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Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

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461–470 of 534 posts

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helps if you say which country you're referring to. Maybe the USA? i.e. [1]. As far as I've heard, the EU doesn't have these problems. It's only the UK. (I can't speak all the languages, but I asked friends from Denmark, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy if they'd seen reports of shortages in supermarkets and restaurants, but none have.) The American problem looks fixable with vaccination, testing etc. A lot of d…

You should ask more people, the driver shortage in various EU countries has been pretty widely reported. For example, https://www.ft.com/content/e8ca2a08-308c-4324-8ed2-d788b074a...

I don't have an FT subscription.

Driver shortages have been reported across the EU, but as far as I'm aware, food and fuel shortages are only in the UK.

e.g. https://trans.info/en/there-s-a-europe-wide-hgv-driver-short...

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there the other week and they refused my work Amex but accepted my personal MasterCard credit card. Not sure your statement is accurate.

As a general rule, ah (and bol.com) do not accept credit cards (or debit cards that need to go through the credit card network). This can be independently verified on Google Maps if you look for those 1-star reviews. There are a small handful ah branches (see below) in tourist spots that does accept credit cards. In all other places, you should see posters apparently made by the staff that puts red crosses on Visa, M…

Once I had an interesting experience at AH when I used my combined debit/credit card.

It wasn't a branch that accepted credit cards (it was full of crossed off card logos), the clerk saw my foreign card with Mastercard logo and said that wouldn't work but I insisted by showing it had a Maestro logo on the back. Reluctantly they said OK, go ahead and for everyone's surprise, it worked.

The transaction ended showing up on my credit card statement, and to this day I really don't know what happened. I know that international withdrawals (that should use Maestro network) appear on my checking account. Who knows...

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In U.K. it definitely helps your credit score.

Except we don't have a "credit score" in the UK. Credit reference agencies instead report credit history. The difference is a subtle but very important one, as it allows companies to assess your individual circumstances, rather than base decisions on an arbitrary score. The above misunderstanding is so commonplace that the Redit UKPersoanlFinace sub had (has?) a bot explaining this on every UK post mentioning 'credit…

It works exactly like this in the US too. The numbers shown to consumers are not what big financial institutions base their decisions on.

By the same logic credit scores don’t exist in the US either. It’s just an approximation, your bank still makes their own decisions.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#464
post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a shortage here in NL as well, and we're still part of EU, so I am not sure if/how Brexit is related. The job is being paid shit here in NL, and its high stress, especially since Covid-19. Its like blaming the current inflation on Covid-19; well, no, its the gas price which has gone up. And that is because of an artificial shortage by OPEC. I'm not sure why they do that though... I can only guess.

Do you have empty shelves in supermarkets as a result? Closed restaurants? There's a shortage all across Europe, but as far as I have heard it's only in the UK where it's sufficient to cause problems with food distribution. (Natural gas prices have reduced food production in the Netherlands: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-30/your-toma... but would we have seen the result of that yet?)

Yes to closed restaurants, but that's because of Covid response, not supply shortage. Supermarkets have reported no problems keeping stock.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#465
post #452
post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until the Tories and nationalists that pushed Brexit face consequences, you can still argue the public has their head in the sand.

I'm not British but I follow your politics and with the quality of Labour candidates you guys dredge up it's no wonder people keep voting Tory.

The same forces that drove Tories to the extreme right also spent decades dividing Labour between itself.

The first-past-the-post electoral system has no defense against well-funded interests essentially buying all the candidates.

One could wonder if the substandard electoral system exists purely because of this flaw (or feature for the few powerful).

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#466
Here are the relevant interchange fees for consumer credit cards (for card-not-present transactions):

- [0] Both customer and merchant in EEA: 0.3%

- [1] Customer in UK, merchant in EEA: 1.5%

- [2] Customer in UK, merchant in UK: 0.3%

What's weird, though, is that the interchange for UK-issued debit cards used at an EEA merchant is also high (1.15%).

[0] https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PD...

[1] https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PD...

[2] https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PD...

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#467
post #465
post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not British but I follow your politics and with the quality of Labour candidates you guys dredge up it's no wonder people keep voting Tory.

The same forces that drove Tories to the extreme right also spent decades dividing Labour between itself. The first-past-the-post electoral system has no defense against well-funded interests essentially buying all the candidates. One could wonder if the substandard electoral system exists purely because of this flaw (or feature for the few powerful).

France has a completely different political structure and electoral system, and yet we've broadly seen the same phenomenon of the right wing's center of gravity always moving righter (is that even a word ?) and the left wing digging and splintering its way into irrelevance. The difference being that the electoral system produced a centrist rather than a populist (but in both cases Macron and BoJo are a pure product of their respective countries' establishment).

I don't think different systems differ so much as far as being rigged goes, it's just the rigging that changes. In the end, power is always in the process of cooptation.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#468
post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. The great British public still have their heads in the sand in the wake of lorry driver shortages, nursing staff shortages and doctor shortages. You have to laugh or tear your hair out when the Home Office offers a 3-month reprieve hoping to lure exiled EU workers back to the UK.

Brexit may not be helping matters, but it certainly isn't responsible for those shortages. Every western country is facing the same issues. Schools near me in (not UK) are struggling to feed students lunch because the companies they had contracted to deliver their food dont have enough drivers. One company a state over just cancelled their contract with nearly 60 rural schools because they simply aren't able to deliv…

>Every western country is facing the same issues.

There's none of that in France, at least not for every day consumer goods. The prices of energy however have skyrocketed and semi-conductors are as lacking as anywhere else.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#469
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know what power or leverage a country of 65 million thinks it has over the world. Companies / trading partners can simply ignore the UK now with few consequences. The UK has been on a long, slow decline of global relevance since the Victorian era. I don’t know why that would stop with Brexit.

The point is it's now just another country on an equal footing with the rest. Unlike the EU members which have to ask the Commission for permission to scratch their ass.

Every region has been trying to consolidate international power blocks to specifically avoid having to deal on the back of Westphalian sovereignty alone, that is to not be on an equal footing.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#470
post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amex is terrible card in EU. High fees, many places rejecting it, I see no real reason why to use Amex over Visa or Master/Maestro

The link I shared is a list of cards from Amex that don't charge any fee. Anecdotally the number of places that reject my personal amex is very close to zero (there's one cafe enar me which doesn't take it). > I see no real reason why to use Amex over Visa or Master/Maestro Cashback/rewards, and it's accepted on Amazon in the UK after this year is a really good reason to use it over Visa at least. Maestro is non-exis…

Majority of hotels around Europe don't accept it, same with restaurants, small business, shops.. there is not a single reason to own one in Europe, even with cashback (cashback to what actually, since i cannot use it anywhere)
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