The moment I figured out my credit card was selling my purchase history to ad companies

I was scrolling through Facebook last week and saw an ad for that exact weird brand of dog shampoo I bought at Petco in Phoenix. Not just dog shampoo, the same brand and scent. That's when it clicked - my credit card company was feeding my transactions to data brokers. I called them up and they admitted they share 'aggregated' data but refused to say who with. Has anyone else noticed creepy targeted ads right after buying something specific?

2 comments

2 Comments

julia_patel4d ago

You called them up and they admitted they share 'aggregated' data" - that part gets me. What exactly does "aggregated" even mean to them? Like are they lumping your transaction in with a bunch of other people's and selling that, or are they just using a fancy word to make it sound less creepy? I had a similar thing happen with my debit card after I bought diapers at Target once. Next day I'm getting ads for baby formula brands I never even searched for. Did they actually tell you if you can opt out of this at all, or is it just buried in the fine print somewhere?

keithbennett4d ago

So does "aggregated" mean they're selling your specific transaction history as part of some bigger dataset, or just saying that to make you feel better about it? Because my credit card company told me the same thing once and then I found out they were selling my entire transaction history to a third party without telling me.