Applying for a Tangerine Bank Mastercard Credit Card

Have you thought about applying for a Tangerine Bank Mastercard credit card? A Tangerine credit card wasn’t really on my radar, even though they’ve been bugging me for years to get their Mastercard.

Do I really need another credit card that I’ll barely use?

Who is Tangerine Bank?

Are you wondering who is Tangerine Bank? And why would a bank name themselves after a fruit?

Why not Apple Bank? Or Banana Bank? Or Coconut Bank?

It’s not like tangerines are a big money crop in Canada like they are in California and Florida.

Weird.

I opened an account with ING Bank over 20 years ago. In 2012, Scotiabank took over and changed the name to Tangerine, because citrus fruits are a big money making crop in Nova Scotia. Ha ha!

Click here to read my review of Tangerine Bank.

Generally speaking I recommend Canadians to open an account at EQ Bank if they’re looking for an online bank. Their interest rates are better than Tangerine, the log in process is WAY easier, and EQ is a lot less hassle than dealing with Tangerine.

Tangerine Bank Credit Card

I’ve mentioned being annoyed by Tangerine many times over the years that I’ve been pre-approved for their credit card. I think they started bugging me with an $8,000 limit or $11,000, or maybe both. They keep upping the credit limit every time I get the offer.

I couldn’t even tell what type of credit card Tangerine has. Is it a Mastercard or a Visa? That helpful information was missing from their propaganda.

A couple of years ago when I wrote Is taking an RSP Loan from Tangerine a Good Idea, I mentioned the current offer was enticing me with a $14,000 credit limit.

Not interested. I have a couple of credit cards with higher credit limits than that. And I don’t use my credit cards that much. Mostly for travel and online shopping.

The next Tangerine pre-approved credit card came with a credit limit of $20,000.

Hmmm. Better. But still no sale.

Spend $5,000 in 3 months?

In February, 2020, Tangerine sent me an offer for a pre-approved credit card with a $24,000 limit.

And if I spent $5,000 on the credit card in the first three months, I’d get $250 back.

It annoyed me enough that I took a screen shot of it. This will reel in people who can’t control their spending to rack up $5,000 on the credit card just to get $250 back.

You can’t “save” if your sole purpose is to spend!

This is how people end up in debt. By collecting points to exchange for products or cash back.

It’s how they justify their spending.

Pissed off at my credit cards

Credit cards.

A dangerous evil for so many people.

Temptation. The cause of debt. A life sentence of repayment.

It’s hard to live with credit cards. And it’s hard to live without them.

I’ve had a TD Bank Visa for a long time, but I’m leery of using it. That’s because I was a victim of a rogue TD Bank employee. 30 years ago when I got the card my credit limit was $5,000. Today my limit is $8,800, where it’s been for more than 25 years, even though TD keeps telling me I’m approved for a higher limit. I won’t let them increase it, no matter how much they badger me.

I applied for a Fido Mastercard a couple of years ago because it has a good rate for traveling. It’s got my lowest credit limit of $4,000. Due to the pandemic, travel has been on hold. I get the occasional email saying they miss me and begging me to use my Mastercard again.

The Fido Mastercard is issued by Rogers Bank and their log in pisses me off. It keeps telling me I’m logging in from a new location and they’re sending me a text with an access code. I’ve lived in the same place for nearly seven years now. I have the same Internet provider for over 20 years. My laptop is four years old. There’s nothing “new” going on here. In fact, the “newest” thing going on here is the Rogers Bank Fido Mastercard.

And what about ass wipe Envision Financial’s Mastercard? Dealing with their Collabria Mastercard is frustrating and I refuse to use it until they do the right thing and reverse a chargeback from the summer of 2020, of around $60.

Time for a new credit card?

It’s getting to the point where I’m running out of credit cards to use! Well, at least my highest limit card isn’t pissing me off!

In early October, 2021, I received another email from Tangerine Bank enticing me to take their credit card. This time my pre-approved limit is $25,000.

Hmmm….

Is it time for me to apply for a Tangerine Bank Mastercard credit card?

And look at the screen print I captured below. Tangerine credit card is still using that same crapola about save as you spend. Yawn. Isn’t about time for a new marketing slogan?

I can earn cash back $150 if I spend $1,000 during the first two months. That’s a much better deal than spending $5,000 smackers just to get back $250.

Let’s see. I’ve been thinking I need a new laptop catching the sales around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I have over $700 saved for one, so I have the cash. I can use a credit card to buy a new lap top and pay it off right away. So I’d be well on my way to earning that $150.

Let’s see what the small print says.

Ouch!

It looks like my “pre-approved” credit card with a $25,000 credit limit isn’t so “pre-approved” after all if I have to go through a credit check. Wow! I thought a “pre-approved” credit card meant that step was skipped. And Tangerine can still change the credit limit or withdraw the offer.

My skeptical spidey senses are tingling, but I am considering this. Remember I’m pissed off at most of my other credit cards and not using them.

I have until the end of October to think about Tangerine Bank’s latest offer.

Is Tangerine Bank screwing with me?

The small print on the Tangerine Bank’s credit card suggests they might be screwing with me. The old bait and switch scam? If I apply for their Mastercard, they can still rescind and give me a much lower limit than the promised $25,000.

I decide the process of applying for a Tangerine Bank credit card might be a good blog post topic.

According to the email Tangerine Bank sent me, it’s easy to apply for my pre-approved credit card.

It looks like the biggest hurdle is actually logging into Tangerine. I’ve talked about this in past blog posts the high level of difficulty it is to log into Tangerine Bank. It’s the worst of any banking website I deal with.

Review of Tangerine Bank

Is taking an RSP Loan from Tangerine Bank a Good Idea?

Is it easy to apply for a Tangerine Bank credit card?

After thinking about it for a couple of weeks, I click the button on the email and get to the log in page at Tangerine Bank. This bank’s log in feature is the worst piece of shit I’ve ever dealt with because it suffers from amnesia. Even though I click the “remember me” box everytime I log in, Tangerine Bank always forgets and I have to log in every time. Which means I have to hunt down my account number. My password I have memorized, it’s just my account name Tangerine forgets. This process can take several minutes up to about half an hour just to log on.

In this case, it took me just under five minutes to log on to Tangerine Bank to claim my credit card. And yes, part of that time was me trundling off to my files to ONCE AGAIN to get my account number just so I can log in. Even though I’d last logged in to Tangerine about five weeks earlier.

Then it took me a few more minutes to find this “Insights” thing because Tangerine bounced me around to other pages it wanted me to look at first. But once I found “Insights” there was a link to apply for my pre-approved Tangerine Bank Mastercard.

Then there was an application process much like applying anywhere else online for a credit card. So they are going to run a credit check.

Am I done?

I thought I was done with the application process. I’d answered a few questions and then I landed on a page about opening my new account.

Well, I’m not opening up another account at Tangerine so I clicked on the button that said “done” or “close”, I don’t actually recall what it said.

But then I got a warning message asking if I really wanted to discard my application. So I decided to click on the open a new account link to see what would happen.

It landed me on a page that continued with the application process for the Tangerine Bank credit card. So that was pretty confusing.

I thought the “open a new account” meant just that. You know, open a new checking or savings account. But no, apparently at Tangerine it means opening up a credit card account.

Once I was really done, I got a message that said I’d been approved for the Tangerine Bank Mastercard with the $25,000 limit and I also got an email right away that said the same thing.

Easy?

Was it as easy to apply for the Tangerine Bank credit card as they led me to believe?

No!

If I’m getting a pre-approved credit card, I expect the link I click on to take me to the application page to fill out a few things. And then I click submit and I get what I’m promised.

I shouldn’t have to be wondering about the wording on “open a new account” actually means Tangerine is referring to their credit card and not a new savings account.

Although not overly difficult, it took about 15 minutes minutes to apply for a Tangerine Bank Mastercard.

On a scale of 10 on the easy meter on applying for a Tangerine Bank Mastercard credit card, I’ll give the application process a 6.

My new Tangerine Bank credit card arrives

Twelve days after applying for a Tangerine Bank Mastercard credit card, it arrived in the mail.

Then it sat on my table for about two weeks before I decided to activate the card.

Now here’s another problem when activating the new credit card. It wants you to log on to Tangerine Bank – which is always an exercise in frustration – to activate the new card. I’ve got better things to do with my time than spending up to half an hour trying to log on.

So I waited a few more days and looked at the information that came with the Tangerine Mastercard. The information is well hidden, but there is an option to phone in and activate the credit card and choose a PIN.

Whew!

So I went that route. It was probably faster by phone to do this than try to log on to Tangerine Bank’s website. It was an automated phone system and it went well.

Does the Tangerine Bank credit card actually work?

It took me a couple more weeks before I made an online purchase and decided to do a trial run with the Tangerine Bank Mastercard.

There was a 30% off sale on Purica supplements at Vitamart so a good time to stock up on what I give my horse and dog. While I was on the check out page, a pop up box came up that said Tangerine was texting me a code that I’d have to enter before continuing with my purchase.

OK. That was kind of weird. I’ve bought lots of stuff from Vitamart over the years and I’ve never had that security option happen before.

That took a few seconds.

I suppose that’s a good feature.

However …

The next day I made a small donation to a charity and I also bought some items from another website and neither time did I get a pop up box that Tangerine Bank was sending me a security code.

So I’m unsure if that’s an extra security measure Vitamart now does, or if it was only coincidental because it was the first time I’m using the Tangerine Bank Mastercard.

Credit card statement?

The only thing I’m unsure of is how I’ll be getting my Tangerine Bank credit card statement.

Do I have to log on to their website – YIKES! – in order to view it. Or will they send me an email? I doubt Tangerine mails statements because they’re a paperless business.