Apple Card Is Under Fire for Gender Discrimination
Goldman Sachs, the bank responsible for issuing Apple‘s new credit card, is being investigated for gender discrimination following a series of tweets by a customer sharing the different credit limits given to him and his wife upon applying for the card. The consumer, David Heinemeier Hansson, reportedly received 20 times the credit limit that his wife was issued.
I’m surprised that they even let her apply for a card without the signed approval of her spouse? I mean, can you really trust women with a credit card these days??!
— DHH (@dhh) November 7, 2019
Hansson revealed that he and his wife file joint tax returns and that his wife has a better credit score than he does. After the tweets went viral, New York’s Department of Financial Services confirmed that an investigation was being conducted.
“The department will be conducting an investigation to determine whether New York law was violated and ensure all consumers are treated equally regardless of sex,” a spokesperson told Bloomberg.
Additionally, Hansson’s wife’s Apple Card credit limit was increased to match his following the backlash. To little surprise, he remained displeased.
She spoke to two Apple reps. Both very nice, courteous people representing an utterly broken and reprehensible system. The first person was like “I don’t know why, but I swear we’re not discriminating, IT’S JUST THE ALGORITHM”. I shit you not. “IT’S JUST THE ALGORITHM!”.
— DHH (@dhh) November 8, 2019
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak went on to reveal that he experienced a similar issue, as he was given 10 times the credit limit as his wife.
The same thing happened to us. I got 10x the credit limit. We have no separate bank or credit card accounts or any separate assets. Hard to get to a human for a correction though. It’s big tech in 2019.
— Steve Wozniak (@stevewoz) November 10, 2019
The Apple Card, which is Goldman’s first credit card, launched this past August.
