Amazon: Visa credit cards will not be accepted, starting 19 Jan, 2022

Finance & Banking Finance & Banking: In The News
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I’ve just received an email from Amazon:

We’re writing to notify you of an upcoming change to Amazon.co.uk.

Starting 19 January, 2022, we will unfortunately no longer accept Visa credit cards issued in the UK, due to the high fees Visa charges for processing credit card transactions. You can still use debit cards (including Visa debit cards) and non-Visa credit cards like Mastercard, Amex, and Eurocard to make purchases. Please update your default payment method now, or add one of these new, eligible payment methods if you do not have one.

You can update your Prime membership here, and if you have any subscriptions on Amazon.co.uk, you can update them on the ‘‘manage your subscription’’ page here.

We know this may be inconvenient, and we’re here to help you through this transition so you can continue enjoying Amazon’s low prices and wide selection. Please visit this help page for more information on payment methods, or go directly to your account.

That seems an extreme measure … :exclamation:

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Seems reasonable, as obviously a company like Amazon who pays so much tax, can not afford high credit card payments too. Or not unless it’s put through their Luxembourg tax dodge.

Edited to add. Obviously Visa’s charge of 1.5%, or £1.50 per £100 of purchase, is way too much for a tax dodging company like Amazon to pay.

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As usual greed at the expense of the customer!

I wonder by what percentage directors’ remuneration had been
reduced seeing as the company is obviously ‘struggling’?

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Earlier this year Amazon announced a 0.5 per cent surcharge to purchases made using Visa credit cards in Australia and Singapore.

A different approach elsewhere … :thinking:

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Oh … is there an echo in here?

I think these two threads need merging.

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I was just trying to get to the real reason for this Visa issue which would affect us also.

I can’t of course vouch for how accurate it is, but it seems to be the truth.
.

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I thought it was because they are too expensive for their business model. But is that because Brexit has made them too expensive?

NB I mentioned this news on the legal tender thread yesterday. The trouble is that we rely on these methods of payment and they are provided by private companies.

The Bank of England is undergoing consultation to digitalise everything and probably there will be some big thing to get us to pay for everything on our phones using whatever digital system they come up with in the longer term.

I’m sure there have been many many meetings and negotiations before Amazon’s announcement. The official agenda to move to a different payment method is likely why the negotiations failed. There’s a lot going on in the world of payments.

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Hi

It is because of Brexit, the EU limites the costs that Card Issuers could charge.

This stopped after Brexit, nothing to stop our Government reintroducing the cap to help card users, but they refuse to.

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Hey Annie, I thought card payment was classed as Digital.

But I agree, there are changes on they horizon: cashless society here we come, finally.

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Not using digital currency, there are all sorts of system interfaces with different banks etc. The plans are to get rid of all that back office work which means heaps more redundancies. It’s more “machine stops” than progress in the long run because eventually it will be running itself like a money monster.

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I guess they are relying on a competitive market to regulate itself. If everyone moves away from Visa then they lose more than a bit of profit. This is the way the current lot manage everything. Leave it to the market to sort itself out…

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Perhaps they are no longer taking Visa Cards because their charges are expensive and they now issue their own Credit Card backed by Mastercard.