Credit card company rejects customers with too-good credit scores

My wife has incredible credit and pays her full bill every month. A few months ago her full payment was received 1 day after the due date, so she got pinged $15 for not paying the minimum. When she called to see if they would reverse the charge, the customer service rep rudely told her no and wouldn't budge. When my wife threatened to cancel the card, the rep happily obliged. She tearfully asked me why they would be so unforgiving to her after all her diligent payments. The truth is that by being one of their most responsible customers she became one of their least valuable customers. Very irritating.

Mid-tier universities do this all the time too by rejecting students they know won't matriculate (or will matriculate and transfer in 2 years).

I understand how credit card companies would prefer people who rack up fees and interest. What I do not understand is why one of these companies would get in bed with a retail operation to offer a store card.<p>Logically people who finance items at a store like Gander Mountain are going to be a cross-section of American society. Not all of them will fit any one, perfect profile, not all will be particularly good or poor credit risks. Nevertheless, the store is going to want its credit partner to extend credit to as many of them as possible.<p>Conflict is inevitable if one party goes into the deal with the wrong idea.

Am I accurate that the CC industry calls those who pay their bills off in full each month, "deadbeats"?

Good customers are the ones who pay the minimum

Companies have the right to pick whoever they want to lend money to, for any reason except legally rejected ones.<p>Part of the unexpected side effects of credit card reform is that when you reduce the profits of certain classes of customers, this causes the companies to not be able to carry the less profitable loss leaders, so companies start cherry picking the best customers.<p>It's like how 80-90% of a banks customers make it no money at all. They are all loss leaders. They make their money on a very small percentage of the customers.

Do responsible customers actually cost the credit card companies money or do they just not bring in any revenue to speak of?