hi - i guess this is a new forum and forgive me if i'm unfamiliar with how to post. i asked about this recently on the 'other' mturk forum so let me give it a go here. i became aware that you can't have payments totalling over $500 per month in your turk account unless you supply a credit card. can anyone who has furnished a credit card for this purpose describe the experience to me? i.e., is it worth the hassle and how does amazon use your credit card in terms of paying you for services? i'd be happy if they'd just pay me the surplus in amazon junk but i don't think this is an option either. any replies would be appreciated.
You have payments totaling over $500 per month? I am not sure about this, but a VCC might work & you may be able to buy one (or a visa debit card) from someone in the states for this purpose.
sorry i didn't mention i live in the u.s. - no problem there. i don't believe a debit type credit card does the trick although i have not gotten any advice on this from amazon. i guess what i really want to know is what's the reason for the $500 monthly threshhold and what will amazon do with a credit card i supply them with? by the way, if you go over $500/mo. they just carry it over to the next month, so you don't lose it. however, it seems unsafe to leave sums of money in the neverland of the interwebs. oh, and what is a VCC? (sorry, i'm not conversant in acro-speak!) visa credit card?
I can't say for sure, but my guess is they just want some sort of official verification. I don't think they would "use" it for anything else.
VCC is a virtual credit card but since you are in the USA you would have no problem buying a visa gift card - though I am still not sure that would work (but I have used this to buy stuff from online stores before)
Financial reporting laws require verifying the identity of persons transferring or receiving more than a small sum of money electronically. The easiest way for Amazon to satisfy that requirement is simply to check the name and address on a credit or debit card, as your card issuer is supposed to do some identity checking before you can start using your card, even when it's a prepaid one. Basically, Amazon trusts that the card issuer did the legwork, and if they didn't -- hey, at least no one can hold Amazon responsible for the bank's negligence. For the most part, Amazon doesn't have to do this with many Turkers, as a lot of us were already Amazon.com users who had ordered something in the past and paid with a card.