India’s central bank has slapped Amazon Pay’s India unit with a fine of over $373,300 for non-compliance with local guidelines surrounding know your customer and prepaid payment instruments norms.
Reserve Bank of India has slapped Amazon Pay's local unit with a fine of over $373,000 for non-compliance with know your customer guidelines.
techcrunch.com
I have had a long pending battle with them. They're practising real unfair trade practices although it's not related to the piece of news shared here.
AmazonPay has two components: "Money" and "Gifts and Credits". As per Government Guidelines, a customer needs to complete Full KYC to be able to load "Money" in AmazonPay. Fair enough.
I chose not to do Full KYC, and as per Government Guidelines, I completed Minimum KYC (which was valid for 2 years back then). This allowed me to use my existing "Money" component already present in AmazonPay. But Amazon unscrupulously disabled the "Money" component and told me I have to complete Full KYC to access the "Money" component. There was no such rule by Government Guidelines.
The reason they gave me is that I havent used my "Money" component in past 1 year. The "Gifts and Credits" component always takes precedence (as it has a lower validity of 1 year), so only my "Gifts and Credits" component was being used all the time (I had got Gift Cards and so I used them); and so the "Money" component never got used and stayed as is, and was locked by Amazon without reason. They should have allowed me to use the existing balance since I have done Minimum KYC. I agree I cannot add more "Money" using my cards, and I didn't even want that.
There is no way to directly use "Money" component if you have any additional "Gifts and Credits" in your AmazonPay account. I asked them give me a valid way of using this "Money" component, and they had no answers. Why to disable my "Money" component and lock out my money when I have done nothing wrong?
Also, regarding the "Gifts and Credits" which have a 1 year validity period, there is no real way of identifying how much amount will expire on any given date. This is because, if you add multiple Gift Cards, and if you keep getting various Cashbacks (which are also issued as Gift Cards), it all accumulates, and of your total balance, you can never know how much of it is going to expire on what date exactly.
Earlier, I remember Amazon sending email reminder 30 days prior to expiry, but recently, suddenly Rs 198 of my "Gifts and Credits" got expired (because it was 1 year since I added that particular gift card). Again, when I asked Amazon, they said there is no way to identify how much of your balance is about to expire on what date!