I got notice of updated terms from Amazon Payments by email today.
Amazon Payments will stop allowing person-to-person transfers after October 12.
The email said,
Additionally, we have updated the terms and conditions of our User Agreement (https://payments.amazon.com/help/Personal-Accounts/User-Agreement-Policies/User-Agreement) that apply to your use of the products and services provided by Amazon Payments. Our updated User Agreement revises certain terms (including, among other things, the elimination of person-to-person payments). Our new User Agreement will become effective on October 13, 2014, which is more than 30 days from when we first posted our updated User Agreement. By continuing to use our services after October 13, 2014, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms and conditions of our new User Agreement.
(Emphasis mine.)
The great thing about Amazon payments is that nobody had ever heard of them. Everyone knows Paypal. And Amazon wanted to break into that market. So they made themselves super user-friendly, allowing you to send people up to $1000 per month charged to a credit card with no fee. The idea was that could help them gain traction in the marketplace.
Of course plenty of people sent $1000. And then had $1000 sent back to them. It was an easy way to earn miles.
That’s going to end. You can still send your $1000 for September, and then again during the early part of October.
Dan’s Deals covers this as well.
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I can’t believe this took so long to come to an end.
Almost all of the easy MS methods have been killed off now. The remaining ones generally require too much effort for my taste. For me that means the most attractive credit card offers going forward will be those with low spend thresholds, like the recent “spend $1,000 get 50,000 miles” offers from Delta. I would much prefer to put multiples of $30,000 of spend on our DL AMEX Reserve cards. I would love if that could be $240,000 per year for us, but without new MS methods, that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.
Started using this earlier this year and once again I came late to the party. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
Well, shoot! I knew this day would come, but I was secretly hoping it was much further out. I have done this for a few years. So easy, so fast. Oh well, I guess I will have to brush up on some MS methods and figure out something new to try.
Maybe you are just being a “bad” boy. 🙂
Haven’t received anything yet, but A-B-A transfers were always risky.
I am sure the moment I hit “POST”, I will find the Change of Terms notice in my mailbox.
And by sending out the notice with an innocuous subject line of “Annual Notice” they have managed to ensure that 99% of the recipients never even open the email thinking it is just another one of those say-nothing privacy notice mailings we get every year from every credit card. Innocent action or deliberate attempt to obfuscate elimination of a major feature of the service?
Noooooooooo!!!!! Cuts down on the number of easy MS methods to use from abroad. On to the next I guess.
Terrible news! I always paid my land lady via Amazon Payments. She loved it because it was easy and quick. I loved it because it was guaranteed money towards sign up bonus spends.
I suppose I can use Serve to send her money but it won’t be as smooth as AP.
Say it ain’t so Joe!
This was my main method of meeting higher spend requirements for new cards. Very sad to see it go and grateful that we had this opportunity for so long.
I’ll be wearing a black arm band………
What about business account with amazon payments? Are they affected too?
First VRs, then TD, followed my Amex GC and now AP. The first 4 signs of the apocalypse.
FWIW, I found what appears to be the operative language in the new Terms: “Personal Accounts may not receive payments or funds transfers.” Screenshot here:
http://thepointsninja.blogspot.com/2014/09/eine-kleine-gotterdammerung-amazon.html
Business accounts do not appear to be affected.
According to my review of the old Ts & Cs, AP already prohibited “Personal Accounts” from “receiv[ing] card payments.” Yet clearly they could.
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What would be the most inexpensive way to send a friend or a loved one money now?