Consumer complaint received 2022-04-13
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement — Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement
Company: GOLDMAN SACHS BANK USA (CO)

This complaint relates to the Apple Card, managed by Goldman Sachs, and stems from a sequence of purchases made the iOS version of XXXX XXXX by XXXX. Goldman Sachs has made it unreasonably difficult to submit, process, and appeal such claims, has failed to provide written documentation supporting their decisions in reviewing purchase dispute ( as required by federal law ), and has given me few opportunities if any to provide information relevant to their investigation. 

The purchases in question were made in the arcade-style game " XXXX XXXX XXXX' , which has historically been plagued by software bugs. One longstanding such bug was that sometimes no in-game resources would be delivered to the user upon purchase, but the credit card would nonetheless be charged. It is worth noting that all items in this game can be acquired over time without payment, so the sole benefit of making purchases is to acquire in-game resources quickly ; additionally, XXXX XXXX has numerous bugs and its Customer Support is often slow or too busy to respond to everyone, and when I finally explained the issue, they said that it was not within their power to reverse the charge and that I should contact my credit card company, and that XXXX XXXX would endeavor to assist in the processing of the return ( which may or may not have transpired ). 

Because of these factors, on numerous ( >10 ) occasions, when I made a purchase in XXXX XXXX I neither received the items I intended to purchase, nor did I receive a notification that my card had been charged ( such a notification is usually immediate ). After waiting a few minutes, I reasonably assumed that no purchase had occurred, and tried again. In most ( possibly all ) cases, I received the desired resources with the second purchase, and I would receive notifications that both purchases had processed from the XXXX XXXX. But I only intended to make one purchase, and only received the purchase items once. In one case, I was charged twice for " unlocking '' an item... an action that can only happen once. 

Goldman Sachs makes it extremely difficult to remedy these duplicate charges ( note that I did not want to make XXXX purchases and that I had reason to believe that no purchase had occurred when I retried the purchase in the game ). For the first few months I had the Apple Card, " duplicate charge '' was not even a default option when disputing a purchase, despite this being one of the more likely possibilities ( especially for a card associated with the App Store ), and despite the fact that other credit card companies actively check for duplicate charges on behalf of their customers ( e.g., XXXX  XXXX ). Without a default dispute option, I was forced to go through Customer Service. I believe " duplicate charge '' is now a dispute option, but as far as I know, there is still no option to supply supporting information when making such a dispute, leading to senseless denials of the claims ( there is also no option to appeal claims nor to submit supporting information after the initial decision ). Essentially, Goldman Sachs ' attitude toward dispute resolution is to take various performative bureaucratic steps to give the appearance of compliance with federal law and then deny claims outright, as I will describe. 

Apple Card customers can basically only initiate interactions with customer support through the XXXX XXXX application on their phones, which may itself violate federal law on communications between creditors and their customers. Then, any dispute is first routed through XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, who are unable/unwilling to assist with these and related matters, before the customer is directed to Goldman Sachs . If the customer is unable to provide all information to the Customer Service representative sufficiently quickly, their messaging session with the representative expires, and they must repeat the process of supplying information to a new representative, which often involves copying and pasting receipts, dates, transaction IDs, etc. This process has wasted many hours of my time, and seems designed to discourage users like myself from submitting claims at all, or delay the process until applicable deadlines ( set out by federal law ) have passed. These obstacles are especially burdensome to me owing to mental health issues, which are protected by the ADA. 

Eventually, Goldman Sachs Customer Service representatives initiated disputes on my behalf. In some early cases, these disputes were resolved in my favor. In many cases, they were resolved in favor of XXXX XXXX, with the stated reason being that I had, in fact, made the purchase. Obviously, I knew I had technically made the purchase, but I never meant to, and I had every reason to believe that I hadn't. But at no point in the dispute review process did I have the opportunity to mention any of this ( more recently I have discovered I was asked to provide supplementary information to assist in a much later dispute, however this request was sent to the email associated with my Apple ID, which I rarely check, rather than via iMessage, where the dispute originated ; I was also given a hard deadline of 5 days for no discernible reason, after which my dispute was rejected ). In fact, I never had the opportunity to mention any additional information to anyone who investigated the majority of these claims ( only to the Customer Service representative who submitted the claim on my behalf, without my having the opportunity to review its contents ). 

On one occasion, I managed to initiate nearly a dozen disputes all at once ; after complaining about my previous disputes not being investigated, roughly the first half of these disputes were resolved within 48 hours ( from the submission of the complaints to close of business on Friday ). ALL of these were resolved in my favor. The following Monday when business resumed, all remaining disputes were instantly resolved, and NONE in my favor. It appears that a new person had resumed processing my disputes and decided to reject all of them without serious consideration. I assume this is Goldman Sach 's policy. 

I have since requested all documentation appertaining these investigations ( in writing ), but have received nothing. It has been more than a month ( probably more than two ) since this request. 

I should also note that I have other purchases to dispute related to this game ( XXXX XXXX by XXXX ), which has ( through software glitches, fraudulent claims, and general deceit ) removed in-game resources from my account whose dollar value vastly exceeds all my purchases combined. Numerous purchased items have been removed from the game entirely without any offer of a refund, others were bought based on false information ( i.e., I never got the item I was led to believe I was purchasing ), and the game constantly downgrades ships and strengthens enemies, effectively nullifying all purchases. But if Goldman Sachs won't even refund my duplicate purchase, then how can I trust them to investigate the aforementioned claims honestly and fairly? Note that I have also raised these issues with the Apple App store and with the Federal Trade Commission, neither of whom have taken these matters seriously, despite the fact that tens of thousands of Americans may be affected by this predatory game alone. 

From what I can tell, XXXX and XXXX XXXX have a manifest conflict of interest in adjudicating claims about purchases made from the XXXX XXXX and through applications available therefrom. Certainly Apple and Goldman Sachs have financial entanglements, and it seems increasingly likely that Goldman Sachs ' dispute resolution policy is biased against its own users ( likely in violation of its own user agreement and/or federal law ), since refunding purchases would decrease Apple 's revenue from the Apple App Store. Goldman Sachs also fails to compete with the consumer-protection services afforded by many other credit cards, and their policies are opaque and their customer support all but inaccessible. All of this seems to be " by design '' to make it as difficult as possible for Apple users to dispute purchases where Apple has a financial stake. 

Goldman Sachs needs to clarify their policies, make it easier for consumers to dispute claims, and remove any bias or appearance thereof in their dispute resolution process. Apple should not be allowed to influence the dispute resolution process in any way, and any financial complications or interests that could influence this process must be eliminated. The entire gaming industry needs to be reigned in as well, and the CFPB could help by making it clear that credit card companies will not be allowed to engage in these predatory practices to gouge consumers of their hard-earned income.