3 ms·

Goldman thought they were going to be able to fleece Apple's customers, but they can't. Good job Apple!

talldayo 2y ago
Saying "good job Apple" in the context of payment processing deals is like cheering on a slightly more buff gladiator bashing in the face of his opponent. Both of them intend to fleece the users, they just disagree over who gets priority access. I'm not saying you can't have a favorite gladiator, I'm saying you can't pretend this isn't pugilism.
- _mlbt 2y ago
  My Apple Card gives me an entire month to pay off the balance, and I am actively encouraged to keep paying it off throughout the month. The cash back rewards are simple and quickly paid out. There are no late fees. The UI for the software side of it is exceptional. It is by far my favorite credit card.
  - jwells89 2y ago
    It's also nice that the cash back is actually cash which can be automatically directed into the accompanying savings account, where it accrues 4.10% APY interest. None of the usual funny business with points with shifting valuations, restrictions on how they can be spent, etc.
    - xp84 2y ago
      Not that I mind anyone's preference for cash, but there are a ton of people in the credit card rewards 'game' who vastly prefer points (especially the top tier of 'transferable' points). In general, you can usually get more value out of points. My main point (no pun intended) is that the implication that paying rewards in something like points or miles is done mainly as a scam, is inaccurate. On the good credit cards, at least.
  - starttoaster 2y ago
    The cash back rewards is not, as far as I know, actually all that good in comparison to its competitors like American Express. Giving a month to pay off a balance I believe is referred to as a "grace period" which is pretty common place in credit cards. A month is nice, but I believe most cards are usually around 4 weeks. But the UI for the card's online banking is fairly attractive, especially if you're already an iPhone user, which I imagine most Apple card holders would be.
    - _mlbt 2y ago
      > The cash back rewards is not, as far as I know, actually all that good in comparison to its competitors like American Express. There are definitely cards with better rewards, but few with such a straightforward and simple cash back program. Also, the rewards are not bad by any means. I also like the tight integration with the high yield savings account, which again is not the best rate possible, but makes up for it with the UI of its software and overall simplicity and ease of use. > Giving a month to pay off a balance I believe is referred to as a "grace period" which is pretty common place in credit cards. A month is nice, but I believe most cards are usually around 4 weeks. I'm talking about the actual due date, not the grace period which is a different thing entirely. You have until the last day of the following month to pay off the balance to avoid incurring interest, which is different than any other credit card I've ever used. Usually the due dates are a specific day of the month which often changes every month.
      - NavinF 2y ago
        Most credit cards have the due date on the same day every month. You can also change it online to to another day of the month if that's something you care about. Personally I just set up autopay from a brokerage account and never think about when anything is due. Why would it matter?
        _mlbt 2y ago
        It’s not a huge deal on its own but it’s part of the overall “user friendly” nature of the card as a whole. Having the whole balance be due at the end of the month just makes it easier for me to use it as my “daily driver” rewards credit card.
  - tiltowait 2y ago
    The app is such a killer feature for me that I’m more than willing to accept somewhat lower rewards compared to other cards.
- justinclift 2y ago
  > you can't pretend this isn't pugilism. What's wrong with pugilism?
bostik 2y ago
For some reason I think it will have been even more mundane. It is quite a long time ago, but Matt Levine wrote at the time that GS was (for whatever reason) desperate to get into consumer finance. They saw the market as an open opportunity, and paired up with Apple to get a foothold reaching well beyond their Marcus brand. [Still paraphrasing Levine.] As one would expect, that didn't go well. Goldman Sachs as a company is geared to do complex low-volume, high-margin deals. Consumer banking by its very nature is high-volume, low-margin. To make things "worse", consumer finance is also very heavily regulated to discourage routinely fleecing your customers. Which is how you get a vampire squid squad trying to feed off of a decaffeinated strawberry juice carton. Someone is going to be disappointed, and it's not the juice carton. GS were probably willing (initially) to pay a hefty sum to get into that market, so then the question becomes: why Apple? At the time Apple had a net float of >$200B. When you have that much cash and assets to deal with, you no longer seek the help of a bank. You are a bank. In a funny twist, their Marcus brand is still alive at least in the UK, and they are offering some of the (supposedly)[ß] best front line savings rates to attract customers. I've never seen anyone with their brand of card, though, so clearly their offered rates are not attractive enough. ß: few other UK high street banks are offering even better rates, but every single one of them has set a ludicrously low cap on the amount they pay good rates on before dropping to just-about-tolerable rates for whatever goes above the threshold.
- jrflowers 2y ago
  Why would you decaffeinate strawberry juice
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
    It's a bit ambiguous but I think they may have been suggesting that the carton is decaffeinated.
  - imchillyb 2y ago
    The vampires receive bonuses for caffeine ingestion. And who could afford to give out bonuses in this economy?
- 2y ago
toolz 2y ago
what am I missing? The article talks about apple failing to send consumer disputes, how is that on GS?
- WillPostForFood 2y ago
  More details in the press release. The complaint against Apple is the the UI led some people to think they had competed a dispute, when there was an additional step. The complaint against Goldman is that their backend systems were broken and they failed to act on the disputes. Failing to process or share consumer disputes: Apple Card users were directed to dispute transactions through a “Report an Issue” feature in the Wallet app. For some disputes, Apple sent consumers a separate link in the Messages app asking for more information. Apple failed to send these disputes to Goldman Sachs if the second form was incomplete. Even after Goldman Sachs alerted Apple to this issue, the problem persisted. As a result, neither Apple nor Goldman Sachs investigated tens of thousands of such disputes and cardholders were unfairly held responsible for disputed transactions. Failing to investigate cardholder disputes: For the disputes that Apple did send to Goldman Sachs, the bank failed to consistently send acknowledgment notices within 30 days, conduct reasonable investigations, or send resolution letters explaining the determinations of its investigations within 90 days. These failures led to Goldman Sachs illegally placing damaging information on consumers’ credit reports and holding cardholders responsible for potentially fraudulent or unauthorized purchases.

Saying "good job Apple" in the context of payment processing deals is like cheering on a slightly more buff gladiator bashing in the face of his opponent. Both of them intend to fleece the users, they just disagree over who gets priority access. I'm not saying you can't have a favorite gladiator, I'm saying you can't pretend this isn't pugilism.

_mlbt 2y ago
My Apple Card gives me an entire month to pay off the balance, and I am actively encouraged to keep paying it off throughout the month. The cash back rewards are simple and quickly paid out. There are no late fees. The UI for the software side of it is exceptional. It is by far my favorite credit card.
- jwells89 2y ago
  It's also nice that the cash back is actually cash which can be automatically directed into the accompanying savings account, where it accrues 4.10% APY interest. None of the usual funny business with points with shifting valuations, restrictions on how they can be spent, etc.
  - xp84 2y ago
    Not that I mind anyone's preference for cash, but there are a ton of people in the credit card rewards 'game' who vastly prefer points (especially the top tier of 'transferable' points). In general, you can usually get more value out of points. My main point (no pun intended) is that the implication that paying rewards in something like points or miles is done mainly as a scam, is inaccurate. On the good credit cards, at least.
- starttoaster 2y ago
  The cash back rewards is not, as far as I know, actually all that good in comparison to its competitors like American Express. Giving a month to pay off a balance I believe is referred to as a "grace period" which is pretty common place in credit cards. A month is nice, but I believe most cards are usually around 4 weeks. But the UI for the card's online banking is fairly attractive, especially if you're already an iPhone user, which I imagine most Apple card holders would be.
  - _mlbt 2y ago
    > The cash back rewards is not, as far as I know, actually all that good in comparison to its competitors like American Express. There are definitely cards with better rewards, but few with such a straightforward and simple cash back program. Also, the rewards are not bad by any means. I also like the tight integration with the high yield savings account, which again is not the best rate possible, but makes up for it with the UI of its software and overall simplicity and ease of use. > Giving a month to pay off a balance I believe is referred to as a "grace period" which is pretty common place in credit cards. A month is nice, but I believe most cards are usually around 4 weeks. I'm talking about the actual due date, not the grace period which is a different thing entirely. You have until the last day of the following month to pay off the balance to avoid incurring interest, which is different than any other credit card I've ever used. Usually the due dates are a specific day of the month which often changes every month.
    - NavinF 2y ago
      Most credit cards have the due date on the same day every month. You can also change it online to to another day of the month if that's something you care about. Personally I just set up autopay from a brokerage account and never think about when anything is due. Why would it matter?
      - _mlbt 2y ago
        It’s not a huge deal on its own but it’s part of the overall “user friendly” nature of the card as a whole. Having the whole balance be due at the end of the month just makes it easier for me to use it as my “daily driver” rewards credit card.
- tiltowait 2y ago
  The app is such a killer feature for me that I’m more than willing to accept somewhat lower rewards compared to other cards.
justinclift 2y ago
> you can't pretend this isn't pugilism. What's wrong with pugilism?

bostik 2y ago

For some reason I think it will have been even more mundane. It is quite a long time ago, but Matt Levine wrote at the time that GS was (for whatever reason) desperate to get into consumer finance. They saw the market as an open opportunity, and paired up with Apple to get a foothold reaching well beyond their Marcus brand. [Still paraphrasing Levine.] As one would expect, that didn't go well. Goldman Sachs as a company is geared to do complex low-volume, high-margin deals. Consumer banking by its very nature is high-volume, low-margin. To make things "worse", consumer finance is also very heavily regulated to discourage routinely fleecing your customers. Which is how you get a vampire squid squad trying to feed off of a decaffeinated strawberry juice carton. Someone is going to be disappointed, and it's not the juice carton. GS were probably willing (initially) to pay a hefty sum to get into that market, so then the question becomes: why Apple? At the time Apple had a net float of >$200B. When you have that much cash and assets to deal with, you no longer seek the help of a bank. You are a bank. In a funny twist, their Marcus brand is still alive at least in the UK, and they are offering some of the (supposedly)[ß] best front line savings rates to attract customers. I've never seen anyone with their brand of card, though, so clearly their offered rates are not attractive enough. ß: few other UK high street banks are offering even better rates, but every single one of them has set a ludicrously low cap on the amount they pay good rates on before dropping to just-about-tolerable rates for whatever goes above the threshold.

jrflowers 2y ago
Why would you decaffeinate strawberry juice
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
  It's a bit ambiguous but I think they may have been suggesting that the carton is decaffeinated.
- imchillyb 2y ago
  The vampires receive bonuses for caffeine ingestion. And who could afford to give out bonuses in this economy?
2y ago

toolz 2y ago

what am I missing? The article talks about apple failing to send consumer disputes, how is that on GS?

WillPostForFood 2y ago
More details in the press release. The complaint against Apple is the the UI led some people to think they had competed a dispute, when there was an additional step. The complaint against Goldman is that their backend systems were broken and they failed to act on the disputes. Failing to process or share consumer disputes: Apple Card users were directed to dispute transactions through a “Report an Issue” feature in the Wallet app. For some disputes, Apple sent consumers a separate link in the Messages app asking for more information. Apple failed to send these disputes to Goldman Sachs if the second form was incomplete. Even after Goldman Sachs alerted Apple to this issue, the problem persisted. As a result, neither Apple nor Goldman Sachs investigated tens of thousands of such disputes and cardholders were unfairly held responsible for disputed transactions. Failing to investigate cardholder disputes: For the disputes that Apple did send to Goldman Sachs, the bank failed to consistently send acknowledgment notices within 30 days, conduct reasonable investigations, or send resolution letters explaining the determinations of its investigations within 90 days. These failures led to Goldman Sachs illegally placing damaging information on consumers’ credit reports and holding cardholders responsible for potentially fraudulent or unauthorized purchases.