Amazon Is Killing Off Its Free P2P Money-Transfer Service WebPay On October 13

An anonymous reader writes: Amazon WebPay, a free online money-transfer service, is shutting down October 13, 2014. This means you'll no longer be able to send, receive, or request money using just your email address and the Amazon Payments webpage. There were hints back in June that the service would be going away soon. Amazon sent out an email this week to active Amazon Payments account users notifying them it is pulling the plug.

Columbus day?

[CaptQuark]

I guess Amazon is closing its banking service for the Columbus Day holiday and deciding to not open again.

~~

The what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Poorly advertised. Never heard of it.

Re:

[SumDog]

Same here. WTF? How the fuck does someone like Amazon fail at a PayPal competitor?

Re:

[Redbehrend]

It was a google like test, they never wanted the masses to use it.

Guess I'll have to use google wallet or paypal

[WarJolt]

I can send money from my GMail account. Why would I used amazon? Smart move on amazons part.

Even smarter

[smittyoneeach]

Getting /. to advertise the service, which can be sun-rised (is that a word?) on a whim.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't flatter yourselves.

Re:

[_merlin]

I can send money from my GMail account.

Well I don't know whether the Amazon one worked outside the US, but the Google one definitely doesn't. But given a choice between Google and Amazon, I'd take Amazon. I find them slightly less intrusive and pervasive.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

the world is moving to bitcoin, get with the schedule

Re:

[timurrodrigez4]

+1 bitcoin takes the world fast ;)

Re:

[jonbryce]

Which is free in the same way that sending a Western Union transfer reference to someone is free. You still need to get the money to and from the Bitcoin exchange.

Re:

[aztracker1]

Which is true in the same way that you need to use an exchange when going to/from USD and GBP or Yen.... If you get paid in BTC, and buy stuff in BTC, then you don't need an exchange.

from *ANY* bitcoin exchange

[DrYak]

You still need to get the money to and from the Bitcoin exchange.

...to and from a bitcoin exchange. any bitcoin exchange.

Unlike Western Union that you mention (where you're basically stuck with only one single service provider per system), bitcoin leaves you with full freedom of choice of how to process the BTCs you received (coin processor, classical exchange, face-2-face meeting like localbitcoin, or simply keeping them in BTC form to re-use them (just watchout for currently big market fluctuations)).
And your choice of method at your end has no influence at what I chos

Re:

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

I dipped my toes into the Bitcoin world, just to say I'd done it... My $0.1245 worth of bitcoin is now worth $0.0955 Yeah, that's a lot better than keeping my money in a bank...

Re:

[aztracker1]

I just wish i could get the 7 bitcoins back I lost early on... ran a miner really early on to play with it... didn't get much use, and deleted the software and wallet... if I sold at a peak to USD, would have a bit of cash. I didn't think they'd be as successful as they have. When I see a traditional bank offering exchange rates, I'll convert.

Re:

[TeknoHog]

I dipped my toes into the Bitcoin world, just to say I'd done it... My $0.1245 worth of bitcoin is now worth $0.0955 Yeah, that's a lot better than keeping my money in a bank...

It's a good thing they value it in dollars, because the value of a dollar never changes, and that's how we know our money is safe in a bank.

And....

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing of value was lost.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

For all you people that haven't heard of it or believe it had no value you are wrong. You could transfer money to your Amazon Payments account through your credit card and then transfer it back to your bank account to meet minimum spend requirements on credit cards and get free miles or cashback.

Re:

[olsmeister]

Maybe that's why they're shutting it down. Nothing is really free, someone has to pay for your free miles or cashback, and in this case it would be Amazon through merchant fees to the credit card companies. If enough people did this, they'd be losing money more quickly than they could make it.

Re:

[Zontar The Mindless]

Gosh. I can't find the word "cashback" in any dictionary.

I'm guessing it's something made up by non-native speakers who've not yet learnt "rebate" or "refund"?

Re:And....

[rossdee]

"For all you people that haven't heard of it or believe it had no value you are wrong."

So people that hadn't heard of it are wrong ?

I hadn't heard of it, and I have been an Amazon Prime member for a few years...

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

I hadn't heard of it, and I have been an Amazon Prime member for a few years...

Same here, which means they never advertised it on their own site, which means they didn't want it to succeed for some reason.

Lord knows they've have no problem advertising the Fire Phone or various Kindles over the years.

Woo-hoo! Three day weekend!

[wonkey_monkey]

Amazon WebPay [...] is shutting down October 13, 2014.

Awesome. Could they shut down a few more days between now and Christmas? I need the time off.

Money transfer services

[freeze128]

A few years ago, my primary bank (Wells Fargo) had a feature where you could log into your ebanking website and transfer money from your account to another account holder at the same bank. There was no fee for this service and it worked well. Recently, I checked again, and they have replaced that service with a "Transfer money to anyone with an email address" service. First you must "sign up". I don't know why I need to involve another party to transfer money to someone else at the same bank.....