Did you know that your credit cards can do amazing things? Aside from drawing you into crippling debt while forcing you to be part of the vast cycle of economic servitude, credit cards also offer cash-back on purchases, protection on items you buy and refunds! That’s what Sift wants to help you unlock.
“We unlock thousands of dollars’ worth of hidden credit card benefits. Think of credit card benefits like an iceberg — on the surface there are benefits that everybody knows about, like rewards/cash back, but underneath the surface there are all these great benefits that people are unaware of and/or are hard to take advantage of,” said Abhinav Dubey. “We solve both the awareness problem and also streamline the claim process.”
Sift, which recently raised $1.5 from Liquid 2 Ventures, early Mint and Credit Karma investors, Plug and Play ventures, Lodestar Ventures, Band of Angels and Sophia Collier. The money will go toward expanding Sift’s reach with credit card users.
The company has 5,500 users with $4 million in transaction volume and they’ve already processed $200,000 in refunds. They also help unlock price protection, extended warranties and theft/damage/return protection. They want to help educate people about credit cards and ensure that their cards are being used to their fullest potential.
“While at Nokia my co-founders and I worked on a project we nicknamed ‘project honeymoon’ about how to improve the post-purchase experience,” said Dubey. “We realized that although this was a critical touch point for the consumer it was completely broken. We then studied the market to see where to start and concluded that credit cards have a ton of amazing post-purchase benefits that nobody takes advantage of and made that our starting point!”
While most of us think we know what our credit cards feature, 85 percent of credit cards have hidden features most people never use, an important if startling statistic. Anything that can help “sift” out those secrets is a welcome addition to our wallets.