Have any of you used a Wise card to pay off Amazon monthly instalments? Wise says they don’t see an issue with being billed in instalments from my card as to them it’s no different to a subscription, but an Amazon Japan customer service rep suggested it’s not quite that simple.
Their guidance does say debit cards are fine, but the rep suggested some reject the payments as the card provider foots the entire bill then charges you themselves. This isn’t what the Amazon help page says, that says Amazon does the repeat billing themselves. It’s all left me a bit confused.
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Have you given it a try? I normally talk to reps only after something fails for me. The only issue I can imagine is if your balance drops lower than the installment and one of the payments doesn’t go through. But I haven’t tried it myself.
Amazon Monthly Payment is not the same as Credit Card Installment. The first one is handled by Amazon, and second one by CC company.
Amazon Monthly Payment is only available on certain products only, and you will see this option before the checkout page.
For example this LG TV has Amazon Monthy Payment option:
https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0924QQTDF
You can see the checkbox option for 6 months payments.
I tried it and was charged the full amount.
Okay, so this ia a very Japan specific thing, AFAIK.
By default, almost all Japanese credit cards (like ePoc Card, View Card, Sezon card, Lumine Card, MUFJ Card, etc., etc.) will charge you for the amount you spent, in full, the next billing period.
So for example, I buy a $1000 item today with my View card, it will be counted in my June billing period, which is finalized on about July 16th, and then deducted from my account on August 10th.
When you buy something at a physical store like Bic Camera, or wherever, they will ask you something like “ikkatubarai deyoroshii desuka?”, and assuming you say “yes”, that is what will happen. You can also say “2 kai”, etc., and if your card company supports it (most do), then the card company will take only $500 the next cycle, and another $500 the following cycle. Typically you can do 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, up to 24 cycles. This is called “bunnkatu barai”. You can also opt for “rebo barai” which is US Style “put me in debt” tracking where they will just build up a giant balance and bill you each month with a huge amount of interest.
In all of these cases, if you select a 2-time-payment, or a 12-time-payment, etc. the retailer always charges the full amount to the card company immediately. So in this case, if I bought a laptop from Bic Camera for $1000 and said “24 kai barai”, they just pass along the information to the card company that I would like to pay it in 24 installments.
With many cards, like View Card, for example, you can do it as 一回払い and just change it on the web site if you change your mind later.
At any rate, the shop, like Bic Camera is not billing in small amounts, they bill all at once, and the credit card company divides the payments.
If you’re using a debit card or a prepaid card, anything other than one time payment will be rejected (since they basically haven’t run a credit check, they want to deduct the full amount form your balance) immediately. I strongly suspect Wise would fall into this camp.
Foreign sites like Amazon US don’t know about this functionality and so don’t support it at all.
Japanese sites often do support it, and Amazon is one of those.
So far as I know, Amazon doesn’t actually give you a credit limit and let you split payments, they only suppor the card company splitting payments just like Bic or any other place.
My guess would be that they incorrectly detect the Wise card as supporting 分割払い, but it doesn’t actually support it.