Amazon and Wells Fargo part ways on private student loan deal | Hacker News Reader

Amazon and Wells Fargo part ways on private student loan deal

washingtonpost.com

36 pointse15ctr0n7 comments

Anyone a little suspicious about the bias of this report given that it's owned by Jeff Bezos? Not to say it's untrue, but I wonder how much of it is spun to favor one side.

Meh, I assume that's simply an easy way to get it published. They could send it to other papers, where it might get printed or rejected, but why bother?

Also, do you really think that a journalist at another paper would get this and fact-check, proofread, or even rewrite it? No, they'd just print it as-is:

> The main reason PR firms exist is that reporters are lazy. Or, to put it more nicely, overworked. Really they ought to be out there digging up stories for themselves. But it's so tempting to sit in their offices and let PR firms bring the stories to them. After all, they know good PR firms won't lie to them.

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

It does seem odd that they don't disclose that. That's sort of journalism 101.

It discloses it right under paragraph three:

> (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Was the deal incumbent upon Amazon data-mining the purchases of the student or some other kind of behavioral data, that is not evident in normal loan generation. Having insight into some ones purchase history tells a lot about that person. Probably they ran into some kind of privacy problems.

Amazon concurred with the CFPB and now their stock is up after they broke ties with Wells Fargo. Why doesn't anyone see the break between Wells Fargo and Amazon is partly because of the CFPB's August order against Wells Fargo.

Amazon is smart, don't upset their future clients by partnering with a bank that takes advantage of customers. I love Amazon and the worth to their customers is not just the products they offer but the experience of customer care Amazon affords the common person. Wells Fargo's student loan debacle is just the start of uncovering the deluge of indiscretions.

Wells Fargo needs some new horses to pull the aging stagecoach. My story might cause the stagecoach to lose a wheel.

Don't be afraid, Believe. WFHurtMe.com

Could it be that someone realized it's too easy to game that system? For Amazon this is wonderful because it encourages people to vote. For Wells Fargo, maybe Prime membership is a useful indicator of a lower risk borrower, but it's pretty easy to become a member, making this easy to game (unless we assume foolishly that they're lower risk specifically because of the prime)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com