Tag: credit-cards
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Credit Card Customer Profiling and the Luhn Algorithm
From a Q&A with a VISA fraud prevention agent on reddit: Some years ago, someone wrote a paper claiming he could get the age, gender and race only from the credit card purchase history. It worked very well. Today, with your full purchase information, we can even “guess” your income range, number of dependants and…
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The Irrational Use of Credit Cards
Our irrationality toward money and inability to fully visualise the impact of distant events is how credit card companies thrive and many bank balances suffer. That’s the conclusion one draws after reading this article from Time that looks at a number of studies showing that we fail miserably in making logical decisions about money when…
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Consumer Profiling and Credit Card Data Mining
I’ve always loved reading and learning about data mining and its applications in various fields. Because of this, Charles Duhigg’s comprehensive look at the consumer profiling practices of credit card companies was my favourite read over the weekend. [Researchers] emphasized that the biggest profits didn’t come from people who always paid off their bills but rather…
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Psychology of Credit Card Minimum Instalments
New research finds that the ‘recommended minimum instalment’ suggestions on credit card statements are more influential than previously thought: Mr. Stewart presented 413 people with mock credit-card bills of £435.76 (about $650) that were identical — except that only half mentioned a minimum payment of £5.42. Participants were asked how much they would pay. Among…