. Ugh!

 

[Obi-Wan Pinobi]

I had a telemarketing call the other week from some department store we rarely if ever shop at telling me they are sending me a credit card I did not request! I had to stress to him in no uncertain terms that I am not interested in the card and do NOT send me the card.

 

[JDH]

my experience with AT&T Broadband. I wanted to cancel my service because the local channels finally made it to my dish. So I called to cancel and got the same spiel. Everything from reduced prices on digital service, free service of any kind, to them installing my own dedicated reception terminal with one of their employees on site to maintain it free of charge. Just please don't cancel.

Getting rid of these folks is like trying to eradicate Kudzu and guess what this was in January and it's still on. I'm not being billed in fact the billing folks have me disconnected! They've put in the third work order to get it disconnected at the pole but it's still not done.

No wonder AT&T is going under.

 

[dizneegirl]

Been there.

Try cancelling phone service! DH and I both have cell phones with free long distance and an ungodly number of night & weekend minutes, so we decided to disconnect our phone (sure cuts down on the telemarketers! ), and go strictly cell phone at home.

You would have thought I was committing a crime by cancelling the service!

On the other hand... we've been having problems with our DirecTV lately... the dish is probably 5 years old (one of the first waves of receivers), and we couldn't watch for 5 minutes without the picture dropping (with a signal strength of 80+... go figure). DH called up to just cancel the dish. When they asked why, he told them about the trouble, and they offered to send out an installer with a new dish, new receiver, and installation... free of charge. Yay - I've still got my HGTV, Discovery and TLC!

It is a huge pain when they hassle you though!

 

[cotye]

Shesssh.... Sounds like my cell phone company when I tried to cancel with them!