Waste Not: Discover Card

This will be the first of an ongoing series on waste in the American consumer culture. I intend to focus on companies and practices which are detrimental, either in terms of producing more waste or leading to a more wasteful consumer lifestyle. Clearly more is at fault here than just the companies involved, but until consumers change their habits companies are not going to adjust their tactics. Also, don't expect that every post in this series will be about huge problems with large corporations - as mentioned in my previous post on waste, every little bit counts, and eventually it adds up.

Today's offender is Discover Card. I've had a credit card through them since 1999. Shortly after the terrorist attacks in 2001, they changed their boring black-and-orange cards to the shiny American flag card pictured below. Never mind that my card's expiration date wasn't for another three years - they sent everyone a new card unsolicited, and instructed you to safely dispose of the old card after activating it. Mind you, the card number was unchanged, so this required you to chop the thick plastic into many small pieces and discard in the trash, in order to prevent someone from stealing your card's information.

They also sent the occasional offer asking if I wanted any additional cards for family members, which I always shredded and recycled since I had no need for that offer. The real kicker, however was when my card actually reached its expiration date and I received this in the mail:

Yes, that's three cards, which all came in the same envelope. Three identical cards. Same number, same name (mine), same expiration date, same CCV code on the back. I called Discover up to ask why they sent me so many cards, and they informed me that "people like to keep the cards in many handy locations, like glove boxes, in their desk at work..." as if this was lip balm or aspirin. I immediately requested that my account be canceled. Suddenly their tone was much more apologetic and assured me that multiple cards must have been some sort of mistake and perhaps I had requested a replacement or duplicate card at some point in the past? Nice try, but too late. There's three cards that won't be getting mailed out yet another time, but who knows how many pointless duplicate cards are out there?

This seems to be a common practice among credit card and cell phone companies - they get to pad their numbers by claiming X million cards (or phone numbers) are in circulation, when in reality only a small fraction of that number is their member base. Sprint actually tried to give me a second cell phone and phone number ("for only $10 more a month!") and when I protested that I didn't need two mobile phones they insisted I could give it to a relative or pet or something. It's an unfortunate tactic that's becoming far too frequent, and people tend to buy into the bull that's shoveled at them during the sell. It's time to tell these companies "Enough!"