My experience as well. Got a credit line 1/5th the size of my other credit cards. They refused to increase it even though I have sufficient assets to justify a higher limit.
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Goldman Sachs Wants to End Apple Partnership, American Express Might Take Over
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My experience as well. Got a credit line 1/5th the size of my other credit cards. They refused to increase it even though I have sufficient assets to justify a higher limit.
If GS is taking it on the chops, so to speak, the last thing they want is more credit risk exposure. All the cards max limits added together may more than their capitalization might cover. Who knows, the public sure lacks access to the raw data or their overall financial picture.
GS started me with $2,500 and have bumped the limit to $32,500 over time. I also have had an AmEX card since 1968 before it was AmEX but known as Patterson Travel Services. It has been a Platinum card ever since that was available.
We have had no mortgage for many years (it was on a secondary property) which is a hit on the credit score and no car payments. We pay the credit card balances in full when the statement posts at the end of every cycle. We have 50K limits on two other major bank cards and we keep them alive in case of an emergency and one is in our "bug out" bag at all times.
We use the CostCo Citi Card in parallel with the Apple card to chase the cash back since the option exists.
GS started me with $2,500 and have bumped the limit to $32,500 over time. I also have had an AmEX card since 1968 before it was AmEX but known as Patterson Travel Services. It has been a Platinum card ever since that was available.
We have had no mortgage for many years (it was on a secondary property) which is a hit on the credit score and no car payments. We pay the credit card balances in full when the statement posts at the end of every cycle. We have 50K limits on two other major bank cards and we keep them alive in case of an emergency and one is in our "bug out" bag at all times.
We use the CostCo Citi Card in parallel with the Apple card to chase the cash back since the option exists.
Yeah, I figured as much. I typically use website when booking trips.
At any rate, I honestly found Apple Card benefits rather mediocre which is why I haven't signed up for it in first place. Now if they move to Amex, it's even less attractive to me.
Are you asking about your particular provider or providers in general? Many providers have apps, many accept Apple Pay on the Web. I also often pay providers via by health insurance company’s app and it takes Apple Pay. It gives me the added benefit of making my transactions harder to track by card number.
Have not really looked at their web site, but their app, Southwest’s app and United’s app all take Apple Pay.
Just to be clear, you are talking about .2%, I am not sure that the value of the time I spend paying an additional credit card bill, does not exceed the extra 2%, but everyone has his or her own threshold.
Wow. That is a lot of effort for .2% extra, capped at $200 a year (if one spends over $100,000). The extra 1% I get on two iPhones and an iPad a year (one phone each for my bf and me and an iPad each every other year), get me about $45 of that max $200, with a lot less energy.
To each his own. 🙃
Out of curiosity, do you spend to its max, pay it off mid-cycle and do it again, or are you just requesting a credit line increase without much use?
Providers in general. They have their own payment websites and none that I can think of accepts AP. Using HSA or health insurance app to pay is actually more work. Perhaps your insurance is better set up but my HSA account from Bank of America's app is a royal PITA to use for bill payments. It's much easier to use the phone to pay it via vendor's website (and get my 2%) and then apply for reimbursement via app (which is a whole lot faster than directly paying from it, for whatever reason).
My last year's rebates were around $1600. So yes I am talking about $160 extra. Not a life-changing amount but still a chunk of cash. And my c/c bills are all auto-paid, zero additional effort. So, why give up that money for the privilege of using another credit card ?
How is it more energy ? I applied for the second card, combined points with one call, I don't ever have to touch that card again. I am using my primary card, get daily balance alerts, have it auto-paid from my checking account, there's really zero effort involved. What is the advantage of not getting that extra $140-200 per year, other than having a cool metallic card ?
Indeed.
It was denied on the first use when the purchase price exceeded their credit limit. Had to put the overage on another card.
Just checked and after a year and having payed off a very large purchase they increased my credit line by $1K.
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Good suggestion about charging to limit. Downside of that is excessive utilization rate which can ding fico. I suppose trying to get to 30% consistently might have same effect but it’s too much of a hassle to manage for a 90 year old.
You order the Ti card thru the app. (If you have a P.O. Box make sure they don’t ship it there because the P.O. won’t take delivery from UPS. Card will just get sent back. Goldman screwed that up twice a couple years apart even though GS claimed policy prohibited sending to a POB.)
As long as the card is paid by the due date, it will report a $0 balance. The more often the card is charged to its limit and paid off, the more likely to raise its limit. However, from my understanding, Goldman Sachs is like most issuers, primarily concerned with monthly income and not with how much one has in assets (unless it is in the tens of millions in which case one would still expect a high monthly income). Monthly income is what limits someone’s ability to pay on a consistent basis.
Did not remember doing that. Do not carry it with me anywhere, so I am surprised I did it.
To clarify, they gave you a limit and on your first attempt to use the card, you tried to exceed that limit by a significant amount? That does not seem surprising at all.
Do you mean after having paid off a large purchase over 12 months interest free or just having a single large charge and paying it by the end of the month?
Credit limits are typically based on income, not assets. If one has a long term relationship with an institution, they may take assets into account, but even then, usually only if those assets are liquid and have been at the institution for a long time.
Wow, your experience is very different than mine. If I was paying using my HSA (current plan no longer has one), I would just either just use the debit card from the HSA (as that takes zero effort), or just pay with another card and do an transfer into my regular checking account from the HSA. As for paying the provider through my insurance’s app, I do that because then I can tell that my insurance has already processed the claim and I can see if there is a problem.
Actually, according to their site, you are only talking about $100 extra, as the 10% is limited to the first 100,000 points redeemed (which would be $1,000). That means you are actually only got .0625%, not .1%.
You are much more trusting of your credit card companies than I am. I have seen too many mistakes made to leave it all to autopay. However, that is not the only effort one needs to exert. In order to keep the Rewards+ card open, one has to make sure one uses it. Since it is only a 1% card for anything other then the first $6,000 in groceries (at grocery stores, not including Target or CostCo), or gas stations (not including CostCo), it means that one has to:
- carry an extra card (as you said that the gas stations and grocery stores you use do not support Apple Pay)
- remember to use it only at the right stores (and hope they are all coded correctly)
- Keep track of how much one has spent on it over the course of the year to make sure one has not exceeded $6,000 (or it becomes a 1% card, further reducing the net benefit).
Simply because the mental energy of using and tracking these things are not worth the maximum benefit one would receive in my estimation.
If it only took me 1 minute extra each time I had to deal with this, after 60 purchases, I would have spent more value in my time that I would have received from the cards.
If you do not use that card, they will eventually close it.
As I pointed out, it is at most $100 a year (and I already detailed the other costs above).
As an aside, using your personal Citi cards for business purposes may be a violation of their terms of service (under their section defining fraud, misuse and abuse they include the line:
- Using your Card Account other than primarily for personal, consumer or household purposes
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To clarify "failing bank" I mean Apple could by a failing bank like JP Morgan did with First Republic BankApple has a lot of money, but not enough for that - the company has a market cap of 465B, Apple would likely need ~1T in cash for that acquisition. I also cant imagine regulators allowing such a purchase - JP Morgan is a massive bank, critical to global finance, and manages 3.1 *trillion* in assets (JP Morgan btw was famous for saying that it was more important to control money than have your own, that philosophy still lives on)
I also cant imagine Apple wanting to acquire a major investment bank handling that much in assets, that critical to the operations of global finance, and the 300,000 employees that would come with it (btw JP Morgan and Citi are the two largest employers in NYC, with a quarter million employees each in NYC, acquiring either even if it could would literally make Apple a NYC company not a Cupertino one functionally
Yes, although I needed just ~$2K I think.
12 months interest free.
Yes, know that now, very annoying. However they seem to ignore asset income, credit rating.
That was what percentage of its limit? I am still confused as to why one would expect an increase before one had even established any track record with them. They had just evaluated your ability to pay based on whatever criteria they used and your first action was to try to go over that by a significant amount. Why would you think that they would say: "Well, we think his is good for $x, but he wants to buy something for 125% of $X let us just approve that!"?
Did you make any other purchases on the card? Did you make any payments other than the installments payments? What did you do that would lead them to think that granted you an increase would bring them more income?
Credit limit is about ability to pay on an ongoing basis, and so are based on ongoing income as you report it. Your having $100,000 in an account does not tell them anything about how you got it, nor the likelihood of it being there in 6 months.
You report your income, and can include any sources you wish, if you can support them with documentation (IRS 4096-T as an example) if asked. I assume by credit rating, you mean credit score. One's credit score only attempts to measure your likelihood of paying on your debt, it does not measure how much debt one can afford.
For example: Person A makes $240,000 a year ($20,000 a month). Person B makes $48,000 a year ($4,000 a month). Both have been at the same job and have lived in the same location for over five years (with a consistent, monotonically increasing salary). Both have 3 credit cards, and a car loan that is in its third year of five. Both people have perfect payment records for the last 7 years (all that usually shows up on reports) and neither has filed for bankruptcy (in the last 10 years). Both pay make sure that 2 of their 3 cards report a $0 balance every month and the third reports $25.
Their credit scores would be about the same, but Person A has a much larger monthly income to use to make payments and would therefore be more likely to be offered more credit than Person B.
As to why assets are not considered, using the same example above but adding the detail that Person B also received a $96,000 settlement for a lawsuit that resulted in an injury from which he is now recovered. If that money was invested and he received 5% a year from it, he could report an income of $52,000 a year (not a large difference), but since it was a one time payment that would not be likely to be repeated, it does not affect his overall ability to pay on an ongoing basis.
20% or so. Very valid, interesting and clearly explained points. Most of my assets provide a guaranteed income for life but they evidently didn't care about that.
But doesn't negate the fact that I have had more problems with this credit card than any other other card - and I have had many. My expectation is when I call them for something reasonable they almost always accommodate. But I have been with my existing cards for a long time. Doesn't excuse the poor customer service. Maybe not fair to compare customer service on an expensive card (~$500 annual fee more than offset by benefits).
That is a very substantial percentage of your existing limit.
Do you report that income as part of your income? If not, how would you expect them to know anything about it? What is your debt to income ratio? What is your available credit to income ratio? As I explained before, credit grantors do not care about one’s assets (for the most part, unless they are really worth in the tens of millions) but if one has annuities or a reverse mortgage, they should be included one’s income - income is not just salary.
My experience is that customer service for all these companies is based on luck of the draw. I have had great customer service from card issuers about with others constantly complain (like Capital One), and abysmal customer service from companies like Chase and AmEx about which people rave. Without specific examples of what you consider reasonable, I cannot really comment.
They only asked for total income, not the source.
All the points that you have made are valid. Doesn't change the fact that I shouldn't have to go through hoops, like telling them "of this income XXXX is guaranteed" in order to get the increase, particularly when they don't ask for this information. As for customer service the fact that it varies from card to card doesn't justify their doing a poor job. One expects exceptional service from an Apple product.
A different example. Lost the rate lock on a real estate refinance due to lender backlog. They did everything they could to keep my business including their paying for a by-down of the interest rate. Goldman-Sacks does the opposite, it's up to you to justify a credit increase. They give you no help when it is denied or tell you what you need to do to get approved. They don't really care about you or your business.
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This is what I still do not understand. If you included the income stream from your assets as part of your income, in what other way should they consider your assets?
In what way did you have to tell them "of this income XXXX is guaranteed"? Did they ask for a 4506-T (authorization to share your IRS records)? Are you saying that you reported your income (including that part of it derived from assets) as a single amount, and then they asked for documents that showed proof of income or was it something else?
I did not say it varies card to card, but person to person. I have have many interactions with Goldman Sachs and they have all been positive. It seems your experience is different.
They created the problem and they then acted to fix it. I am guessing that your mortgage is:
- will generate much more income to your mortgage lender with much lower risk than your Apple Card will generate for Goldman Sachs.
- a one time issue, and once this is resolved, they will never have to deal with you again (especially since they are likely to sell it off long before it is due).
Did something change in your income or were you just trying to say they should just give you more credit based on something else? If it is not up to you to justify an increase, who should have to do that? From what you have written, you got a line of credit from them, used it for an interest free purchase with out any other purchases. How would that have given them any reason to increase your limit? Without using the card on a regular basis and paying it off frequently, and without any changes to your income, what would justify an increase?
I cannot think of one card issuer that told me what I needed to do in order to secure an increase. Since you have not specified your:
- debt to income ratio
- your available credit to income ratio
- your average age of accounts
- your age of oldest account
- your age of newest account
- the limit they gave you on your Apple Card
- your FICO score
Just to cut this discussion short they were not customer centric. They didn't say "the increase was turned down. Let's work to see what we can do to get an increase .." which is what I would have expected and have heard from other financial companies that I have dealt with. It is either a yes, or no. Period. If was fairly obvious that the customer reps were poorly paid and were just there to do what the computer told them, nothing else. It might have been less unpleasant if they were nice about it. "We are really sorry but your credit increase was turned down. After you have made X number of payments on your current plan call us again and we can re-consider increasing it."
There is no reason for me to work with companies who don't value me as a customer so I will avoid them as best I can.
Very much appreciate the time you spent responding and very clear explanations.
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More problems with Goldman Sacks. Bought a Mac which was to be financed over 12 months. Since the trade-in amount was so low I elected not to trade in my older system but sell it on ebay. Got > 4x the trade in value that Apple offered. Made an additional payment of this 4x amount.
Yesterday I was told that my next payment would be > $2k, 3 times the outstanding loan amount. This would completely pay off the loan almost 9 months early. Called Goldman and was told that I was just going to be charged the loan amount, not the ~$2K.
Today I was charged the ~$2K completely paying off the loan. Called Goldman. Had to repeat the problem 3 or 4 times before the support individual understood it. Told me that there was nothing that they could do.
Certainly I caused the problem but to be given incorrect information and then have a poorly paid and trained support person struggle to even understand the issue was just not up to Apples' quality standards. Goldman clearly is clearly keeping costs down by not hiring the best people.
Yesterday I was told that my next payment would be > $2k, 3 times the outstanding loan amount. This would completely pay off the loan almost 9 months early. Called Goldman and was told that I was just going to be charged the loan amount, not the ~$2K.
Today I was charged the ~$2K completely paying off the loan. Called Goldman. Had to repeat the problem 3 or 4 times before the support individual understood it. Told me that there was nothing that they could do.
Certainly I caused the problem but to be given incorrect information and then have a poorly paid and trained support person struggle to even understand the issue was just not up to Apples' quality standards. Goldman clearly is clearly keeping costs down by not hiring the best people.