Amazon Is Dropping Venmo as a Payment Option, Users Want Answers

The Gist:

• Amazon announced that it will no longer be accepting Venmo as a payment method for purchases beginning on Jan. 10, 2024.
• The tech giant hasn't explained its decision, but some have speculated that Venmo wasn't a secure enough payment platform to partner with Amazon.
• Amazon will still take payment from Venmo debit and credit cards.

Although Amazon offers its users many things, one of the things it prizes most is convenience. You can order things quickly, and they'll ship to you almost immediately. Another way that the tech giant has maximized convenience is by allowing you to pay for goods in a huge variety of different ways.

Recently, though, Amazon announced that it will no longer be accepting payments through Venmo starting early in 2024. Now, many want to know why Amazon decided to stop accepting Venmo payments. Keep reading for all of the details.

In Amazon's announcement that it will no longer be accepting Venmo payments, the company didn't explain its decision. The tech giant did emphasize that there are still many ways for users to pay for orders, including using a credit card and through Apple Pay.

Amazon said that the change would be effective on Jan. 10, 2024, and that users would have to switch their payment method before then.

The company placed a particular emphasis on any subscriptions that might be tied to a Venmo account, as those will be charged automatically and be rejected if the payment information isn't updated.

Also, Amazon clarified that while payments from Venmo itself will be banned, payments from Venmo credit cards or debit cards will still be allowed, just like most other major credit cards.

Because Amazon hasn't explained its decision, all the public can do is speculate about why it may have decided to ban Venmo. Amazon might be launching some sort of rival service, and it wants to preemptively remove Venmo so that users will have to sign up for its service instead. Ultimately, though, we won't know for sure until Amazon decides to explain the decision.

Another potential reason that Venmo payments are no longer allowed is that Venmo wasn't a safe enough payment platform, which meant that some users were able to use it to orchestrate scams.

Venmo was created largely to allow people who knew one another to directly transfer cash back and forth without an intermediary like a bank. It wasn't designed to be used as payment for larger companies.

Although services like Venmo have some pretty obvious perks, there are also some downsides when it comes to things like security. Amazon is one of the largest retailers in the world, and that obviously means that it wants its marketplace to be a safe place for buyers and sellers to do business, even if that means that people who pay with Venmo are out of luck.