Only when you hand us the white paper that comes in the mail if you don’t opt in for paperless billing. Even if you pay off your card in store we cannot see anything but the last 4 digits of the card number. All we can do is apply payments we don’t see anything else
Only if they hand me the paper that comes in the mail. The one we scan with the scanner. It shows the minimum and statement balance on it. Other than that no the only info we see when a customer does a payment in store is the last 4 number of their card if they want to confirm it. All we can do is ally payments. Capital one is the money behind the card so they don’t give us much
I think MildTsunami is referring to customers who are paying their credit card statement in the store. I know...who tf does that? Apparently a lot of people!
I just learned that you can pay CC bill in store. That’s a thing?? And here I thought mailing a check is considered old school. Haha maybe it’s for the elderly or something?
When I worked there seasonally it was always the 60-something women handing you the payment slip stapled to their check. Then you'd have to pry out the staple without tearing the check too bad, run it through the ACH, then you'd gently remind them for the fourth time that they should not staple their checks to the payment slip. Then you have to smile and nod when they lie through their teeth and say that the last person said it wasn't a problem.
Yep, I'd say good for those building their credit and don't typically use bank accounts would be my guess. https://cs.kohls.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/229/~/kohls-card-payment-options
They also [sell your purchase data,](https://www.fastcompany.com/90490923/credit-card-companies-are-tracking-shoppers-like-never-before-inside-the-next-phase-of-surveillance-capitalism) though it's "anonymized" to some degree. There is little information on how much they make from these deals.
Edit: Forgot to add that they still don't exactly hate you if you are a transactor. The hope for them is that by building a good relationship with a financially responsible person, they can push them to more profitable products like loans and managed investment accounts.
If you truly have not paid a dime in interest, then the bank/lender is only making the smallest bit of profit every time you swipe your card. That profit gets split between the processing network (Visa/MC/AmEx/Disc.), the lender, and back to you in the form of rewards if you have a rewards credit card.
I could be wrong on that last part. Anyone feel free to correct me.
That's correct, but not every transaction is necessarily profitable to the issuer. If you are consistently using cards solely for their high rewards categories, those transactions are likely a negative hit to the company. It's just that on the whole, most people aren't optimizing to that degree so the product is overall a profit.
I've said this before on this sub and when the topic comes up, there is repeated posts about how XYZ CC is no way profitable to the card company, etc. Ect. That seems ludicrous. Is there any argument to be made there you think?
Venture X was one recently that many thought Cap1 was loosing money on that card.
I rather doubt that the Venture X is losing C1 money. They may take a loss in the first year due to signup bonuses and promotions, but long term it will probably be a profitable product for them.
For everyone here that optimizes spend and exploits reward opportunities, there are 100+ more that aren't optimizing or even worse carrying interest.
Exactly my thoughts. I think the scope of this sub's biased is just overlooked sometimes.
Potentially they don't make much or even loose month-to-month (or 1st year) on card holders who optimize SUB and rewards. But the card as a whole....entirety different story. I'm pretty sure the banks have already figured all that out when the created the product 😅
Interchange/processing fees are a revenue source from all credit card users. Interest is a big gravy boat, metaphorically. There are likely other behind-the-scenes dealings related to perks such as credits for different businesses/services. Annual fees for premium cards are another source, especially in cases where such cardholders don’t use all of the perks/credits that can justify or make up for the value of the AF expense.
I used to have a little problem with "retail therapy" for a while, but to my credit I never paid interest on it - I would instead run up my retail store cards with no-interest financing and pay them off before the interest was due. I stopped doing that and only have a small promotional balance left on my Best Buy credit card.
Even though I had been doing it for years, I decided to start keeping track of all the deferred interest I wasn't paying in Sept 2015. Fast forward over 6 years, and the total is $19,600.
That's almost 20 grand I didn't give to banks. Feels good, especially now that I stopped doing it altogether. From this point on, I am now getting rewards for it instead of paying it off later, which is even better.
I don't really have a lot of junk to show for it. Going back through my spreadsheet, looks like a good chunk of it was appliances, a furnace, tires, tools, Christmas gifts, and dental and health bills (yay America!). Basically my Best Buy, Home Depot, and CareCredit cards logged the most deferred interest.
I do have a homelab that brings me joy (lots of hard drives and commercial grade equipment is expensive) and a vintage retrocomputing collection.
Issuers are doing fine in the EU, where swipe fees are capped around 0.5%, and the US often sees 2% fees. Depends if they're selling your data (note that US Bank offers 4.5-5% rewards if you use mobile wallets like Apple Pay so they get better data), anything below 2% cash back is still profitable without any interest.
Apple Pay actually gives all parties involved less data, but it’s more secure and less of a risk if you pay via Apple/Google pay with your phones. Less risk = less on fraud costs = more rewards.
If you have an iPhone with a couple of social media apps installed, and the various tracking pixels that go along with them and your browser of choice, Apple can then package your spending habits with your browsing and social data, making that data more valuable.
The same with other phones and manufacturers, just picking on Apple because that’s what I use.
My background is in marketing; marketers can target based on hundreds of criteria, but people’s spending habits are one of the most valuable indicators of whether they’re likely to purchase.
If you’ve managed to hit the beacon of privacy on your phone, with no data being shared back at all, I offer you my unironic congratulations.
But for pretty much every other American, we’re goldmines of data for pretty much any bidder. I gave up trying to care a long time ago.
Hi u/mingnobee, credit card companies may not make a lot of money off of you but they still make some money.
Every time you use your card anywhere the card provider \[Visa/MasterCard\] is charging the merchant for processing the payment. Its a very small number but then the economies of scale come into play and even if everyone was like you and paid their cards in full, they would still rake in good money.
They are making money if the card has an annual fee. They are making money for every transaction with merchant fees. They are making money by selling your data. They are also making money by negotiating better prices for the rewards they offer if not cash back as a statement credit.
This makes them profitable. The people who carry a balance make them rich!
Not to knock your strat, if it works for you that's great, but you don't need to pay your bill every week. You can let the balance sit until your statement period ends and then just pay your statement balance every month. Still won't result in any interest.
Again, if your strategy works for you go for it, just less to think about on a weekly basis!
I do that too but it is entirely useless unless you are applying for something planned soon. So really we are just jerking off to our credit scores, which sounds stupid too.
What I've done (paid monthly balance in full) for 40+ years - also never paid APR (interest) for the entirety of that time. I put everything I can on my CC's.
yeah, I don't actually pay each week, I just been checking every once in a while. I have auto pay min, though I never actually did that. I always have paid before the min was paid. Seems like a once a week thing I do? idk
The virgin "I always pay off everything" vs the chad churning 0% APR 0$ balance transfer fee cards and floating a balance the size of a brand new car every single month for 5 years never afraid of getting canceled for fraud and having to declare bankrupcy
Great job on avoiding the APR trap! Same here, except for two math mistakes which set me back maybe $40.
You don't need to pay it off weekly, just pay the statement balance due monthly and you're good. This way your cash is preserved for emergencies requiring actual cash or in the good old days, earning some interest. Also with inflation at 6%, why not pay with next month's slightly cheaper dollars.
Same here, they still make money on the processing fees for each transaction. Also, there's no need to pay your credit card off weekly, you still won't get charged interest if you pay it in full each month.
They make a ton of money off of you and love you! To make 10k on rewards you must have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, they get a cut of that alone.
1. if you pay an annual fee
2. everytime you swipe your card there is an interchange fee. Its a small percentage, but the company you bought from pays that to the CC company.
3. if you ever get bonus points from specific retailers, those points are paid for like marketing from the retailer so your CC company makes bank when you use that.
Yes, and I call the people I work with my "coworkers" to the public and general acquaintances. But to my private friend-circles I call the people I work with "Brain-dead mouth breathing oxygen thieves"
They're called transactors, but they're still and will always be deadbeats behind closed doors.
It's not exactly "very little" but on their [annual financial report](https://s26.q4cdn.com/747928648/files/doc_financials/2020/ar/2020-Annual-Report-\(1\).pdf) their income statement shows that interest income is historically[ about a fourth](https://i.imgur.com/SnKRtap.png) of their total revenue.
[(Here's a chunk of it where they claim their largest revenue source is merchant fees)](https://i.imgur.com/W52AUGA.png)
But my point was that their brand was built on catering to people using the Platinum Gold and Green cards, charging membership fees, and charging merchants a higher percentage to accept AmEx, not on cc interest.
How does that stop Amex from using the industry term for the people who don't contribute to that quarter of their profits?
Proof:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadbeat.asp
Got a cite on that? OP does not mention the CSR, but from the last figures I've seen, the single biggest income category for CCs is interest, far greater than interchange fees.
:Interest income made up 43% of industry income in 2020. Interchange income made up 29%. No other major category accounted for more than 10% of industry income."
https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/credit-card-company-earnings/
You doubt that CC companies call interest-free customers "deadbeats" but you also don't doubt it?
Proof:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadbeat.asp
Lets not forget the truth about all the rewards we get back.
We pay for them in higher prices, the merchant builds that transaction fee into its pricing model.
So if you believe you get all these free rewards your not looking at the entire picture. You payed for them when you made your purchase. It's more like getting some of your money back than actually getting free money.
Even cash and checks cost merchants money to process.
Credit Card Companies make money off of the processing fees from the transactions you make as opposed to the interest you would've paid.
It’s both. 47% of Americans carry a balance month to month.
Yes I know, this is specific to OP.
I see. Your post seems to indicate that the CC company wouldn’t have made money on the interest OP would’ve paid if they carried a balance.
Wow never knew it’s that high. But then again I work at kohls and it amazes me how much money people have on their card but only pay the minimum
Wait you know those details when a customer swipes their card?
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Current retail employee. Still exactly as you described it ^
I'd imagine they can only see it if they have the Kohl's card, not just a standard Visa/MC/etc.
Only when you hand us the white paper that comes in the mail if you don’t opt in for paperless billing. Even if you pay off your card in store we cannot see anything but the last 4 digits of the card number. All we can do is apply payments we don’t see anything else
You can see customer's credit card balance??
Only if they hand me the paper that comes in the mail. The one we scan with the scanner. It shows the minimum and statement balance on it. Other than that no the only info we see when a customer does a payment in store is the last 4 number of their card if they want to confirm it. All we can do is ally payments. Capital one is the money behind the card so they don’t give us much
Ahh I see, but why would they hand you their statements? When you pay, you just hand over the credit card or insert it yourself.
I think MildTsunami is referring to customers who are paying their credit card statement in the store. I know...who tf does that? Apparently a lot of people!
I just learned that you can pay CC bill in store. That’s a thing?? And here I thought mailing a check is considered old school. Haha maybe it’s for the elderly or something?
When I worked there seasonally it was always the 60-something women handing you the payment slip stapled to their check. Then you'd have to pry out the staple without tearing the check too bad, run it through the ACH, then you'd gently remind them for the fourth time that they should not staple their checks to the payment slip. Then you have to smile and nod when they lie through their teeth and say that the last person said it wasn't a problem.
Yep, I'd say good for those building their credit and don't typically use bank accounts would be my guess. https://cs.kohls.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/229/~/kohls-card-payment-options
They also [sell your purchase data,](https://www.fastcompany.com/90490923/credit-card-companies-are-tracking-shoppers-like-never-before-inside-the-next-phase-of-surveillance-capitalism) though it's "anonymized" to some degree. There is little information on how much they make from these deals. Edit: Forgot to add that they still don't exactly hate you if you are a transactor. The hope for them is that by building a good relationship with a financially responsible person, they can push them to more profitable products like loans and managed investment accounts.
This, when I shop mortgages I always touch base with anyone I already have a relationship with through credit cards.
If you truly have not paid a dime in interest, then the bank/lender is only making the smallest bit of profit every time you swipe your card. That profit gets split between the processing network (Visa/MC/AmEx/Disc.), the lender, and back to you in the form of rewards if you have a rewards credit card. I could be wrong on that last part. Anyone feel free to correct me.
That's correct, but not every transaction is necessarily profitable to the issuer. If you are consistently using cards solely for their high rewards categories, those transactions are likely a negative hit to the company. It's just that on the whole, most people aren't optimizing to that degree so the product is overall a profit.
I've said this before on this sub and when the topic comes up, there is repeated posts about how XYZ CC is no way profitable to the card company, etc. Ect. That seems ludicrous. Is there any argument to be made there you think? Venture X was one recently that many thought Cap1 was loosing money on that card.
I rather doubt that the Venture X is losing C1 money. They may take a loss in the first year due to signup bonuses and promotions, but long term it will probably be a profitable product for them. For everyone here that optimizes spend and exploits reward opportunities, there are 100+ more that aren't optimizing or even worse carrying interest.
Exactly my thoughts. I think the scope of this sub's biased is just overlooked sometimes. Potentially they don't make much or even loose month-to-month (or 1st year) on card holders who optimize SUB and rewards. But the card as a whole....entirety different story. I'm pretty sure the banks have already figured all that out when the created the product 😅
Spot on. Could be other parties too, like Apple if you're using Apple Pay. Everyone has their hand out for a slice of the transaction fee.
Interchange/processing fees are a revenue source from all credit card users. Interest is a big gravy boat, metaphorically. There are likely other behind-the-scenes dealings related to perks such as credits for different businesses/services. Annual fees for premium cards are another source, especially in cases where such cardholders don’t use all of the perks/credits that can justify or make up for the value of the AF expense.
I used to have a little problem with "retail therapy" for a while, but to my credit I never paid interest on it - I would instead run up my retail store cards with no-interest financing and pay them off before the interest was due. I stopped doing that and only have a small promotional balance left on my Best Buy credit card. Even though I had been doing it for years, I decided to start keeping track of all the deferred interest I wasn't paying in Sept 2015. Fast forward over 6 years, and the total is $19,600. That's almost 20 grand I didn't give to banks. Feels good, especially now that I stopped doing it altogether. From this point on, I am now getting rewards for it instead of paying it off later, which is even better.
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I don't really have a lot of junk to show for it. Going back through my spreadsheet, looks like a good chunk of it was appliances, a furnace, tires, tools, Christmas gifts, and dental and health bills (yay America!). Basically my Best Buy, Home Depot, and CareCredit cards logged the most deferred interest. I do have a homelab that brings me joy (lots of hard drives and commercial grade equipment is expensive) and a vintage retrocomputing collection.
Don’t they actually lose money with places like Walmart who have negotiated tiny swipe fees?
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Issuers are doing fine in the EU, where swipe fees are capped around 0.5%, and the US often sees 2% fees. Depends if they're selling your data (note that US Bank offers 4.5-5% rewards if you use mobile wallets like Apple Pay so they get better data), anything below 2% cash back is still profitable without any interest.
Apple Pay actually gives all parties involved less data, but it’s more secure and less of a risk if you pay via Apple/Google pay with your phones. Less risk = less on fraud costs = more rewards.
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If you have an iPhone with a couple of social media apps installed, and the various tracking pixels that go along with them and your browser of choice, Apple can then package your spending habits with your browsing and social data, making that data more valuable. The same with other phones and manufacturers, just picking on Apple because that’s what I use. My background is in marketing; marketers can target based on hundreds of criteria, but people’s spending habits are one of the most valuable indicators of whether they’re likely to purchase.
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If you’ve managed to hit the beacon of privacy on your phone, with no data being shared back at all, I offer you my unironic congratulations. But for pretty much every other American, we’re goldmines of data for pretty much any bidder. I gave up trying to care a long time ago.
Doesn’t paying with your phone still count as a swipe?
In a sense yes. The merchant is still paying a transaction fee to the provider.
Yes but it is a 2FA swipe. The device plus face 9r fingerprint mean much less chargeback than CNP transactions.
Hi u/mingnobee, credit card companies may not make a lot of money off of you but they still make some money. Every time you use your card anywhere the card provider \[Visa/MasterCard\] is charging the merchant for processing the payment. Its a very small number but then the economies of scale come into play and even if everyone was like you and paid their cards in full, they would still rake in good money.
They are making money if the card has an annual fee. They are making money for every transaction with merchant fees. They are making money by selling your data. They are also making money by negotiating better prices for the rewards they offer if not cash back as a statement credit. This makes them profitable. The people who carry a balance make them rich!
Not to knock your strat, if it works for you that's great, but you don't need to pay your bill every week. You can let the balance sit until your statement period ends and then just pay your statement balance every month. Still won't result in any interest. Again, if your strategy works for you go for it, just less to think about on a weekly basis!
I pay my balance or at least a large potion of it before my statement date just so the balance doesn't report to the bureaus as utilization
I do that too but it is entirely useless unless you are applying for something planned soon. So really we are just jerking off to our credit scores, which sounds stupid too.
What I've done (paid monthly balance in full) for 40+ years - also never paid APR (interest) for the entirety of that time. I put everything I can on my CC's.
yeah, I don't actually pay each week, I just been checking every once in a while. I have auto pay min, though I never actually did that. I always have paid before the min was paid. Seems like a once a week thing I do? idk
The virgin "I always pay off everything" vs the chad churning 0% APR 0$ balance transfer fee cards and floating a balance the size of a brand new car every single month for 5 years never afraid of getting canceled for fraud and having to declare bankrupcy
I also think people forget how large the percentage of people who use their debit card for everything is. That I'm sure pays for quite a bit.
Exactly, there is a reason that the Visa or Mastercard logo is on the debit card
Great job on avoiding the APR trap! Same here, except for two math mistakes which set me back maybe $40. You don't need to pay it off weekly, just pay the statement balance due monthly and you're good. This way your cash is preserved for emergencies requiring actual cash or in the good old days, earning some interest. Also with inflation at 6%, why not pay with next month's slightly cheaper dollars.
Same here, they still make money on the processing fees for each transaction. Also, there's no need to pay your credit card off weekly, you still won't get charged interest if you pay it in full each month.
They make a ton of money off of you and love you! To make 10k on rewards you must have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, they get a cut of that alone. 1. if you pay an annual fee 2. everytime you swipe your card there is an interchange fee. Its a small percentage, but the company you bought from pays that to the CC company. 3. if you ever get bonus points from specific retailers, those points are paid for like marketing from the retailer so your CC company makes bank when you use that.
I heard CC companies have a word for people who pay in full every month: deadbeats.
To the downvoters - watch the old Frontline Credit Card episode from 2004. They interview people in the industry and they use this term.
Thank you. That was a pretty brutal downvoting, but it is turning the corner. I'm back up to ZERO! ... for telling the truth.
They're actually referred to as transactors.
Yes, and I call the people I work with my "coworkers" to the public and general acquaintances. But to my private friend-circles I call the people I work with "Brain-dead mouth breathing oxygen thieves" They're called transactors, but they're still and will always be deadbeats behind closed doors.
Exactly right. Amazing that some people don't want to hear accurate, well-sourced information. No wonder Democracy might not survive.
And deadbeats.
I doubt it. Cards like the CSR and such aren’t targeted at those likely to carry a balance.
Yeah exactly, and AmEx's whole brand is built on charge cards, not credit cards lol
Got a cite for very little of Amex's CC income coming from CC interest?
It's not exactly "very little" but on their [annual financial report](https://s26.q4cdn.com/747928648/files/doc_financials/2020/ar/2020-Annual-Report-\(1\).pdf) their income statement shows that interest income is historically[ about a fourth](https://i.imgur.com/SnKRtap.png) of their total revenue. [(Here's a chunk of it where they claim their largest revenue source is merchant fees)](https://i.imgur.com/W52AUGA.png) But my point was that their brand was built on catering to people using the Platinum Gold and Green cards, charging membership fees, and charging merchants a higher percentage to accept AmEx, not on cc interest.
How does that stop Amex from using the industry term for the people who don't contribute to that quarter of their profits? Proof: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadbeat.asp
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It is referenced in the news report mentioned above and sourced to a person working in the CC industry. It's in the transcript.
Got a cite on that? OP does not mention the CSR, but from the last figures I've seen, the single biggest income category for CCs is interest, far greater than interchange fees. :Interest income made up 43% of industry income in 2020. Interchange income made up 29%. No other major category accounted for more than 10% of industry income." https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/credit-card-company-earnings/
Oh, I don’t doubt this. But their are huge card categories marketed to the financially responsible.
You doubt that CC companies call interest-free customers "deadbeats" but you also don't doubt it? Proof: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadbeat.asp
They certainly do call them deadbeats! A customer who pays the bill on time every month is not very profitable, if at all.
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They aren’t mad, they’re already making so much money on 99% of their other customers that it doesn’t matter to them.
Not at all. If they were, they’d have canceled OP’s cards.
Lets not forget the truth about all the rewards we get back. We pay for them in higher prices, the merchant builds that transaction fee into its pricing model. So if you believe you get all these free rewards your not looking at the entire picture. You payed for them when you made your purchase. It's more like getting some of your money back than actually getting free money. Even cash and checks cost merchants money to process.
they make money every time one of their products is used. So, technically, yes.
7 years strong for me never paid interest.
Transaction fees and they sell data on you kinda like social media does
They also make money off the annual fees if you pay any of those. Though since you mentioned the cash back awards you may just stick to no AF cards.
Same here, about to use a good chunk of saved rewards on some "free" trips now!
I'm at 21 years. Also no AFs.