Amazon Refusing Visa Credit Card Payments Shortly.

[ladybirder]

This arrived via my email this morning.

//Starting 19 January, 2022, we will unfortunately no longer accept Visa credit cards issued in the UK, due to the high fees Visa charges for processing credit card transactions. You can still use debit cards (including Visa debit cards) and non-Visa credit cards like Mastercard, Amex, and Eurocard to make purchases. Please update your default payment method now, or add one of these new, eligible payment methods if you do not have one.\\

That is a pain. I use my Barclays Bank Cashback (0.5%) Visa Credit Card on all my Amazon purchases. I will be looking to buy what I want from other retailers from 19/01/22 who will accept my Credit Card.

Is this affecting anyone else on here?

[Ken4155]

I mainly only buy Kindle books from Amazon and most of those are paid for by Birthday/Father's Day/Christmas gift tokens. The rest i pay for with my debit card.

[ladybirder]

I hope Barry's right and Amazon and Visa come to an agreement. So I shall keep using my Visa until the 19th January and see what the position is then.
Milo I hope you do the same.

[pastafreak]

I only use a debit card...I'm not safe around credit cards.
I'd love to be more ethical or moral, but I use Amazon because either they are the most affordable, or I can get things I can't get locally.

[bednobs]

If you got giftcards you'd still have to pay for them?

[AZardoz]

Check different banks. This probably isn't available in the UK:
https://i.postimg.cc/vB11fkNw/simplii-Visa.gif

New card so 10% instead of 4% on restaurants for the first 4 months.

[JJ109]

I sympathise with retailers here!

I am not sure of the present situation, as I last owned a business almost 20 years ago. However, as far as fees were concerned, the fee charged to my business if a customer used a debit card was a flat 25 pence, no matter the value. If they used a VISA credit card the charge to me was 3.75% of the value. So for a typical 100 pound spend, the cost to me was 25 pence for a debit card and 3 pounds 75 pence if the customer used a VISA credit card.

I was only a small business so I did not have the bargaining power of an Amazon to negotiate fees but......

[1ozzy]

Keep supporting Jeff Bezos or choose not to.
I'm sure he won't miss a few customers.

[Fibonacci]

Some info can be found here on Credit Card cashback rewards
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/best-credit-card-rewards/

Similar situation occured in US in 2016 between Walmart & Visa
They came to an agreement.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/visa-walmart-1.3923039

[barry1010]

You could always apply for an Amazon Mastercard :D
Amazon.com User Recommendation

[barry1010]

Very interesting article by Reuters about this:

"Since Brexit, an EU-enforced cap on fees charged by card issuers is no longer in place in the UK.

The move by Amazon, earlier reported by Bloomberg News, has prompted the UK Trade Commission to call on the government to improve the UK-EU trade agreement and analysts to call on British regulators to look into the fees in the credit card market.

"If Amazon can't make it work, with all their resources and ability to navigate legislation to avoid costs, then small businesses have no chance and so the government must improve the UK-EU trade and cooperation agreement to keep British businesses competitive," said Tamara Cincik from UK Trade and Business Commission"

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

[ladybirder]

Thank you for all the links, very interesting.
Barry yes it would be a laugh if I applied for the Amazon card.