Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#141

Post by c16 » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 11:01 AM UTC

input_sh wrote: post #79

mrec wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most people buying stuff on Amazon would be using a debit card, folks only really use credit cards for large purchases Huh? I'm in the UK, have been an Amazon customer for over 20 years and have always used a credit card for everything. I didn't even know you could use a debit card, and can't see any reason you'd want to. Paid off in full every month, better consumer protection, what's not to like?

Here's why: two debit cards, one for receiving money, one for spending money. Automated payment from the 1st one to the 2nd one once a month with a fixed amount you expect to spend in a month. Nothing to pay off, you're spending your own money, can't be overcharged, can't go below zero, if someone leaks your spending card they can't touch the majority of your money, no scummy business practices. Never owned a credit…

The flip side to this is using something like an Amex which offers insurance, points, business lounge access and much more. Set up the card with diret debit (much like your automated payments) and never spend above what you can afford.

You now have perks, points, insurance, consumer protection and still zero worries.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#142

Post by Macha » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 11:01 AM UTC

blowski wrote: post #13

uzakov wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think situation in 2021 is very different in London: AMEX is accepted nearly everywhere in central London (Even on markets etc), there are ofc some shops that don't take it but generally AMEX is widely accepted. Re: Mastercard It seems that Mastercard is more widespread among "hot" banking startups, ie I can create virtual debit Mastercards on Revolut and Monzo

I'd like to see some stats on that. My own experience is much closer to that of the OP.

Yeah, my success rate for the corporate Amex in Europe is 70-80% which means the remaining time I need to fill out more tedious paperwork to get reimbursed to my personal card. The US based finance team continue to insist its much better now, but a 20-30% failure rate is too high

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#143

Post by KptMarchewa » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 11:03 AM UTC

t0mas88 wrote: post #83

IanCal wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think visa are increasing their fees from 0.3% (EU regs) to 1.5% here.

But that EU limit is for debit cards right? And Amazon is excluding the credit cards while still accepting visa debit.

It's for both. 0.2% for debit, 0.3% for credit iirc.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#144

Post by KptMarchewa » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 11:05 AM UTC

ericyan wrote: post #112

gambiting wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's illegal everywhere in the EU as well. If a merchant accepts debit/credit cards then they are not allowed to charge extra for using them.

Yeah, the catch is "if a merchant accepts..." I live in the Netherlands and biggest supermarket chain here, Albert Heijn, is strictly Mastro-only. This is not a problem for the locals, but you will find angry reviews left by tourists on pretty much every ah branch in Amsterdam on Google Maps.

That doesn't make sense with 0.3% EU costs.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#145

Post by gambiting » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 11:07 AM UTC

throwaway287391 wrote: post #137

gambiting wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be an actual anomaly, like yeah, what you are saying makes sense, but you are the only person I've ever heard about who does that here in UK. Everyone I know, me included, just uses debit cards for purchases everywhere including Amazon. I have a credit card but I very very very rarely use it for anything.

> I have a credit card but I very very very rarely use it for anything. But why? The credit card is strictly better isn't it? I thought the main reason people used debit cards was that they got one automatically with their checking account and just never bothered to apply for a CC, but that's not the issue for you.

I don't know, when I use my debit card it just goes out of my main account, done, don't have to worry about it. On my credit card I'll have bigger purchases I made some time ago and I'm working towards paying them off - if I put all my monthly purchases there too, I'd lose track of how much of that I need to pay off monthly and how much I've got left on my main account.

And yes, it can be easily worked out but I guess I just can't be arsed. And for purchases under £100, credit cards offer no additional protection whatsoever, so for my daily shopping I'd just be making my life more difficult for no reason.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#146

Post by azalemeth » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 11:08 AM UTC

toyg wrote: post #130

azalemeth wrote: post #110

I really don't get why we accept this de-facto tax on the world economy by US companies. Amex, Visa and Mastercard are all based in the US, and all charge a (nowadays) non-negotiable fee on selling anything. Cash has many problems, and clearly won't work for online purchases, but at least small business owners could pay their employees "out of the till" at the end of the week, bypassing bank transaction fees and a fa…

Bootstrapping a worldwide payment system is very, very expensive.

If anything, that's an argument in favour of the whole thing being government controlled -- it's clearly a natural monopoly with a large capital expenditure requirement and a comparatively minimal (as a percentage of transactions) ongoing charge required to continue to run it. I mean, it clearly doesn't cost Visa / MC any more to make a £/$/€45 000 payment than a £/$/€5 one – database writes are not cheaper or more expensive if the fixed point value you change is smaller or larger (subject to fitting within the range requirements, etc)...

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#147

Post by mFixman » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 11:09 AM UTC

ericyan wrote: post #86

softveda wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon Australia has started charging 0.5% for Visa cards. In Australia a merchant can charge more for payment by credit card but only up to the actual extra cost they incur.

This practise is illegal in the UK and that's probably why they decided to this instead

The Australian practice seems fair though.

If you force cash and credit card transactions to be the same price then the extra 0.5% is charged to everyone, and outside of extreme cases like this post there is little incentive for credit card operators to lower their fee.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#148

Post by lmilcin » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 11:10 AM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #2

I cannot believe that Visa transaction overhead would be higher than Amex - there's something going on behind the scenes here. I don't think this is the end of it either, it smells like a negotiation threat. Visa have a larger market share overall (80%, including debit cards [1]) but Mastercard leads in credit cards. Amex has always been fairly niche because it's not accepted everywhere. [1] https://www.statista.com/…

> Visa have a larger market share overall (80%, including debit cards [1]) but Mastercard leads in credit cards.

I worked in credit card payments (on acquiring side).

Any market share advantage between Visa and Mastercard is very, very fragile. It is basically your choice which card to pull out for payment.

It is also why Visa and Mastercard these are so alike almost in every aspect. When one does something, the other copies it.

The only reason this is still split between two companies is exactly because of this parity between products. People have no reason to prefer one over other and simply toss a coin to make their choice.

When I had chance to configure my phone to do NFC payments, my bank supported it only for Mastercard, so I configured Mastercard and that's how it is now. I know a lot of people got Mastercard because here (in Poland) it was tiny bit faster than Visa.

If Amazon bans UK Visa, people will not stop using Amazon. They will either pull out the other card or grumble for couple of days and get Mastercard.

It is likely Visa has NO negotiation power here. They are the ones that have commoditized themselves and are easily replaceable for their competitor. It is likely Amazon is well aware of this and this is just a show of strength that will be followed by Visa submitting to it because they have no choice.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#149

Post by Cu3PO42 » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 11:13 AM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #5

Has anyone successfully nationalised/regulated into sanity this business? It's 2021, buying stuff should involve neither precious metals nor weird faceless financial cooperatives owned by private banks.

In Germany, we have our own debit card scheme called 'girocard' owned jointly by a group of German banks that has very low fees.

Unfortunately, this card does not work for online payments, which has lead to PayPal being extremely popular. Other solutions, some national, some international exist as well, but have comparatively high fees.

Amazon Germany allows users to pay via SEPA direct debit from any European bank account. That incurs virtually no fees (iirc it's a flat 8c for a successful transaction), but comes with other problems regarding authorization. Only the biggest merchants tend to offer this option.

The European Payment Initiative (EPI) [0] is an ongoing effort towards online payments that work without trusting one particular private institution.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#150

Post by mschuster91 » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 11:15 AM UTC

qalmakka wrote: post #117

VAT evasion is widespread in certain countries (like Italy for instance), and pushing people to prefer electronic payments to cash is empirically the only realistic way to counter it, but there will always be resistance from small retailers until payment fees are low enough. The availability of electronic payments should be universal, I personally hate being forced to constantly carry cash on myself at all times. In…

On the other hand, shifting to electronic payments is building up an incredible surveillance mechanism.

Let's just take an example of who is endangered... a 16 year old girl from a strictly religious family who had unprotected sex and needs Plan B. In a cash environment, she'll pay for it with her allowance, and her parents won't ever discover she had bought Plan B. In a cashless society, her parents can see the evidence by checking her bank account.

Also, un(der)documented / "illegalized" people literally won't have a way to survive, as their access to bank accounts may be revoked or the government demand a live feed of all transactions, which means that e.g. the police can be dispatched to a supermarket where that person just bought food.

IT (and politics) definitely needs ethics education, as all the tech bros and other hypers of "going cashless" never take into account who will be negatively affected by their ideas!