Soldato
Ludicrous that Amazon can’t afford the charges Visa are implementing. Thank goodness my credit card is Mastercard
Amazon Prime !!!!
- Thread starter DXP55
- Start date
Of course they can afford the charges but who wants to give up £150m per year of profit to Visa? If they drop Visa and so long as they dont lose any custom, Amazon UK are £150m richer.
Man of Honour
Rich People don't get rich by needlessly throwing away money. They'll have done their sums on this and know they aren't going to come out worse off.
Soldato
Mastercard increased rates too:
https://www.cashmatters.org/blog/mastercard-raise-fees-uk-purchases-eu
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55796426
They did it before VISA did:
https://www.ft.com/content/39f553a0-00c5-48ad-a8ee-0b9fd75554b0
https://www.ft.com/content/4820b619-4d35-4c6a-8523-fc685c047374
They were the first to do it,which gave VISA,etc the leeway to do it months later.
I would assume AMEX is doing the same,but the difference is both Mastercard and AMEX are on Amazon issued credit cards(didn't realise AMEX was also on them until someone pointed it out here),so they no doubt get a share of the interest generated on such cards.
The reality is that its better to use a UK based retailer anyway.
What people are seeing is another company which seems to be UK based but actually is based elsewhere for the financial part of the business,so you are doing business with a foreign company hence you get charged the higher fees. .
The best way around this is to use UK based alternatives where possible.
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Soldato
- Joined
- 16 Aug 2009
- Posts
- 7,750
That would be seismic shift they've always been Visa way back in teh 80's when there was Barclaycard or Access and that was essentially it as far as credit cards went, it was visa.
Rich people are some the biggest tightwads I've ever met they didn't accumulate it by giving it away
Oof my bank switched its cards from Visa to Mastercard I guess they didn't like visa's charges either seems thats come back to haunt them
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Again you assume the Mastercard is charging that to Amazon in their deal...........................Mastercard probably played ball.
Soldato
Well the fact is Mastercard made the changes first...!
Plenty of large banks have not switched,and it all seems competitive. So you could argue those who stayed didn't like Mastercard charges or business practices too. I think most of these are probably decided on what backroom "deals" they do which mostly benefit the people in charge - I would not read too much into it.
The same goes with AMEX - in some countries its mostly AMEX and Visa,and Mastercard is simply not seen anywhere.
Amazon has a long history of screwing over its own Marketplace sellers with arbitary reasons. The fact is they repeatedly abuse their competitive position to benefit themselves and not their customers. Look at how they tried to ban Google devices off their own platform since they were competing with their own devices?? They did the same with so many phone accessory companies,some of which have been around for years,and have gotten excellent reviews from well known websites,and even people on this forum.In the end again pushes people towards Amazon "partnered" companies and their own branded products.
Yet at the same time,they also don't seem to care that stuff they actually sell can be fake or dodgy. Its why I won't trust Amazon for certain things like branded cables,original camera batteries,etc. They just go with the cheapest suppliers they can find,and don't bother to check properly if the stuff is real or fake(yet find ways to screwover legitimate companies on their own marketplace since they are taking business from them).
As much VISA/Mastercard/AMEX and all of these kinds of firms are hardly Paragons of Virtue and need to be regulated too,Amazon is a bigger issue worldwide. They repeatedly abuse their position,and are quite a danger to lots of smaller indigenous competitors worldwide.
The fact is they have banned the only company which has not partnered with them for a credit card. They are only offering Mastercard/AMEX branded cards,because they make money out of it through interest charges(which I suspect are not great). This is what all these "branded" credit cards are - a quick way to make money,via high interest rates. This is no different than MS trying to force MS Explorer as a default option. Luckily the regulators in the EU,etc made sure MS didn't get its way.
Edit!!
Now think of all the Amazon addicts who use a VISA credit card. What do you think they are going to do - dump a credit card they have used for years,built up a good rating on,etc?
Nope,they will apply for the Amazon one instead. Personally I am already using whatever alternatives I can to Amazon,and I think even in the UK we really should be diversifying away from that before they destroy all the local competitors.
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Caporegime
I’ve swapped out to my MasterCard, free £20 cheers Jeff.
Soldato
That's just google search data, not cards issued or volume of transactions. Makes sense that more people would be googling Amex as that is more niche in the UK by experience.
Soldato
I didn't see that - oops! This one from 2017 seems to put Visa massively ahead in transactions:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/278970/share-of-purchase-transactions-on-global-credit-cards/
This 2019 chart still puts Visa ahead of Mastercard in terms of worldwide credit card transactions:
https://nilsonreport.com/research_featured_chart.php
Tried looking for the UK,but its all behind paywalls.
Edit!!
This seems to say in 2018,58% of credit cards were Mastercard in the UK and 36% were VISA:
https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/UK-Card-Payments-2018-Summary.pdf
I remembered why I only buy 95% of my things from Amazon, short of food shopping from Tesco, because of UPS...
Amazon Logistics delivery for me is extremely reliable, only DPD come a close 2nd.
My heart sinks each time I find a company use UPS but today I'll top it off:
Me: "May I ask why the package was sat in your Standford Le Hope depot since the 19th July?"
UPS UK Twitter: "Our records show it was passed to us in July, not May."
I gave up at that point. Then not a moment after a UPS van did actually try to deliver it but predictably they couldn't find my address because it requires you to WALK to our front door as it's a path street, e.g. rear parking only.
My rear security camera sees them drive past our rear garden gate, 60 seconds later it drives off again. Obviously no out card left because they never found our front door. **** it, I'm off on holiday now so they can ship it back to the US for all I care. The only authorised distributor of this equipment in UK charges 30% more than original manufacturer does in US and US store delivers world wide and had some great deals.
DPD have no such issues finding our front door, weird that.
Rant over
Amazon Logistics delivery for me is extremely reliable, only DPD come a close 2nd.
My heart sinks each time I find a company use UPS but today I'll top it off:
Me: "May I ask why the package was sat in your Standford Le Hope depot since the 19th July?"
UPS UK Twitter: "Our records show it was passed to us in July, not May."
I gave up at that point. Then not a moment after a UPS van did actually try to deliver it but predictably they couldn't find my address because it requires you to WALK to our front door as it's a path street, e.g. rear parking only.
My rear security camera sees them drive past our rear garden gate, 60 seconds later it drives off again. Obviously no out card left because they never found our front door. **** it, I'm off on holiday now so they can ship it back to the US for all I care. The only authorised distributor of this equipment in UK charges 30% more than original manufacturer does in US and US store delivers world wide and had some great deals.
DPD have no such issues finding our front door, weird that.
Rant over
Presumably the authorised UK distributor has to add 20% VAT for a start. Is there no import VAT on the item in question?
Man of Honour
Just wondering but have you informed Amazon so they see this information when delivering?
All my Amazon delivery drivers see a note saying "Please put in blue wheelie bin behind the gate" and that's where they put parcels if we're not in.
That map has to be a mistake surely! The amount of places in the UK that refuse to take Amex makes it insane to think its the most popular card here..
It is a map telling the story of popularity by spend. AMEX card holders are typically wealthier/used for corporate spend.
"Finally, American Express is much smaller than the two giants with only 54.9 million cards in circulation in the US and another 57.3 million cards in the rest of the world. However, due to the affluence of their average customer, their transaction volume in the US is slightly higher than Mastercard’s at around $668 billion."
I think the don't take Amex line is a bit of a myth these days, I don't struggle to use mine anywhere, even B&Q take it these days, and it was possible to work around that by paying online and using paypal linked to Amex even then.
Soldato
Just had an email stating the price of Prime is going up to £95 from 15 Sep. A £16 increase!
My renewal is the 2nd September so I’ll get another year at the current price then after that, I’ll probably cancel. I only really use it for free postage.
I hope they’re not bumping prices up just so they can buy more Premier League football. I have zero interest in that.
My renewal is the 2nd September so I’ll get another year at the current price then after that, I’ll probably cancel. I only really use it for free postage.
I hope they’re not bumping prices up just so they can buy more Premier League football. I have zero interest in that.