Posted on 06/03/2013 8:29:09 AM PDT by rsflynn
Good morning fellow Freepers. I have been a longtime member and mostly lurk around, reading the excellent content posted by my fellow conservatives. I am making a rare exception because of something that happened to my Dad about 10 minutes ago.
He received a call from Paypal. You know, the online money transfer company that basically rode the back of eBay to become the company that it is today. They called and asked him about a series of transactions that were made earlier this year. They were actually for some spare scopes he had sold via GunBroker.com. However, the customer service representative was very persistent in asking what these transactions were for. My Dad told them it was none of their business. They kept hounding him and harassing him trying to get him to divulge the exact contents of the transaction. Dad was having none of it. They finally concluded the call stating that it is Paypal policy that you cannot use their services for the sale or transfer of firearms or ammunition.
They gave me $2,000 limit on purchases on my CC. I then use it for maybe $200 and they then suddenly claim they need to link to my bank account or get their credit card. This has happened twice over the past 5 or 6 years. I’ve always only purchased using Paypal, never sold anything.
One thing I’ve learned about PP is that their policies are very whimsical. Certain people seem to get along fine and others like myself nothing but problems.
I finally got tired of messing with them plus their views on the 2nd Amendment were a deal killer.
I have a business that sells nothing but one firearm part, (it’s a trigger modifier for a particular “assault weapon”).
I’ve never had a problem. A friend who makes parts for such rifles also sells that way, and says that he withdraws the cash as soon at it hits, but that’s about it.
Is there a major national financial institution that doesn’t have (at least on paper) some kind of anti-gun policy?
Depends on how you define major.
See post 13. I’ve never used it myself.
I don’t know why it’s any of their dang business. If I’m not buying/selling illegal items, they should process my CC transaction.
Hmmm. Wonder what VISA merchant requirements & guidelines have to say about this? Maybe VISA can revoke their merchant status.
Thanks for the headsup.
Ditto
Some smart entrepreneur could make a lot of money by becoming the banker for firearm and accessory manufacturers, distributors and dealers.
Your dad should have told them it was for abortion tools. That would really twist them up ;-)
That is very old news. They don’t allow a lot of gun related stuff, not just firearms and ammunition. They stopped allowing brass cases, bullets (for reloading), and a lot of other gun stuff 5 or more years ago.
bookmark
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So, Staples felt the heat and saw the light.
BFL. Looks like an interesting link
Thanks for the links, but I rarely use Paypal or even credit cards so they don’t make much on me anyway.
or set up a bank account reserved for that only and leave only a small amount in it.
I did that.
bump for later
Same here. Pity, I got a lot of computer parts there.
Constitutional rights ARE civil rights. It’s just the mental ineptitude and dishonesty of the lefties (in differing proportions from individual to individual) that says there’s a difference. In fact, I make a practice of hoisting them by their own petard by using the phrase “civil rights” when describing any freedoms held by normal people (non-lefties) that they want to infringe upon.
Years ago when I sold on ebay, I opened up a 2nd account at my bank just for ebay/paypal....I could then transfer money from paypal to this checking account. Never let paypal go over 100 dollars as they had the right to put a freeze on your bank account if there was a conflict. I then would take the money out of that bank account when it got too high, (like 150.00)
I used to use paypal too. I was selling for my Father on gunbroker as well. When one day they froze my account and the money inside it (700 bucks). It was payment for a 19th century japanese pistol. Paypal cited their TOS (who reads those lengthy things?) which forbids accepting payment for guns and swords. I called up paypal and talked with a customer representative. I pointed out that legally, under federal law, this was an antique. They were unmoved.
They informed me that my money would be frozen for 6 months before I could withdraw it. I asked the customer representative how often did they allow people to collect their funds any time BEFORE the 6 months freeze had expired. She said never. And my account would be frozen forever as they will never allow me to accept payment using their service ever again.
I did some online research which revealed to me that when paypal went to freeze your account, they waited until you had a huge sum in there. I never heard anybody complain something along the lines of: “they froze my account and I had 2 bucks in there.”, or “they froze my account, but I had nothing in there”. It was ALWAYS: “they froze my account and I had 2000 bucks in there!” and “they froze my account and I had 800 bucks in there!”
More research told me that the reason why they clamped down on your account when you had hundreds or thousands of dollars in your frozen account was so that they could collect interest on that money.
In anger I emailed paypal asking them why it was wrong for me to use their service to accept money for firearms, but it was ok for them to collect interest on those same exact funds. A couple days later, bingo. They emailed me back informing me that I could withdraw my money. Which I did.
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