Goldman Sachs and Apple have been ordered to pay $89 million for violations of consumer protection laws in their joint Apple Card credit card business, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced Wednesday.
Reuters:
In partnership to finance Apple customers’ purchases through the Apple credit card, the two companies mishandled transaction disputes and misled iPhone purchasers about whether their purchases were in fact interest-free, according to the agency.
In addition to penalties and consumer redress, Goldman Sachs will face restrictions on its ability to issue new credit cards, the announcement said.
CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said the misconduct had affected hundreds of thousands of Apple Card users.“This led to wrongful charges, mishandled disputes and damaged credit reports,” he told reporters, and “resulted in real harm to real people.”
In a statement, Goldman said it was pleased to have resolved the matter… Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MacDailyNews Take: A drop in the bucket. For perspective, Apple in January announced that Apple Card users had earned more than $1 billion in Daily Cash from Apple Card spending in 2023.
Please help support MacDailyNews — and enjoy subscriber-only articles, comments, chat, and more — by subscribing to our Substack: macdailynews.substack.com. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
There are a lot of things to like about the unique Apple CC, but there’s also room for improvement. They were ridiculous about not offering (as most cards do) complimentary credit line upgrades for a fella who worked hard his entire life for that 800+ credit rating. They’d then say I had to wait 6 months before requesting another. Never had that happen before with a CC and really wanted to shift more of my spending over to the Apple CC.
Additionally, many large purchases were repeatedly declined during the first year (like NFL or concert tickets), and no matter what I did to convince GS that it was me, I could never get the card to go through. 🤷🏻♂️
ApplePay has been a huge success, so I’d love for Apple to keep being a disruptor in the financial industry. Still need full access to everything on a Mac, and the card, like all others, needs an automatic feed into Quickbooks and total wealth tracking services like eMoney.
I’m still waiting to see if Apple will buy Yahoo Finance and clean it up so end users can use the Stocks.app to track their portfolios. Puzzled why they haven’t done that or created their own API as it would certainly boost the stock value.
GS will be gone soon and the latest rumor is that they might parter with JPMorgan Chase. Love to see more rewards, no loss of 0% financing of all things from Apple, but also fill in some of the gaps mentioned above and others. The daily cash is a great way to see those rewards near-instantly. I’m sure they won’t take that away, but I’d like to see the Apple CC + ApplyPay combo jump up to 2.5% or 3% cash back, and the Apple CC without ApplePay, jump to 2% like the Wells Fargo Active Cash card. I’m happy to play the game of Apple CC + ApplePay for 2% back, but there are still a lot of places that don’t accept ApplePay online or off.
I think Apple wants to be more involved in the financial industry for numerous reasons. While my buddy at The Motley Fool insists they will never become a bank, I think they could become a consumer champion and reap plenty of rewards in the process.
I guess we’ll have to see what this fine actually means in terms of Apple’s culpability. It seemed like it was more on GS when I first read about it, but now Apple has also been cited. I’m guessing they’ll push back from the prestige perspective since 89 million to Apple is lunch money. Amazing they might restrict GS from issuing cards in the future!
i think the fines should be collected and paid to investors not working or directly connected to apple or goldman sachs and not in stock either. there are to many government agency’s that rely on fines to increase there salary’s every single year from them.
The worst credit card experience I have ever suffered. Just miserable. It will forever remain dormant unless there are big changes.
totally agree. I only use mine on very small purchases. i use to used on almost all of my purchases especially apple products. now, i rarely do. my small purchases are less $100. i won’t go over it because to me, it’s just not worth it.
Richar, you might be one of the people who gets a payout from this fine.
I agree. It’s been weird and buggy at times as the Apple/GS partnership tried to figure out who exactly had the most power over the experience, but I “think” Apple may be getting the hang of it. I could be wrong, but I suspect the next partnership, like a second marriage, will probably be better and more long-term.
Your mileage may vary. 😅
89 million is nothing it should be at least a billion for each company maybe even more since these cards have created such a horrible experience for so many people.
I guess what’s unclear to me is what Apple’s culpability is. My experience was that Apple was mostly the GUI, and GS ran all of the get-your-hands-dirty stuff that pissed people off. Every time I had a problem, I was invariably texting with a GS person, not Apple.