The Apple Card’s rapid growth caused Apple partner Goldman Sachs to struggle with handling customer service issues for the fledgling credit card, says a new report from CNBC.
The issues covered in the CNBC report have in part led to an investigation of the financial firm by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Goldman Sachs was hit by more disputed transactions than it had expected, thanks to customers seeking chargebacks for products and services. Chargebacks occur when a customer seeks a refund for a product or service billed on their card for any of a number of reasons. such disputes have surged during the pandemic, say payments consultants.
Goldman Sachs was unprepared for the long queues that needed to be cleared. The company lacked a streamlined process in place for resolving customer complaints.
The bank hadn’t initially accounted for what insiders deemed “edge cases,” or situations that break from the norm among the vast majority of transactions, they said.
“We were making the case that we have a seamless way to dispute transactions,” the source said. “But we got no credit for the front end, and we had some failures on the back end.”
Goldman Sachs is still relatively new to the U.S. credit card industry, and the Apple Card represented its biggest step yet into the financial lives of ordinary Americans.
The CFPB is now examining how Goldman Sachs handled customer refunds, billing error resolution, attempted chargebacks, reporting to credit bureaus, and more.
