Amazon no longer accepting Visa credit cards from January 2022 - WTF?

[peanuts87]

AIBU to think this is madness? They're going to inconvenience so many of their customers. Still, it's good incentive to stop using Amazon I suppose!

www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-stop-accepting-visa-credit-cards-issued-uk-bloomberg-news-2021-11-17/

If you want to continue to use a credit card for Amazon just get a Mastercard.

@SarahBellam

If you want to continue to use a credit card for Amazon just get a Mastercard.

Wow! what a genius we never though of that did we kids?

The affinity card I use for all my spending isn't available as a mastercard so it's goodbye Amazon (not really a bad thing).

they are accepting visa debit cards though

‘Does you do or does you don’t take access?’ I remember singing along to that TV ad in the 80s

It's only UK Visa cards due to the brexit changes. European Visa cards are still accepted.

Give it time and Amazon will only be accepting their own crypto token.

@fruitbrewhaha

Give it time and Amazon will only be accepting their own crypto token.

And if you work for them you’ll need to be paid in it. And live in an Amazon house. They’re already building low income housing in large quantities round their various headquarters in the US.

And if you work for them you’ll need to be paid in it. And live in an Amazon house. They’re already building low income housing in large quantities round their various headquarters in the US.

Not exactly. They are providing loans and grants to local housing authorities who will use the money to finance construction. Amazon will have no ownership of the housing.

Amazon pledges $2 billion to affordable housing, including $185 million for apartments in Bellevue

@MissConductUS Yes. Just like the Chrome book was developed as a low cost it solution for school children in Africa and therefore benefitted from philanthropic tax breaks. There obviously has been no commercial benefit to Google
from that project since then.

I used to work in the philanthropy sector. Spin is a thing.

Folks, don't worry - this is never actually going to happen.

[quote NadiaVulvokov]@MissConductUS Yes. Just like the Chrome book was developed as a low cost it solution for school children in Africa and therefore benefitted from philanthropic tax breaks. There obviously has been no commercial benefit to Google
from that project since then.

I used to work in the philanthropy sector. Spin is a thing.[/quote]
This history of the Chromebook makes no mention of Africa or tax breaks.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebook

Other than some positive PR, what do you think Amazon's nefarious plan is to benefit from making loans and grants to local housing authorities?

@NichyNoo

I received an email from Amazon about this and assumed it was a scam email so deleted!

Us too! In fact DH commented on what a clever scam email it was before deleting

@whynotwhatknot

interesting that a company so wealthy and avoids paying tax is worried about fees

The fees are much higher than you think, if Amazon don’t do this then product prices will go up. Fees are anywhere between 2.5% and 4.9% which is a lot if you are selling a product.

@MissConductUS. You might want to look into the Wikipedia entry for One Laptop Per Child.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child

You might also want to look into the history of factory towns in the UK. Maybe start with New Lanark or Cadbury, which were attempts to bring enlightened self-interest to the practice of employers housing their workers.

@Pigeoninthehouse

First direct switched to mastercard too. Wonder whats going on with Visa.

First Direct has only switched their debit cards.

Just checked with them and they have no plans to switch their credit cards to MC.

[quote NadiaVulvokov]@MissConductUS. You might want to look into the Wikipedia entry for One Laptop Per Child.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child

You might also want to look into the history of factory towns in the UK. Maybe start with New Lanark or Cadbury, which were attempts to bring enlightened self-interest to the practice of employers housing their workers.[/quote]
This was the only mention of Google in the article you linked.

The project was originally funded by member organizations such as AMD, eBay, Google, Marvell Technology Group, News Corporation, Nortel. Chi Mei Corporation, Red Hat, and Quanta provided in-kind support.

With factory towns, didn't the companies retain ownership of the housing and rent it directly to workers? That is not what Amazon is doing. The local housing authorities will build and manage the properties.

@MissConductUs There’s none so blind as will not see.

Seems mad.

It won't impact me as I have never even owned a credit card!!

@Pyewackect

They are killing the local traders so I only use Amazon as a last restort.

They're not actually as a lot of local traders use Amazon to sell their goods!

I was wrong about it not being Brexit related, I hadn't realised that the UK government had decided to take the cap of card charges.

[quote NadiaVulvokov]@MissConductUs There’s none so blind as will not see.[/quote]
Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Reflexively attributing evil motives is also a form of blindness.

@MissConductUS Evidently blind acceptance is not conducive to original thought.

@Hilda40

Natwest changed over from Visa to Mastercard recently I had wondered why.

Our bank (connected to HSBC) also did the same. I wonder if it's connected

I don’t think the Banks would have this insider knowledge and I don’t think they would necessarily react to it if they did. They will have their own Strategic relationships with Visa/Mastercard. I can possibly see that some Banks that don’t currently offer a Mastercard might look at including in their portfolio. But It might not be worth it when lots of customers have already switched to Amazon’s affiliate Mastercard.

@TicTacHoh

If you set up to pay on PayPal instead, you can carry on using visa if you set your visa as your default PayPal method. I use this to get round stores not accepting Amex.

Amazon don't accept PayPal

MasterCard have already done exactly the same thing as Visa, but no one batted an eye-lid;
www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37335/mastercard-hikes-interchange-fees-for-uk-online-purchases-from-the-eu

You can thank Brexit for this, as the EU capped the fees they could charge.

Amazon’s own card uses Mastercard so they must have a deal with them. visa credit dominates the UK market so I think Amazon are just trying to bully Visa into a cheaper deal.