A smiling woman rides public transportation while looking at text alerts on her phone.

How Can I Manage My Credit Card Account with Email and Text Alerts?

4 min read

Last Updated: October 9, 2024

Key Takeaways

Credit card alerts sent to your smartphone and/or email can help you stay informed of payment due dates, balances, and more.
You can easily set up alerts and notifications from your online account.
Fraud alerts can help you safeguard your credit score.

While watching tv one night, your phone pings a reminder. Your credit card payment is due soon. Thankful for the heads up, you open your online banking app and make the payment before it's due. You feel good about handling your responsibilities and staying on top of your finances—all without leaving your couch.

An email alert or a text alert is an easy—and free—way to manage your credit card account. Most credit cards allow you to set and customize alerts so you can easily stay on top of payments, balances, and more. Discover Card adds a little extra with alerts for fraudulent activity and account updates.

How credit card alerts help cardmembers

You can benefit from alerts that help you stay on top of activities such as payments, spending, and fraud. Here are some of the kinds of credit card notifications that can help you stay on top of your finances:

Payment reminders: A payment reminder lets you know your payment due date is coming up. If you don’t have autopay set up, it can be easy to miss a payment due date and potentially end up with a lower credit score (if your payment is 60 days or more past due). A payment reminder can keep you on top of your bill.

Spending alerts: If you use your card a lot, a spending alert can help you stick to your budget and help you reconsider high-ticket items. You can set up a maximum amount to spend per transaction and receive an alert when you reach that limit.

Balance alerts: A balance alert tells you how much money you owe (your outstanding balance) on your card. Simply pre-set an amount, and your creditor will notify you when you exceed your spending. This may help you to keep your spending and monthly payments manageable. This can be especially useful if you have a joint account that multiple people use. Balance alerts also help you manage your credit report because the amount of available credit you’re using can affect your credit score.

Security and fraud alerts: Triggers for these alerts could be unusual activity on your account. This includes things like logging into your account from an unusual location, unexpected spending patterns, or other concerning activities. These may be innocent behaviors but are also signs of credit card fraud. If it’s fraud, you’ll be able to react quickly.

Other common alert settings that you might find:

Your payment is posted
A merchant refund is posted
A balance transfer is posted
Purchase alerts

How to set up text and email credit card alerts

You should be able to set up alerts online through your credit card account. Look for this in either your desktop or mobile app. Common places to find notification settings are in your user profile, the “settings” or “manage account” section for the app, or the “services” section.

If you have a Discover Card, log in to your account and go to the “view and configure your account activity alerts” section. From there you can switch alert notifications on/off and choose to receive the alerts via text, email, or both.

Discover gives you more control over your personal information online by regularly helping you to remove it from select people-search sites. It’s free, activate with the mobile app.¹

More on security and fraud alerts

Credit cards design notification settings to help you stay on top of payments and alert you to potential fraud. When you keep an eye out for potential security and fraud breaches you help protect yourself and your credit score. You can usually set up alerts from your credit card issuer for cash advances; purchases made outside of the United States; as well as purchases made online, by phone, or by mail.

If you believe you’re the victim of a credit card scam or theft, you should contact your card issuer immediately to report suspected fraud. Contact your card issuer through the number on the back of your card or through your mobile app.

Because the person who stole your information could have opened new accounts in your name, it’s important to monitor your credit report for any future suspected activity.

Did you know?

Discover offers a $0 Fraud Liability Guarantee. You’re never responsible for unauthorized purchases on your Discover Card.²

Important things to know about managing a card alert with Discover

You can stop text alerts by changing your preferences on your Discover account online, anytime. But you can also stop text communications by sending a text message from your mobile device with the word ‘STOP’, to 347268 (DISCOV).

Discover Card gives you these notification services at no added charge. But know that you may be responsible for message and data charges from your mobile phone provider. To make sure you get your alerts, put discover@email.discover.com into your email address contacts. This way, Discover’s messages won’t go to your spam box.

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