Why Robinhood Gold Credit Card is a Scam
I received an email from Robinhood saying:
Your Gold Card is Here!– The Robinhood Team
Your offer expires after 14 days and will no longer be considered after
Note that I was traveling internationally, and I only had 14 days to accept the offer.
First thing they tell you is that “There will be a soft pull on your credit report”, but then hidden in the terms is that there will be a hard pull once you accept it. Why not say this upfront and hide it as a soft pull?
I got approved for a $15,000 credit card. Nice. I have a similar Apple Card and I use it daily all over the world.
Second, they ask for your address. They don’t accept anything that looks like a PO BOX, even for shipping purposes. Why? Who knows. Again, remember I’m traveling, I provided my residential address in the first step, and now for shipping purposes I prefer to use my PO BOX. But no, they want you to ask a friend to go take the credit card from your house when you’re traveling.
Third thing is, they tell you you need to subscribe to Robinhood Gold to get this card. Well, why didn’t you say this before doing a hard pull on my credit report? And why is there no rejection option? What if I now want to cancel the whole thing? I have to accept a $50/yr subscription that I don’t even want and am not going to use, and it has to be charged on the new card? WHY??
Well, I begrudgingly accept that. Lets see what else you have to offer.
Fourth, they tell you you need to download a new app to use the card. Well heck, why didn’t you do this whole process in the new app then? If I knew that, I wouldn’t even bother, let alone get charged $50 and a hard inquiry on my credit!
Now I try to download that app, it says not available in my region (remember, I’m traveling). Now I have to cancel all my iSubscriptions, change my Apple ID’s region back to the US, fill another dozen forms, and NOW I can finally download the app.
Fifth, I download the app, then open it, and BAM, it asks for ID verification. I absolutely abhor automated ID verification, and if I knew this is a requirement, I wouldn’t even begin with it. There is no skip button. There is no custom button. There is no mention of ID verification in the terms or anywhere, but you can’t access the app without doing it.
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So I contact their support. They tell me that I’m not interested in ID verification. They say that it is required, and my account will be put on hold otherwise. I tell them I do not have any account since I cannot access anything. They say sorry that I want to close the account, I need to provide my ID to do that. I remind them of the context of the conversation. They note that yes, they can close the account (which I never asked for, but no other options apparently) but I need to pay the $50 Gold membership fee and then cancel it for future renewals. I tell them that since I do not have access to the account, I’d like them to dispute all charges on it, because I DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO IT, and then close it. They send me a link to do it myself!
And that’s basically their support for you.
Clearly this is a push from corporate greedlords to get the product rolling, by hiding all the hinderances and roadblocks behind sunk-cost steps, just to get as many users as they can.
Now I got a $50 charge, a non-accessible credit card, and a hard inquiry on my credit report, just for clicking their clickbait email.