Amazon now letting your teenagers buy stuff on your Prime account

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Amazon is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first E-reader with the announcement of the new Kindle Oasis this morning. But it also launched a new program allowing teenagers to have a more independent experience on the service using the family’s Prime membership.

While there are a number of safety protocols in place here, teenagers will have a separate login with the ability to make purchases and use various Prime services. Now if allowing your 13 to 17 year old to have full reigns over your credit card on Amazon sounds like a really bad idea, don’t worry, there are several security measures in place.

Here’s how it works. After adding your teenager to your account, you’ll be able to choose payment methods and shipping addresses available to them. You’ll also receive texts or emails showing you items your teens are trying to purchase along with all of the pertinent payment and shipping details. At which point you can can either approve or disapprove the $6,000 curved OLED little Timmy is trying to bring home on your card. And teenagers can include a note with their approval submissions like “I swear the new Call of Duty game and this OLED is for school and I need it”.

Or maybe he just wants a new pair of shoes:

Although, parents do have the choice to forgo the approval process in favor of pre-approved spending limits with various degrees of customization. In other words, you can set a threshold, allowing Timmy to only spend a certain amount of money on a single purchase.

As a parent of a teen, I know how they crave independence, but at the same time that has to be balanced with the convenience and trust that parents need. We’ve listened to families and have built a great experience for both teens and parents…

Parents with a Prime membership can share the following services with their teens at no additional cost:

  • Prime Shipping: Unlimited fast, Free Two-Day Shipping on more than 50 million items
  • Prime Video: Unlimited access to tens of thousands of movies and TV shows
  • Twitch Prime: Free games and in-game loot, Twitch viewing benefits, and discounts on most pre-release boxed games

While the security issues are a bit of a concern here, Amazon isn’t just going to let little Timmy do anything he wants on your card. The idea of allowing young people a chance to shop for themselves and manage an account like this can certainly be a good thing. And Amazon will allow you to change the permissions on the teen account as they (hopefully) become more responsible and trustworthy.

Parents and teens can learn more about the new program right here along with sign-up details and more.

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