Do Firefox Users Pay More For Car Loans?

RandyOo writes "Someone wrote in to The Consumerist to report an interesting discovery: while shopping online for a car loan, Capital One offered him different rates, depending on the browser he used! Firefox yielded the highest rate at 3.5%, Opera took second place with 3.1%, Safari was only 2.7%, and finally, Google's Chrome browser afforded him the best rate of all: 2.3%! A commenter on the article claims to have been previously employed by Capital One, and writes: If you model the risk and revenue of applicants, the type of browser shows up as a significant variable. Browsers do predict an account's performance to some degree, and it will affect the rates you will view. It isn't a marketing test. I was still a bit dubious, but at least one of her previous comments backs up her claims to have worked for a credit card company. Considering the outcry after it was discovered that Amazon was experimenting with variable pricing a few years back, it seems surprising that consumers would be punished (or rewarded), based solely on the browser they happen to be using at the time!"

Comments

I wonder

[amundb]

What the interest rate for IE was?

Re:I wonder

[kenrblan]

I would expect it to be higher because there is a good chance the person using IE is doing so on a computer at work without any other option. Thus, they can afford to be screwed since they have a job. The other case is that they are oblivious to danger and can be easily lead, making them an excellent mark.

Note: I am not saying these are my personal beliefs on the matter, just the possible reasoning in play.

Re:I wonder

[91degrees]

Insurance companies don't worry themselves about indirct causation. They're just concerned with established correlation. If they find that statistically 5'6" tall people are a better credit risk than 6'2" then they'll ask for your height when you apply.

A curious aspect of this is that by adding my mother to my car insurance, my premium went down, even though my usage of the car isn't going to change and the risk remains the same, because statistically men who have a woman on their insurance are less likely to have an accident.

Re:I wonder

[vux984]

I'd be slightly surprised if the actual rate *you* would be offered for an actual loan changed. It's too easy to use another browser.

I wouldn't be. I applied for a mortgage once at the bank i usually deal with, thought i could do better, and hired a mortgage broker to find me a good deal... ended up going with my original bank, through the broker, at a better rate. Apparently, I'm a better risk for having for having used a broker.

Re:IE6

[Anonymous Coward]

What rate did they offer for IE6?

Surely that must be good indicator for negligent behaviour?

Actually, since the bulk of people still on IE6 are locked-in due to corporate policy, you could just as easily assume they'd be shown the lowest rate, as they're likely to have a stable, corporate job.

Its the USERAGENT string

[RichMan]

Here is a comment from the article. I have not tested this.

bearymore::: ""Wow! I have a Firefox addon which spoofs the user agent. When I go to Capitalone with the default Firefox as the user agent I get 3.50%. When set the addon to tell Capitalone I'm using Internet Explorer, I get 2.70%. When I switch back to Firefox, I get 3.50% again. Keep in mind, I'm using the same browser and simply opening the site in different tabs""

So either deliberate or incredibly bad coding for a financial site.

Re:Its the USERAGENT string

[kimvette]

Well years ago I used to have progressive. I left them when I moved to People's Republik of Taxachusetts. I drove a ZR-1 which was considered a "Symbol 26" (highest risk) car and paid about $1400/yr for full coverage with a low deductible. (The car is no longer registered - not registering it again until I get the body fully restored and the LT-5 pulled and repainted. GM paint sucks ass!)

I've since driven trucks daily (cheap to insure) and now a Saab is my daily driver. Despite it being ranked as the safest car in its class. being extremely difficult to steal because of three separate anti-theft computers in it, and the fact that normally-resalable components need to be "divorced" from the car with a Tech 2 before installing and "marrying" it to another car, the turbocharger results in high insurance. I have zero violations and my rate was $1,260 per year last year (that was with a high deductible). Well, this year (with no violations and the only times I get pulled over is when I pull out of my office in the wee hours of the morning - police just checking to make sure I was authorised to be there) Progressive jacked my rate up to $1,900. I called them and asked them if the $700 increase was including the safe driver and repeat customer discounts. It was. When I pressed further about the increase, they admitted they jacked up rates across the board to increase profits.

Riiight. Alienate safe drivers and pushing them to the competition boost profits. Gotcha.

Well, I got on the phone with Geico - WITH the same coverage and a lower deductible I saved 42%. I decided to increase my coverage (and add a rider that would pay the difference betweeen book and a new car) and am still paying only slightly more with Geico than I did last year with Progressive. Progressive can kiss my ass.

So YMMV, batteries not included, etc.

You do have a point about going to an agent though. I have a friend who buys new Corvettes every few years and goes straight to the tuner for a custom tune, Corsa exhaust, and uninstall the black box and onstar and other insidious "features" and he has incurred speeding tickets. He has so many policies that when he gets violations he just goes to his agent and his agent reverses the surcharges before they even show up on the bill.

The last time I used an agent though, it was a bad experience. Someone actually backed into my ZR-1; I was parked on the last spot next to the grass at my old office space, and the duallie wheel tracks were clearly visible on the grass. I called my agent and they told me to call the insurance company. I called the insurance company, and they told me to call the agent (the insurance company was Arbella). I didn't have time to pursue the matter so I got disgusted and parked the car, and didn't have the funds to put it in a shop that will do the job right (my $$$ is tied up in investments). Grrrrr. I frigging hate insurance companies.

Re:Oh, come on

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, I work on Wall St with a whole bunch of multimillionaires, they all use IE. I would say IE is kind of like the Republican Party, it owns the upper and lower classes, but very little of the middle class.

JavaScript

[Lumbre]

Just turn JavaScript off and you'll get the higher 3.50% every time ...

Seems like something's up with their variables; A different cg variable causes a different rate for the same zip code.

This calls for a ...

[contra_mundi]

This calls for a Firefox add-on or greasemonkey script that will take such pages, request the pages with different user-agents, and compare the resulting pages for differences. If the only difference is a single numerical value, it should be easy enough to catch. And then print it to the user in a neat table or graph.

Re:IE6

[arivanov]

Next thing you will get a visit from the fraud squad.

Same as the guy which used Lynx to donate to a charity campaign in the UK a few years back.

The "security pros" providing security solutions t the donation site decided that it is being hacked (well, he did play a bit with various URLs to get past some particularly stupid javascript based submit code).

Re:Oh, come on

[SQLGuru]

I would guess that IE trends higher is the less tech savvy regardless of income or education. It's those with tech knowledge that deviate from it (not in all cases, but the majority).

Re:Damn

[aliquis]

Just Google for it, clearly Google search robots must get the best rates so that more people will follow the links.

From an (ex) Capital One employee

[Anonymous Coward]

I just spoke to my wife, who spent 10 years working for Capital One at their corporate headquarters in Richmond (*). When I mentioned the gist of the story to her, her response was "I believe it", which actually floored me as I am always telling her about various conspiracy stories I see online. She immediately offered up that they use various bits of financial information to determine what % interest rate you would be charged and suggested that the Safari users would be seen as having more money (as Mac owners) and hence a lower risk.

(*) As an aside, if you haven't been to the Capital One campus in Richmond then you are missing out. The selection of restaurants is amazing. They have outdoor basketball and volleyball courts. And they even have a frickin' treehouse where you can go and sit outside with your laptop and do your work via Wi-Fi. The downside is that corporate doesn't instill loyalty as pretty well everyone in Richmond either knows someone who was downsized from Capital One, or is downsized themselves.

The only better work conditions nearby would be CarMax, which for their staff they don't offer fixed length vacations. You get to choose how long you take off each year - they assume that if you are professional enough to do your job that you are professional enough to know when your job is done!

This is true

[Anonymous Coward]

This is indeed true. I've experienced it this past September. However, I think it is not just based on browser, but also based on geographic location. I checked their site from my home PC with Firefox (east coast state), and to be a bit safer, I VPNed in to my office with my work laptop, still using Firefox, to actually fill out the application. To my surprise, the rate was higher (the exit node to the Internet is a north, central US state for the corporation). I called my wife in to the room to show here two computers, both on Capital One's auto loan home page, showing her the two different "as low as" rates on the page. I'm glad I didn't go with them for the auto load - seedy bastards.

Same thing with Verisign / SSL purchases?!?

[tweakr]

I recently noticed the same type of happening when I was shopping for a Verisign SSL cert (clients *sighs* don't get me started on why). When I use Safari or Firefox, the price for a 1-year "Secure Site" SSL cert (with site seal) is $499 - however, when I switch to Chrome or IE8, I get a price of $399. I only had to buy the one, and so wrote it off as a fluke - but I just re-verified that this is still happening for me (tested on both Mac and Windows), given the news on this article.

This smacks me as being seriously wrong - now I have to test all browsers when buying something online, to be sure I'm getting the right price? And no, I'm not going to change my default browser habits, just to get lower pricing...

I tested

[ricosalomar]

Tests with car loans:
IE 8: 3.10%
FF 3: 2.30%
Chrome: 3.50%

Vista Print does it too

[Anonymous Coward]

Variable pricing based on browser is not unusual. Vista Print always give me different prices on their promotions based on which browser I use.