Are you sure this isn't spam? I've received the email. It looks very suspicious to me...
Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
51–60 of 534 posts
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#52I've just found another link that isn't paywalled: https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-stop...
This says that only Visa credit cards will be blocked, not Visa debit cards.
I have a speculative guess that it might not just be about the merchant cost... It does seem that Visa offers more customer protection than Mastercard from what I can tell, so perhaps too many customers have got Visa involved for refunds because of the many dubious Amazon marketplace sellers listing fake or substandard products.
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#53This was from March about Brexit-related interchange rates on Visa https://news.sky.com/story/visa-to-hike-interchange-fees-for...
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#54Well that's annoying. Visa credit cards are very common in the UK, I myself use one for everything online. I don't know anyone who's got an American Express card in the UK Edit: Could it also be that Amazon offer their own Mastercard credit card and they're trying to nudge people towards that?
Fun fact: At M&S, 12% of payments taken online for delivery to London addresses are paid by Amex. The rest of the country? <3%.
Any idea why Amex would be so popular in London?
I'd never even consider an Amex card due to my perception of it being something that many places won't even accept.
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#55I'm not convinced that this is a genuine email. Maybe someone here can explore..
Why wouldn't it be genuine? If you hacked Amazon's email system to send a mass email to customers, why send that?
It's clearly some sort of negotiation ploy over fees.
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#56I 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/…
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
> It seems that Mastercard is more widespread among "hot" banking startups, ie I can create virtual debit Mastercards on Revolut and Monzo
They were definitely first in this space but Revolut has issued Visa's (in some cases) for a while now, and for instance Wise has recently switched from MasterCard to Visa entirely.
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#57Well that's annoying. My bank (Natwest) just recently sent me a letter to boast we're getting shiny new VISA credit cards to replace our existing Mastercards. (which aren't near expiry)
That's weird because they're moving their debit cards from Visa to Mastercard
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#58I'd love to see a drill down of how exact the credit card scheme works regarding fees. Like who is paid what exactly by whom. Is this somewhere available?
Visa would lose face if they charged the end user with transaction fees, so the merchant pays it instead. Then the merchant delegates the transaction fee to the user, but thankfully nobody knows about that.
I think you left out a few steps who's getting their fat cut (issuer of the card, aquirer, merchang provider etc) but not sure how it exactly goes down.
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#59I 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/…
Quite the opposite in the UK, at least over the last 10 years or so. 99% of debit cards are Visa, and most people buying stuff on Amazon would be using a debit card, folks only really use credit cards for large purchases and things like travel, here. Even when it comes to credit cards, I would say Mastercard has like a large chunk - like 80% in terms of institutions (but who knows in terms of actual customers), I wou…
I use my credit card for most stuff.
1)I get reward points
2)I get better consumer protection.
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like this. If that’s the case, it proves the free market works. You don’t need regulations when corporations can strongarm one another.
Oh yeah, this is a real win for consumers now that a large proportion of them are locked out from using their credit cards on Amazon.
They aren't locked out yet and presumably this is a tactic to get Visa to lower their fees.