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

Re:Repeat after me

[MyLongNickName]

That is a valid point. However, the OP's "correlation is not causation" is not a valid point. I just get so freaking tired of the Pavlovian response...

And you can run the same experiment on your own PC and determine if the findings are true or not.

Re:STATISTICS!

[T Murphy]

Best. Post. Ever.
Why? You actually used "couldn't care less" properly, something I haven't seen in who knows how long.

Re:Repeat after me

[circletimessquare]

only an idiot finds it necessary to make note of the obvious. and the idea that "correlation is not causation" is only a remarkable revelation to an idiot

if you are in a roomful of moderately intelligent adults talking about the weather, no one needs to say "condensation causes clouds". if someone were to say this, they would immediately be labeling themselves as a fourth grader

so i suppose saying "correlation is not causation" is of value if the average slashdot reader is a 12 year old. but otherwise, making note of correlation not being causation in a conversation such as this thread is of no value whatsoever, other than conveniently labelling yourself for everyone else's sake as the idiot in the room