amazon payments
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Amazon shutting down little-used person-to-person payment service
On October 13th, you'll have one less option for sending cash to individuals online. Amazon's WebPay, a feature of the company's broader Payments platform, will be shuttered. According to a FAQ posted on its site, the service is being closed down because it's "not addressing a customer pain point particularly better than anyone else." Users have until the 13th to initiate any transactions, then there will be a 30-day grace period in which customers can claim their funds before WebPay disappears completely. Axing the unpopular service will allow Amazon to use its resources elsewhere -- perhaps by turning Payments into a more full-fledged mobile wallet service à la Google Wallet or Apple Pay. Of course, there are no shortage of options out there if you want to send money to friends and family electronically. Apparently there's a company called PayPal, or something, that's been doing it for a long time.
Amazon's payment systems go kaput, taking Kickstarter with it
Were you planning to be the brave soul to bring Camelot Unchained's Kickstarter project to its goal? You might have missed your chance. Amazon Payments, the system which Kickstarter uses to accept pledges from browsers, started having trouble earlier today, meaning that several Kickstarter projects have run into trouble attracting more pledges or processing pledges for otherwise successful funding. That's bad news for anyone looking to make the last few dollars on a project before the project ticks over the last deadline. There's currently no ETA on service restoration; quite notably, the payment service is currently the only Amazon service listed as having difficulties. Camelot Unchained is put into a particular pickle with this development, as the project is still more than $200,000 away from its goal with less than two days remaining. Hopefully the service errors will be cleared up before several projects start to feel the sting. [Thanks to Mark for the tip!]
Amazon said to be considering NFC-based mobile payment service
As you may be aware, Amazon does actually already make it easier for you to shop at places other than Amazon.com with its Amazon Payments service, and it now looks like it might even be thinking about expanding things to brick and mortar stores as well. More specifically, Bloomberg is reporting that Amazon is exploring a mobile payment service based on NFC technology, which would let you pay for items and receive things like loyalty points using nothing other than an NFC-equipped cellphone. Not surprisingly, Amazon is also said to be considering some other features that would send folks back to Amazon.com -- Bloomberg gives the example of someone shopping for jeans in a retail store who can't find the right size, and says that they could simply scan the jean's tag to order a pair online. Details are otherwise a bit light, and the service is apparently still not quite a sure thing, although a person familiar with the matter says Amazon will decide whether to go forward with it or not "in the next three to five months."
