
Capital One Made Me Different Loan Offers Depending On Which Browser I Used - bensummers
http://consumerist.com/2010/11/capital-one-made-me-different-loan-offers-depending-on-which-browser-i-used.html
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gkoberger
It's either:

    
    
      - A random number each time
      - Normal split testing using a cookie
      - Split testing using the user agent rather than a cookie 
    

The last one would, I suppose, be more consistent than using a cookie- after
all, most people wouldn't switch browsers, but they might clear their cookies.

That being said, a few companies have gotten in hot water for doing this.

Amazon in 2000: <http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-245631.html>

Automattic: [http://brianbreslin.com/automattic-caught-ab-testing-
pricing...](http://brianbreslin.com/automattic-caught-ab-testing-pricing-for-
vaultpress/) (although they admitted up front they were doing this)

[Edited for readability]

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unfasten
I think it's normal split testing using a normal cookie. Here are the rates I
get in Opera (with flash disabled) while clearing cookies between reloads:

    
    
        new   used  refinance
        3.10  4.49  4.34
        3.50  5.09  4.84
        2.70  4.09  3.94
        2.30  3.59  3.54
    

And here's Firefox (with flash enabled) and clearing session cookies between
reloads:

    
    
        new   used  refinance
        2.70  4.09  3.94
        3.10  4.49  4.34
        2.30  3.59  3.54
        3.50  5.09  4.84

~~~
joeyo
ANOVA agrees with you:

    
    
      Source      Sum Sq.   d.f.   Mean Sq.     F      Prob>F 
      -------------------------------------------------------   
      Loan Type    9.6665     2    4.8333     16.47    0.001
      Browser      0          1    0           0       1
      Error        5.8700    20    0.2935
      Total       15.5365    23

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ilamont
Capital One is famous for experimentation and segmentation based on messaging,
response rate, demographic factors, and many other variables. It's how they
came out of nowhere in the early 1990s (the founders were consultants who had
zero banking or credit card experience) to disrupt the industry, most of which
operated on one-size-fits all APRs and risk profiles.

~~~
twitter_v2
Good point ilamont, I wonder if they have a'users vs risk' load balancer built
into the search for the rate. For instance if 100k people tried for the same
rate at the same time, would it randomly change the rate to balance the risk?

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tlb
You also get different loans if you walk into a bank wearing a suit vs. a
hoodie.

~~~
andre3k1
So which browser is the equivalent of a tuxedo? A suit? A hoodie?

I'm not so sure browser choice is an accurate signal of a person's worth (In
this sense, worth could mean anything).

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brianbreslin
I'd say Safari = black turtleneck.... firefox = hoodie....

actually the chrome figure makes sorta sense. chrome is super early adopters,
so likely wealthier purchasers of high-end electronics... dunno completely
pulling this outta my A$$ :-)

~~~
jmreid
You can say ass here. We're all adults.

~~~
jmatt
That's an artifact from a past era. Likely from BBSes, gaming or IRC. I think
it should come off as the equivalent to a dialect that just provides some
insight to the poster. I know when I use it it's usually unintentional and
subconscious. And, of course, there is the implication that if you don't like
swear words then read it as such and don't be offended.

I remember it being used often in moderated fidonet[1] though that may have
been limited to local and regional forums. Also to avoid the swear word
filters on BBS chat in the 80s and very early 90s. And in some MMORPGs for the
same reason circa 2000 to present.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet>

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aresant
Method behind the madness?

-= ComScore study suggests that FireFox users, while more affluent, also tend to skew considerably younger than your average Internet Explorer user

-= Pair that data with the fact that younger people have lower credit scores, and the lower your credit score, the higher your APR.

-= By showing a prospect a loan rate near to what they will qualify for, Capital One is going to close more business, and not waste resources on non-qualified leads.

VIA - [http://conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/11/do-different-web-
br...](http://conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/11/do-different-web-browsers-
bring-different-demographics/)

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whereareyou
About a year ago I got a quote from Geico.com for car insurance. When I got to
the purchase screen, I decided to leave and check prices from other companies.
Then I went back to Geico the second time because it turned out they had the
best price. To my surprise Geico offered a 15% lower rate the second time! I
guess they figured they better wow me to get a conversion the second time
around. Pretty great.

~~~
bigiain
I wonder if they're doing browser history sniffing? If I were an evil-finance-
company-web-developer, I'd certainly consider attempting to find out which of
my competitors websites you've visited recently. Or whether you'd visited any
of their (or my) adwords landing pages. Or (with a fair bit more work) whether
you'd done any of a selection of specific google searches.

I've been playing with it a bit lately, it works pretty reliably in most of
the Firefox 3.6.* browsers, as well as iPhones running 3.1.3 and 4.1, and IE 7
and 8... (Chrome, Safari, and iPads are immune to both the css and javascript
sniffing techniques I've tried, but that's not to say there aren't other
tricks that work for them...)

<http://bigiain.com/csshistorysniffing.html>

(apologies in advance if my cheapo hosting and naive and unoptimised perl/cgi
proof of concept doesn't stand up to hackernews traffic volumes...)

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andre3k1
Just out of curiosity, is there any proof out there that airline companies
discriminate based on browser choice?

My thoughts are that since airline companies are the quintessential example of
price discrimination they would most likely have such a system in place.

~~~
martincmartin
I worked at ITA software for a few years, in the team that wrote the software
that searches for airfares.

The prices of seats and their restrictions are published, and the data format
predates the web (by a large margin). There's no field for "browser type."

Each seat has about a dozen prices, and the only other way the user sees a
price change is by turning a given price on or off. But the protocol that asks
whether a given seat is available doesn't have a "browser type" field either.

When you go to an airline's web site, they could presumably use whatever info
they want. But if they used the browser while travel agents didn't, they'd
either be presenting a lower price than you could get through the agent, or a
higher one. It seems unlikely they'd do that, but I suppose it's possible.

~~~
brianbreslin
so more importantly: how do WE get better prices?

~~~
martincmartin
<http://matrix.itasoftware.com>

That and the flyer talk forums.

~~~
cwp
This! It's especially good when you have flexible dates, or you want to taylor
your search (eg, connect through Dallas rather than Chicago). I've also used
other multi-airline search sites (kayak, hipmunk, orbitz etc), but they never
have the best price available. It's best to narrow it down to a few of the
best options, then go price them directly on the airline's website. It usually
works out significantly cheaper.

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twitter_v2
I would expect this has something to do with the browser and where it indexes
the results (pull this rate from) from to start with. As Firefox can deliver
results from many search engines, I would love to know if Devin knew what
Firefox was searching with at the time, Yahoo/ Bing or Google. If set to
Google this could be a fantastic bench test to see what results are actually
delivered from both browsers connected to Google.

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fragmede
Same goes for Netflix's streaming only rate - it's either $7.99/month or
$8.99/month depending on your browser.

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BillMartin
I built something a while back which used several data sources to build a
scoring profile of the applicant.

The emergent behaviours were rather interesting, anyone with a .pl tld in
their email was several penalised.

The rejection rates for .pl applicants was 100% so the system worked albeit
somewhat racistly.

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notaddicted
What is the right way to gather this info? Our expectation is that the prices
advertised are firm. Is there a way to perform the test without violating
expectations?

Using something like an geographic IP lookup would mitigate but not solve.

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underdown
split testing different offers?

~~~
pavel_lishin
Right, she needs to go back and check the pages again with fresh installs a
few times. It may be more or less random.

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JonSadowski
caponeaf_split=exp1%3DD_exp2%3DD_exp3%3DD_exp4%3DD_exp5%3DD_exp6%3DD_exp7%3DD

Split test cookie

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cshenoy
chrome ftw?

