TJ Vasquez
What if it was possible to reap the benefits of having a credit card without having to accept the laundry list of rules and fees that come with it? Imagine being able to cut the ‘bank’ element out of the banking equation and enjoy the conveniences of having an open line of credit without being at the mercy of a traditional financial institution.
Ordinarily, the appeal of having at least one open line of credit is far outweighed by frequent nonsensical fees, high interest rates, and the hassle that’s involved should you have the displeasure of coming across a fraudulent charge. According to claims made by Apple regarding their Apple Credit Card, they have removed the bank-related issues from the equation and now offer a card that’s chalked with a variety of perks.
Appealing Offerings
To start, the Apple Card boasts zero fees. Users will pay nothing additional for transactions, limits reached, rewards redeemed, payment returns, annual costs, or any of the hidden fees that many card companies carry.
To further divorce Apple from cards offered at other banks, the Apple Card has several of its features conveniently accessible on the Wallet app. Through Apple, users can track where their card was recently used to the business’s address rather than relying on complicated merchant IDs.
Purchases are sorted into categories so that users can take a look at their spending trends and Apple provides weekly and monthly spending summaries, payment reminders, instant fraud alerts, interest calculators, and up to 3% cashback on purchases.
Apple Issues
While all of these features sound great on paper, the Apple Card has not been without its share of issues experienced by customers. For starters, the Apple Card is not entirely bankless, being that the card is partnered through Goldman Sachs, a bank that has never before branded a credit card.
This massive company has stated that it will not sell cardholder data to other companies or use it for advertising and in combination with the lack of credit card numbers on Apple Cards, it sounds like safety and security is paramount. However, Goldman Sachs will be permitted to access said data for its own use.
In addition, Apple Card’s interest rates are not low when compared to other card companies, and the credit limits are allegedly discriminatory towards women, a suspicion which Apple fielded to Goldman Sachs who denied this claim.
In one case, a former manager at Apple was given a credit limit 10 times his wife’s limit, despite the two of them having no separate bank accounts, filing their taxes together, and living together for many years with linked financial health.
Efforts by customers to correct these issues have largely been met with difficulty connecting to a human. Throughout investigating the issue, the former manager at Apple noted that customer service claimed that they were not authorized to discuss the details of the credit assessment.
Because the Apple Card is still new, there is a chance that changes will be made toward improvement. That said, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is, so it’s important for customers to use due diligence when deciding whether an Apple Card is right for them.
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