Amazon.com and Dominican prepaid credit card

josh2203

Bronze
Dec 5, 2013
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Just bouncing this here in case of anyone has tips/experience from a similar situation:

I have a prepaid credit card from a Dominican bank. A local insurance company charges that monthly without issues, and I use it to carry out for example PayPal payments, without any issues.

Amazon.com declines it instantly (which has lead me to use Ebay, but I?d rather focus on Amazon.com...), and sends me an email that the payment is cancelled due to security reasons. I have there the shipping address of our Miami-based freight forwarder and as billing address what the Dominican bank has in their file as my address.

As Amazon.com is the only vendor who declines it, I?m not quite sure what to do (other than contact them of course, which I haven?t done yet)?

Is there something I have overlooked or tips on how should I set up my account?

Thanks in advance!
 

caribmike

Gold
Jul 9, 2009
6,808
202
63
Change your billing address to the same as the shipping address...

This is the "setup" I use at Amazon with a Visa Debit Card, a Visa CC and a Mastercard CC all issued by Dominican Banks and I bought over 400++ packages in 3 years and never had a problem...
 

Golfer

New member
Apr 7, 2002
255
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Can you recommend a good freight forwarder in Miami for Amazon purchases? Thanks in advance.
 

MpJuly

Member
Apr 30, 2009
467
1
18
I have one prepaid from BHD LEON - I use it with AMAZON without problem, and AMAZON has my DR address as billing and Miami address as shipping !


Just bouncing this here in case of anyone has tips/experience from a similar situation:

I have a prepaid credit card from a Dominican bank. A local insurance company charges that monthly without issues, and I use it to carry out for example PayPal payments, without any issues.

Amazon.com declines it instantly (which has lead me to use Ebay, but I?d rather focus on Amazon.com...), and sends me an email that the payment is cancelled due to security reasons. I have there the shipping address of our Miami-based freight forwarder and as billing address what the Dominican bank has in their file as my address.

As Amazon.com is the only vendor who declines it, I?m not quite sure what to do (other than contact them of course, which I haven?t done yet)?

Is there something I have overlooked or tips on how should I set up my account?

Thanks in advance!
 

Cdn_Gringo

Gold
Apr 29, 2014
8,671
1,133
113
When shopping online. often the shipping address and delivery address for purchases is different. All banks that I have encountered have the ability to validate online purchases by listing both the billing address and the delivery address on your account. This configuration satisfies most online retailers. On one of my credit cards I have four valid addresses.

I have found that for the validation to work, the address you enter on a website has to be in exactly the same format as the address listed by the bank for your account. There is apparently a difference between P.O. Box 123 and PO Box 123. From experience, Main St. was correct but Main st. at the bank caused all transactions to fail until the capitalization discrepancy was discovered and corrected.
 

Bred

Bronze
Aug 13, 2006
851
49
48
Sosua
josh2203, if you follow this advice you should not have any trouble. I have been shopping on Amazon for many years using my DR pre-paid card. Use your DR billing address, not your USA shipping address.

I have one prepaid from BHD LEON - I use it with AMAZON without problem, and AMAZON has my DR address as billing and Miami address as shipping !
 

caribmike

Gold
Jul 9, 2009
6,808
202
63
josh2203, if you follow this advice you should not have any trouble. I have been shopping on Amazon for many years using my DR pre-paid card. Use your DR billing address, not your USA shipping address.

Did you read the OP? That is exactly what josh describes is his problem and that it does NOT work in his case!

I use my Miami forwarding address as Shipping AND Billing address with my DR issued CC's which have my Dominican address on Amazon and it works since 4 years flawless...
 

josh2203

Bronze
Dec 5, 2013
1,572
526
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Why not just sort it out with Amazon's customer support?

Thanks, this is one option. The reason I reached out to other expats here, is that the setting might differ from that of a usual Amazon.com customer. They might say that xyz is not possible, despite the fact that there would be hundreds of expats in DR doing exactly that. And I was simply interested in experiences, not factual info. I can always compare these two then.
 

josh2203

Bronze
Dec 5, 2013
1,572
526
113
Can you recommend a good freight forwarder in Miami for Amazon purchases? Thanks in advance.

I have been using Business Mail / BM Cargo for a few years now, always excellent and fast service, prices are low, can recommend. I think they recently also made some changes to their parcel tracking interface.

BMCargo
 

josh2203

Bronze
Dec 5, 2013
1,572
526
113
Change your billing address to the same as the shipping address...

This is the "setup" I use at Amazon with a Visa Debit Card, a Visa CC and a Mastercard CC all issued by Dominican Banks and I bought over 400++ packages in 3 years and never had a problem...

Thanks, I will try this and report back. The reason I currently have my DR address as the billing address, is that I was concerned, if Amazon would get the address information from my bank, compare those two, and cancel the order due to disparency.
 

josh2203

Bronze
Dec 5, 2013
1,572
526
113
When shopping online. often the shipping address and delivery address for purchases is different. All banks that I have encountered have the ability to validate online purchases by listing both the billing address and the delivery address on your account. This configuration satisfies most online retailers. On one of my credit cards I have four valid addresses.

I have found that for the validation to work, the address you enter on a website has to be in exactly the same format as the address listed by the bank for your account. There is apparently a difference between P.O. Box 123 and PO Box 123. From experience, Main St. was correct but Main st. at the bank caused all transactions to fail until the capitalization discrepancy was discovered and corrected.

Yes, exactly!!

This crossed my mind as well. I have worked in online payment processing, and it bothers me that I have no idea how the DR bank has my address in their file, need to find out.

If I have calle 5 nro 4 in my Amazon billing address, while my bank has Calle 5 nr. 4, there is a clear disparency here :)
 

Jaime809

Bronze
Aug 23, 2012
1,152
0
36
Yes, exactly!!

This crossed my mind as well. I have worked in online payment processing, and it bothers me that I have no idea how the DR bank has my address in their file, need to find out.

If I have calle 5 nro 4 in my Amazon billing address, while my bank has Calle 5 nr. 4, there is a clear disparency here :)

If a computer is doing the comparison, the heuristics are good enough that the difference you describe shouldn't be a problem.
 

heisy

New member
Jun 8, 2015
49
0
0
I have one prepaid from BHD LEON - I use it with AMAZON without problem, and AMAZON has my DR address as billing and Miami address as shipping !


Exactly the same set up here....Never an Issue at all. It is my lifeline .........

The card I use is BHD LEON VISA DEBIT.
 

shorts

Member
Dec 3, 2012
310
3
18
How do you set the address of a BHD prepaid visa? Is this done when you buy the card or done online?

Also what's their fee?