Discover has just announced two new benefits for primary cardholders:
- Social Security Number Alerts. They will alert you if your SSN is found on a risky website
- New Account Alerts. They will notify you if any new credit cards, mortgages, car loans or other accounts are opened on your Experian report.
The second option is just credit monitoring and is available freely on other sites so isn’t that interesting. It is nice it’s based on Experian data as it means you can use this and Credit Karma and cover all three credit bureaus. In terms of the social security number alerts they will search risky sites (the dark web) to see if your SSN appears and if it does they will send you an e-mail alert (you can also opt in for text alerts). Discover also says that if a cardholders SSN is found and they receive an alert Discover agents will be trained to walk them through the necessary steps to help them resolve the issue. Keep in mind these need to be activated, so do that now if you’re interested in this.
I like when card issuers add these types of benefits. Discover has previously add freeze it, allowing cardholders to turn on and off their credit cards (great if you’ve misplaced a card but don’t want to give it up as stolen) and Discover score card (giving even non cardholders access to a free FICO score). It helps their cards are also competitive as well:
- Discover it Secured. Easily the best secured credit card on the market.
- Discover it Miles. 1.5x points per $1 spent. Cashback doubled first year giving you 3x points (effectively 3% cash back) first year. Making it one of/if not the best every day card for the first year.
- Discover it. 5% cashback on rotating purchases with no annual fee. Cashback is doubled first year as well.
