Goldman Sachs denies claims of Apple Card gender bias

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 83
    larryjwlarryjw Posts: 1,031member
    crowley said:
    Something doesn't have to knowingly target gender to be sexist.  There seems to be something off in the algorithm if it's giving such widely disparate results for individuals who you would otherwise expect to get the same or similar result.  It is very logical to question that.
    Agree with your assessment. Discriminator intent is not required to discriminate. The issue is does the discrimination have a
    pernicious effect. 
    anantksundaramCycliste
  • Reply 22 of 83
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    crowley said:
    Something doesn't have to knowingly target gender to be sexist.  There seems to be something off in the algorithm if it's giving such widely disparate results for individuals who you would otherwise expect to get the same or similar result.  It is very logical to question that.
    What facts lead you to believe both this guy and his wife deserve the exact same credit. Other than they occupy the same living space, are married, he files their taxes jointly and they live in a community property state. what other information leads you to believe they both deserve the same credit limits.

    Hint: When you last filled out application for a credit card, did it ask you joint income you put on your tax return or provide a copy. Did they ask if you were married, or if you lived in a community property state? BTW not all states have community property laws.
    StrangeDayslostkiwi
  • Reply 23 of 83
    maestro64 said:
    No surprise here, I hope Apple and GS go after this guy for slander on the simple fact he is idiot. 

    The idiot who filed this tirade complaint, will find out the exact reason he is claiming he and his wife should have the same credit limit, (married, joint tax return, and community state) is the exact reason his wife is being treated as an individual. In the past women credit worthiness was based on joint activity and if the husband had bad credit then the would wife have bad credit and could not leave the marriage since she could not get credit. The discrimination he is complaining about is about women having their own credit history separate from his which was cause by men behaving badly in the past. It sounds like this guy want to control his wife.


    Ahhh the irony of attacking a person’s intellect while simultaneously showing complete  ignorance of the difference between libel and slander. 
  • Reply 24 of 83
    It's literally in the banks favour to offer a customer as much credit as possible. Just because David Heinemeier Hansson doesn't fully know the criteria for how credit is allocated doesn't mean that this should have blown up into a top-news article on news websites worldwide. It just goes to show the media frenzy that occurs with the Apple brand.
    And Goldman Sachs should sue both men for defamation.
  • Reply 25 of 83
    Thrashman said:
    How can this be?  Do you mean to tell me that if I married to a doctor - that doesn’t make me a doctor?
    Technically if someone were to refer to your wife as “doctor” trashman, and you were standing near her, it could be referring to you as well.  Since doctor doesn’t imply gender.  

    Maybe that’s why you may feel smarter when you have been standing next to your wife.

    :smile: 
  • Reply 26 of 83
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    maestro64 said:
    crowley said:
    Something doesn't have to knowingly target gender to be sexist.  There seems to be something off in the algorithm if it's giving such widely disparate results for individuals who you would otherwise expect to get the same or similar result.  It is very logical to question that.
    What facts lead you to believe both this guy and his wife deserve the exact same credit. Other than they occupy the same living space, are married, he files their taxes jointly and they live in a community property state. what other information leads you to believe they both deserve the same credit limits.

    Hint: When you last filled out application for a credit card, did it ask you joint income you put on your tax return or provide a copy. Did they ask if you were married, or if you lived in a community property state? BTW not all states have community property laws.
    What other information leads me to believe?  I give the complainant the benefit of the doubt, pending information to the contrary, the same as I give Apple and Goldsman Sachs - no reason to suspect malicious intent on anyone's part, but something seems to not be working as it should.

    I'm not sure what the purpose of your hints are other than to identify additional points of potential failure in the credit application process. 
    anantksundarammuthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 27 of 83
    lkrupp said:
    One guy who apparently has something like 375,000 followers on Twitter (or whatever), described as a “prominent” software developer, makes a profanity laden accusation and the New York Department of Financial Services starts an investigation. And the media response? GUILTY unless proven innocent!
    This was a perfectly predictable PR outcome (in fact, some of us predicted exactly that, yesterday).

    Why are you surprised!?

    A great deal of this can be obviated by Apple/GS simply allowing a primary cardholder to add their spouse/family as additional card members (as pretty much all other cads do). This PR problem will disappear in 24 hours.
    muthuk_vanalingamlostkiwi
  • Reply 28 of 83
    MplsPMplsP Posts: 3,911member
    It’s amazing how indignant this guy got because his wife got a lower credit limit and how he instantly assumed he knew all the facts and that it must be due to sexism.

    First, the ‘credit score’ you see on a lot of sites is most often not your actual score, but beyond that, each company calculates their own score using their own criteria. The fact that one partner’s score is different doesn’t automatically mean it’s sexist. 

    GS came out and said that they calculate their own score and that they take income into account. That’s a very reasonable thing to do when providing unsecured credit. Since the average woman’s income is lower than the average man’s it will also likely result in a lower score. Does that make it sexist? Some might say yes, but I would argue that it’s just reflective of the gender disparity present in society. I don’t agree with it, but the problem is with society, not GS. 
    gilly33dee_deeStrangeDays
  • Reply 29 of 83
    I'm retired -- which means that my savings are high and my income is low.   As a result GS gave me the lowest credit line of all my cards (about half).

    Does that mean that they discriminate against retired people?
    Again, but if course they will deny that.....they will dance around and around until they get caught  
  • Reply 30 of 83
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,015member
    crowley said:
    Something doesn't have to knowingly target gender to be sexist.  There seems to be something off in the algorithm if it's giving such widely disparate results for individuals who you would otherwise expect to get the same or similar result.  It is very logical to question that.
    Why, because it happened in a handful of cases?  The sample size isn't big enough to assume there is something off.  
    StrangeDays
  • Reply 31 of 83
    Much ado about nothing.
  • Reply 32 of 83
    crowley said:
    Something doesn't have to knowingly target gender to be sexist.  There seems to be something off in the algorithm if it's giving such widely disparate results for individuals who you would otherwise expect to get the same or similar result.  It is very logical to question that.
    Errrnt. What you expect, as a non-financial expert, has little bearing on reality. I’ve said it a few times in the other thread, but I’m an enterprise software dev and for many years worked for Cap One building credit application processing apps. Gender simply isn’t a variable in credit calculations. Besides being irrelevant, it’s against the law.

    Husband & wife isn’t 1:1. To test gender bias, you have to find women in the same credit boat as DHH but being denied or diminished; not his wife who despite what you may think could be in a completely different credit boat. 
    edited November 2019 gilly33
  • Reply 33 of 83
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    Soli said:
    Soli said:
    I'm retired -- which means that my savings are high and my income is low.   As a result GS gave me the lowest credit line of all my cards (about half).

    Does that mean that they discriminate against retired people?
    They probably just read your forum posts here.
    ROFL...  Don't be bitter because I destroyed your rather far fetched ridiculous arguments on 5G.  It makes you look small.
    You sure got me with your lack of comprehension of a common English words. /s I certainly do wish I could take credit for creating the word obsolete, but it dates back to the 16th century.

     
    It's pretty apparent that you have an inferiority complex.   So, if it make you feel good to cherry pick whichever "facts" help your argument then go for it!  
  • Reply 34 of 83

    crowley said:
    crowley said:
    Something doesn't have to knowingly target gender to be sexist.  There seems to be something off in the algorithm if it's giving such widely disparate results for individuals who you would otherwise expect to get the same or similar result.  It is very logical to question that.
    Because YOU would expect the results to be the same does not mean that a professional loan officer or an algorithm would.
    That's the trouble:  amateurs are second the professionals.

    They should first ask:  Why would bank discriminate against a qualified borrower?  That would be both illogical and illegal.  Banks are in it to make money -- they don't make decisions based on what's between a person's legs.
    People and businesses do illogical and illegal things all the time, otherwise racism and sexism wouldn't exist.  Sometimes it's consciously, and sometimes subsconsciously.  That's why you question when the results don't make apparent sense, to figure out what the problem is.
    What evidence do you provide to support the claim that this is one of those instances? None. Just because something is not impossible (the moon is made of green cheese...sounds absurd but before we went there you literally couldn’t prove it wasn’t) doesn’t mean it actually is, as we learned when collected actual evidence (no cheese on the moon, sadly). You need observed evidence to prove claims in the positive. Otherwise you’re just making sounds. 
    edited November 2019
  • Reply 35 of 83
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    crowley said:
    crowley said:
    Something doesn't have to knowingly target gender to be sexist.  There seems to be something off in the algorithm if it's giving such widely disparate results for individuals who you would otherwise expect to get the same or similar result.  It is very logical to question that.
    Because YOU would expect the results to be the same does not mean that a professional loan officer or an algorithm would.
    That's the trouble:  amateurs are second the professionals.

    They should first ask:  Why would bank discriminate against a qualified borrower?  That would be both illogical and illegal.  Banks are in it to make money -- they don't make decisions based on what's between a person's legs.
    People and businesses do illogical and illegal things all the time, otherwise racism and sexism wouldn't exist.  Sometimes it's consciously, and sometimes subsconsciously.  That's why you question when the results don't make apparent sense, to figure out what the problem is.
    That's true.   But questioning when something doesn't make sense is different from making unfounded assumptions and particularly different from making unfounded accusations. 

    In this case, it appears to me that the guy didn't understand, so he immediately went to social media to make false accusations.
    For myself, I think it is very unlikely that GS discriminates against women if, for no other reason, than they simply have no incentive to do that and every incentive not to.  Instead, I find it far more likely that they saw some material difference between the credit worthiness of the women versus the man.

    If you are arguing that using certain normal parameters (such as income) is inherently discriminatory against a demographic then that is a different, systemic problem -- not a GS problem.
    StrangeDays
  • Reply 36 of 83
    larryjw said:
    crowley said:
    Something doesn't have to knowingly target gender to be sexist.  There seems to be something off in the algorithm if it's giving such widely disparate results for individuals who you would otherwise expect to get the same or similar result.  It is very logical to question that.
    Agree with your assessment. Discriminator intent is not required to discriminate. The issue is does the discrimination have a
    pernicious effect. 
    It's impossible that credit card companies are discriminating against women.  If shareholders found out, all hell would break loose.  Credit card companies want everyone to have as high credit limit as possible with as low of risk as possible.  The only way men or women could be favoured is if data showed one of the two sexes were delinquent more than the other.  Young men for example pay higher car insurance because they crash their cars more.  But as the GS representative confirmed, gender does not play a role in determining credit worthiness.  So far I've only seen cases where women who don't have jobs are married to rich men.
    StrangeDays
  • Reply 37 of 83
    Uh Oh!   Here comes Woz jumping into the fray!

    Apple co-founder says Apple Card algorithm gave wife lower credit limit

    Yeah saw his silliness on the tweet stream. His argument boils down to: “I was an expert in one thing, so I should be an expert in other things too! Rarr!”
    lostkiwi
  • Reply 38 of 83
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    maestro64 said:
    I'm retired -- which means that my savings are high and my income is low.   As a result GS gave me the lowest credit line of all my cards (about half).

    Does that mean that they discriminate against retired people?

    Yes they do, you can thank the last administration for all this heavy handed over regulations. Today banks can not extend credit on your assets, only on your ability pay based on your wages. My in-laws who are retired, sold their house to move into something more manageable and needed a temporary loan during the transition and had lots of saving and equity in the house they were selling but no bank would cut them a loan for the simple fact they have no income other than SS and some IRA income.

    You should be happy your retirement accounts are not being manage by the Labor department today. That was the other regulation which came out of the 2008 crash and was put in place right at the end of the last administration. It did not get implemented by the new administration, it was killed. Otherwise the Labor department would have say so over how your retirement money could be invested. No more Apple stock in your IRA.

    For Reference sake, read one after the other.
    https://www.independentsentinel.com/obama-labor-dept-sets-stage-for-nationalizing-retirement-accounts/
    https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-executive-order-on-fiduciary-rule-main-street-retirement-money-2017-2
    https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-strengthening-retirement-security-america/

    I seriously doubt that there is any regulation prohibiting banks from lending based on asset worth -- actually, that's the basis of most mortgages (secured assets) and income is secondary.  But, instead, it is most likely simply the bank's policy to look at other things.

    As for banking regulations in general, it is well known and accepted that the Bush administration gutted both regulations and regulatory agencies which encouraged banks to lend recklessly and, when their loans defaulted, the whole system crashed and created a near full blown depression.  We can't afford to make that mistake again.
  • Reply 39 of 83
    thrangthrang Posts: 1,007member
    My understanding (from Bank of America many years ago) is there is no true “joint” account; one user is always considered primary and is the basis for the official relationship with the institution - many allow “additional users” to be added but they are not germane to the relationship (nor do they undergo any credit check)

    Chase recently told me the same thing - I was told separately that this has to do with clear legal responsibility of the account should there be issues in the future (if bill goes unpaid in a true joint account, who is responsible especially if there is an issue in the marriage and each one blames the other for delinquency? It could eventually be rectified but it’s easier to simple have a one to one relationship)

    Even a joint checking account is based on a primary applicant afaik.
    muthuk_vanalingamGeorgeBMac
  • Reply 40 of 83
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member
    I'm retired -- which means that my savings are high and my income is low.   As a result GS gave me the lowest credit line of all my cards (about half).

    Does that mean that they discriminate against retired people?
    It means Goldman Sachs is not really in the credit card business and have made a mess of the Apple Card. They offered me a credit line 20% of my other cards. They apparently made this decision based on one yearly income and not my real credit history. 
    GeorgeBMac
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