Amazon Payments has been discussed on DansDeals and on the DansDeals Forums (DDF) for more than 3 years.
It remains a great way to meet bonus spend thresholds as you can send and receive $1,000 per month from your credit card with no fees. Of late they have been cracking down on people with several accounts which pass money back and forth so it’s a better idea to have a circle of friends do this from different IP addresses to be safe. And of course you have to select “Goods/Services” and not “Cash Advance” or else you’ll be charged a cash advance fee on your card.
At any rate I’ve read on several blogs and forums that Amazon Payments will start charging fees “effective December 4th.” This rumor was based on the annual privacy notice that was recently emailed out. The privacy notice said nothing about new fees, but there were links in the email to pages that mention fees. In fact those fees have always been there. They apply to business accounts that sell products with checkout by Amazon and Amazon Payments. I was highly skeptical of their interpretation of the privacy notice and expressed that in response to rumors on DDF. Not that Amazon can’t decide at any time to start charging, but there was nothing in the email that indicated a change in fees for personal accounts.
Just to be sure I emailed Amazon for an explanation and to see if there would be new fees coming on 12/04/13 for personal accounts and here is what they said,
I apologize for any concerns our annual privacy notice has caused you. The limits of sending and receiving funds via credit card will be staying at $1000.
I can confirm that no service fees are applied from Amazon Payments for sending and receiving the limit of $1,000 per month. Please keep in mind that your credit card issuer can charge you a fee if “cash advance” is selected as a form of payment processing. This would be completely on the side of the credit card, and they would know more about any service fees they apply.
From Amazon Payments no fees will be applied for sending your monthly limit for the foreseeable future.
The e-mail you received is a simple notice informing you about our privacy practices, as well as how you can report errors or unauthorized transactions related to your Amazon Payments account – we’re required by law to send this annual notice to all of our account holders.
So there you have it, no news is good news in this case.
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52 Comments On "The Reports Of Amazon Payments’ Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated…"
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Not recommended to do this with amex. It’s a massive FR trigger.
ty
Why did you always have to kill the good rumors? I am now boycotting DDF unless I need real info.
@Steve:
Spending $1,000 on AP in it of itself isn’t a trigger IME.
Now if your credit line on the card is only $2K then spending $1K can be a trigger.
And if you have multiple AP accounts and spend several thousand dollars on a card that can be a trigger.
But if you make any kind of income on the books AMEX F/R isn’t anything to worry about. People have passed it with just a few thousand dollars in annual income, albeit with smaller credit lines after the review was completed.
@Anonymous:
YW.
@HM:
😀
Can you still cash out gift card though?
tu for the explanation
@Question:
I’ve done GCs every month through September.
There are some people reporting getting shutdown by AP after using GCs, though in each of those cases they’ve been managing several accounts (in some cases dozens of accounts) from the same IP address.
So inconclusive at this point if they’re just shutting down abusers or if they no longer want GCs passed through AP.
Thank you for the clarification Dan, glad Amazon was able to respond so quickly to your question. I apologize to everyone for the confusion and misinformation on my part.
I used ap on my amex card, still haven’t gotten the points. Do the points only get loaded after statement date?
Why should they care if people abuse it with several accounts or GCs ? It doesn’t cost them anything.
@Grant:
No worries, for whatever reason that privacy email scared a lot of people out in the manufactured spend world.
@Jj:
Of course. All points only post once a statement is closed.
On AMEX charge cards points don’t post until after you have paid your bill and your next statement closes (though you can have those points expedited by calling them after you pay your bill.)
@Tim:
If people have several AP accounts they are circumventing the $1,000 per person limit of processing fees that Amazon is willing to swallow monthly. This is definitely a risky move unless you’re willing to get shutdown by AP and try again fresh.
I don’t know why GCs would be a big deal. Nor am I convinced that they care about them though it’s a possibility I suppose.
@Tim:
You’re crazy if you don’t think it costs Amazon anything.
@AEG: it costs them the same much if u do it with 10 accounts or if u get 10 friends to do it
@Dan:
While I can only speak from my experience (with GCs), I would caution everyone from doing any GC payents, would certainly recommend against doing any series of transactions/payments that creates a pattern. Although I did not do any “reciprocal” payments or payments to my own accounts, I have seen a few accounts shut down, with significant balances still being held.
@Tim:I guess the concept of loss leader would be lost on you.
@Tim:
Yes, but if they didn’t enforce the limit- then those 10 friends could each do it ten times too!! Then they’d be processing a lot more and paying the fees.
The point is- they are willing to take a loss on $1,000 per person per month, that’s it. The second people start having multiple accounts and putting through more money, that means they’re taking a bigger loss. Simple as that.
hey dan I am not sure where to ask this question so here goes: On a recent opened chase sp card I did all my 3k of spend in the first month and the 3.5k points posted without the bonus 40k. The only 2 things I can think of are 1)i had areg sapphire thats still open 2) i moved the cycle closing date up by abt 5 days (some of the 3k spend was during those 5 days).
ive used amex for ap month after month without any fr… and ive used gc (albeit low value ones) numerous times without triggering a fr….
chances are that the ones getting fr and getting shut down by amazon are the ones with multiple accounts and doing high volume and using one ip for many acounts….
gata play the game smartly…
If you finished the spending requirement within a few days before the closing date, then the points won’t post till the next statement
@ari2955:
Bingo.
And changing the statement date is always a bad idea, usually backfires and you wind up waiting even longer.
How do you change the IP address? Thanks
Where can I read up about getting started with using Amazon Payments? Link?
@Dan: I tried sending a payment on Thursday and it still says “pending” does that me my account was flagged?
-Mark Twain
Surprised the response didn’t included a plea to refrain from using AP to rack up miles.
@sholom:
Links are in the post.
@Peter:
Not sure why it would still be pending.
@Ben:
Yup
@Good Sam:
They don’t care as long as you don’t open multiple accounts.
Why do I see personal account limits of $500 and not $1,000?
https://payments.amazon.com/help/Personal-Accounts/Sending-Receiving-Money/Sending-Money-Online
Greetings from Amazon Payments.
We are writing because it has come to our attention that you have opened multiple accounts.
Amazon WebPay has a combined sending and receiving limit of $1000 per month per user. Multiple accounts opened to potentially enhance this limit will be closed.
All pending transactions have been canceled and your Amazon Payments accounts closed.
We appreciate your compliance with this matter and thank you for your interest in Amazon Payments.
====
this is the email I received from amazon lately. hope this can alert other folks.
@ap account closed:
I hope they didn’t steal your money too. They stopped my withdrawal, froze my account and now they’re just sitting on my money and ignoring my emails.
@milechazzer: Yup same here i called the credit card to dispute the charges but the gift cards i still didn’t hear back from them.
@Dav:
That’s my problem too. I don’t think there’s any way to dispute the Visa gift cards. And Amazon is completely non-communicative, as if they think I’ll just go away quietly if they ignore me.
Chargeback should work but did you try emailing the boss man?
It’s Jeff@amazon.com
@Dan:
I emailed Jeff a couple of weeks ago, right after the Bloomberg article came out, but no response. I’m not sure how interested he would be in this, and I’m sure he’s been overwhelmed since his email address went viral.
Have you been able to do a chargeback on a Visa gift card? (How about five?) At this point, I’m not sure if I can even figure out which gift cards I used for those payments, or whether I still have the cards/numbers.
lots of friends have not lost there 10 by 10 from chase do you know if its bound to happen or some lucky ones will get to keep it
Dan, if a husband and wife for example send each other money from different computers but use the same bank acct. to withdraw it into would that be a problem?
what about if there are 2 people sending each other money from 2 different computers, but use the same credit card (in order to meet the spending) would amazon care about that given that a limit on cc is high?
is it a problem if i use the same computer but do from a private window? also, if husband and wife are sending each other $1000 and claiming into the same bank acct. is that ok?
is it a problem if i use the same computer but do from a private window?
@esther12: sending back and forth can be an issue
@esther12 shouldn’t be an issue.
@esther12: The problem is IP address not the window! and same bank account isn’t an issue.
When people are stating they have multiple accounts, are they using the same name or managing multiple names from one computer?
There are some things we say, such as:
I can’t believe it’s not butter!
and
I can’t believe Amazon Payments is still alive for this!
So why are there dozens of ppl on the forum getting there acc shut down?
Chase Freedom give 5% back on Amazon now. Can I get 5% back with amazon payments?
T&Cs just changed again – soon to be $500/month. 🙁
does it go by calendar month
If I upload a amazon gift card to my account is there anyway I can withdraw it either through payments or any other way ? Thanx
When you say to use different IP addresses is that for
1. log into the account
2. make a payment
3. transfer to a bank
Also- can I have the same bank account linked to multiple accounts(different peoples accounts)?
@milechazzer
Any luck getting your money out. Same thing just happened to me Im trying to figure out how to get my money out
any one know if amazon checks by ssn?
Wait, so I can only receive $1,000 a month as well? More than that I get charged?