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Amazon Cash

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Re: Amazon Cash

#151

Post by aianus »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #147
spangry wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the wording in the FAQ has me a little confused: 2) Where can I use Amazon Cash? We have partnered with thousands of stores across the country, including CVS Pharmacy®, Speedway, Sheetz, Kum & Go, D&W Fresh Market, Family Fare Supermarkets, and VG's Grocery with more retailers coming soon. A directory of all participating stores can be found at www.amazon.com/cash. Are they saying you can also spend your 'Amazo…

If you can't use the money at, say, CVS, what benefit is this to them?

Probably Amazon pays them 0-5% of the recharge amount. That's what they're saving on the credit card processing. Same as buying a Steam gift card at CVS or whatever.

Re: Amazon Cash

#152

Post by pharrlax »

magikbum wrote: post #112

Just to point out if you add $50 on this service over the next month or so you get a bonus $10 added to your account as a digital credit: https://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16219202011&pf_rd...

Yeah, but

>To use your credit, simply purchase an eligible product from one of the following digital categories: Appstore, Kindle books, Digital Video, Digital Music, Digital Software, and Digital Video Games

No physical goods.

Re: Amazon Cash

#153

Post by abalone »

biot wrote: post #82
abalone wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no way amazon is paying the same fee as anyone else in the world for credit card fees I'm not so sure. Is there any actual evidence of large retailers negotiating down interchange fees? Even Walmart resorted to legislative pressure to regulate fees. The power of network effects is strong. Retailers are reluctant to drop support for consumer-preferred payment methods and lose that business. That gives card n…

In the late 90s, my rate was 2.75% and the site I was running was very small potatoes. This era of 2.9% being considered standard despite additional competition, greater efficiencies, and higher volume is basically price gouging.

There's basically two reasons for that. One, 2.9% is only standard with premium processors like Stripe and Square. They charge a premium markup over interchange. You can still find "interchange plus" processors which will be much more value priced, although they usually are not as easy to work with.

Two, the underlying interchange rates have risen since the 90s due to reward cards. It's more expensive for merchants, but a lot of that goes into customer pockets via reward programs, so it's somewhat debatable whether it qualifies as price gouging since it's driven by consumer choice.

Re: Amazon Cash

#155

Post by JustSomeNobody »

aianus wrote: post #151
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't use the money at, say, CVS, what benefit is this to them?

Probably Amazon pays them 0-5% of the recharge amount. That's what they're saving on the credit card processing. Same as buying a Steam gift card at CVS or whatever.

That's pretty low for something that may be a strategically bad idea for CVS.

Re: Amazon Cash

#156

Post by rfonseca »

kyrra wrote: post #18
kt9 wrote: post #6

I think the idea here is for amazon to allow customers to add cash balances to their amazon account without amazon incurring the 2.9% credit card transaction fee.

For countries that are cash heavy, it's a common way to pay for online services. Some examples: Brasil Boletos: this is interesting as there are registered and unregistered versions of Boletos. With unregistered customers can pay any amount of money to it. Taiwan has a similar system. You take vouchers to various stores (like 7-11 or the post office), pay cash, then it'll make its way to the online company. [0] https…

I was about to make that connection, this is similar to Brazil's boletos. The difference is that in Brazil it is a standardized system that spans all banks: anyone with a bank account that wants to receive money can have their bank issue a "boleto", which is essentially a barcode that routes money to the destination account. A payer can go to any participating place (post office, convenience store, bank tellers, etc) and surrender cash, which then gets routed through the banking system to the right account.

Which brings us to a potential problem: there has been a tremendous amount of fraud in this system (Brazil's Boletos), with all sorts of malware changing the barcode when it is downloaded in an infected computer to issue a boleto with a different destination account.

Back in 2014 this was well documented by Krebs[1], and at amazing detail by @assolini from Kaspersky[2]. I also documented a specific case that happened to a friend[3]. While it should be possible to mount similar attacks on the Amazon system, having people deposit money into others' accounts, it should be straightforward for Amazon to detect this, since it is a single issuer system...

[1] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/07/brazilian-boleto-bandits... [2] https://securelist.com/analysis/publications/66591/attacks-a... [3] http://cs.brown.edu/~rfonseca/notes/net-bb-dns-poison.html

Re: Amazon Cash

#157

Post by [deleted] »

gpawl wrote: post #84
mabbo wrote: post #51

It's a clever business move for all involved. Amazon skips the credit card fees. The businesses working with them probably don't have to pay Amazon the money for a few weeks, meaning they get to carry an interest-generating balance in the meantime. If you don't spend all of the money you put on your account, then Amazon gets to hold that cash until you do, generating interest on the money held. All the while, the cus…

Sounds like a check card at Bank of Amazon, that maybe isn't a "bank" because of loopholes in the banking law.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Cash

#158

Post by cavisne »

fridsun wrote: post #98
CocaKoala wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First job I had out of college, when it came to payday, my boss handed me a paycheck with pay stub and I folded it up and put it in my pocket. He told me that I was supposed to sign the check and hand it back to him, and then he'd pay me cash for the face value of the check. He seemed incredulous that I didn't know that immediately; he asked me if I was a trust fund kid and if this was my first job. I told him, a lit…

An interesting read I met the other day on check-cashing: http://www.businessinsider.com/check-cashing-stores-good-dea...

"paying a $97.50 fee (and a $10 tip to Servon)"

Tipping on a completely service-less event, when already being ripped off by paying to move money around... I dont understand americans.

Re: Amazon Cash

#159

Post by nommm-nommm »

cookiecaper wrote: post #134
nommm-nommm wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what a "lower middle class neighborhood" is like but when I worked at McD's quite a few of my coworkers expressed "I don't trust banks" sentiment.

Yeah, I have no idea what he's talking about. I know that people get their kicks by pretending like Americans have a nightly ritual of peeling the toenails off the nearest poor person and grinding them up for use as seasoning, but we're stretching the limits of believability here. Check writing became popular in the late 80s and early 90s. Checking accounts were widely available by the mid 90s. I personally know seve…

I totally get it.

"I don't trust banks" is a setiment that actually makes sense when you only have $200 total to your name. Not to mention you are at constant risk of overdraft....

If you are at need of quick liquid capital I totally understand why you'd want to be cash only than risk stupid ATM fees, overdraft fees, whatever. It makes sense.

Nobody has ever said to me, ever, "I would really like a bank account, but I don't have access to one." It's always "I want to keep my money, I don't trust banks to keep it for me."

It's also complicates things, more than strictly necessary,that it.

Participating in the banking industry becomes a higher stakes venture than keeping your cash under a mattress.

It's a hard thing to get your average HN reader to understand unless you've 'been there, done that...'

Re: Amazon Cash

#160

Post by int_19h »

nols wrote: post #145
int_19h wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about credit unions? (Genuine question: I don't know if they are any better in that regard, or not.)

Credit unions have similar, maybe slightly lower, standards for opening accounts. They don't want to be stuck with overdrafts either.

I know that credit unions (and banks, for that matter) in my area don't require a high credit score to open an account - I was able to open two accounts - one in a credit union, another one in a bank - while having no credit score whatsoever after arriving to the country. The bank did actually run a credit check on me, and they told be that it basically came up as "no history", which to them is the same as not passed... but they didn't care, so long as I didn't ask them for a credit card.

The credit union that I'm banking with doesn't have a minimum account balance or account fees: https://www.firsttechfed.com/bank/checking/carefree_checking

Am I missing something?

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