Bad Business Policy is going to bit them

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>>What gateway did you end up going with? <<


Powerpay my processor in Portland, ME, 888-888-4009 set it up.

The gateway is PlugnPay www.plugnplay.com

Their services are as or more extensive as authorize.net

They work the same as authorize.net AIM and have complete AGO

Same tools, API, and even an authorize.net emulator template to make switching painless.
 
I refuse to give money to anti gun businesses. There is an NRA list if you google it. Lots of companies on it. Levi Jeans, Sara Lee, Time Warner, AMC, Hallmark, Ben and Jerry's are a few.
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Hope you are using Linux

WildoldbillynolikeegunsAlaska ™©2002-2011
 
Mr. Lucky, I applaud you on your letter to authorize.net. I agree that it probably wont rattle any cages, but it might get someone thinking. I have a stack of cards in my card wallet that say "While I respect your right to practice anti-gun policies, I am going to practice my right to forever take my business elsewhere." It's really fun to hand that to a manager of a store that has a no concealed carry, or no weapons allowed sign in their window. I my self will not give money to any anti-gun policy company either, regardless of the reasons for said policy. Unfortunately that list is ever growing, and does include alot of companies that might not be directly anti-gun, but that are owned/operated by anti gun people (Heinz products, Starbucks, to name a couple). I disagree with anyone saying it wont do any good to send notice to FFL's, the NRA and Gun Owners, I for one hope that anyone who owns a gun and found out about a company's anti-gun policies would imediately terminate any business with that company, and if that only turns out to be one other person, than so be it, that's one less customer for them. Anyway, my wife and I use the NRA for our credit card transactions, have you looked at them?
 
Wild,

They got us coming an going. Bill Gates and MS are staunchly anti. as is Bing. For that matter, Google's ad policy for merchant center is anti gun.
Google pay per click, doesn't really care because they sell off to affiliates anyway.
 
Whiskey,

Anyway, my wife and I use the NRA for our credit card transactions, have you looked at them?

Thanks, I feel the same way. Sometimes there are no good alternatives though.

Tell me you don't mean the NRA Payment Alliance. They also use authorize.net but lie to everyone that it's OK.

I spoke to NRA-ILA about that yesterday. I'm waiting to hear back from them but I have a feeling it is going to be a long wait.
 
Odd. I am surprised that a UT based company is so bad about it. I can't help but wonder if they have the same problem with alcohol & tobacco sales.
 
I am sure there was some sort of agreement (contract) at the time you "signed up" with them. I imagine that by "using" their services you "agreed" to their terms. I guess I am curious if you read the terms of said agreement (contract) before you "signed up" with them?

If you did read the terms before "accepting", then you understood their policy then, and used their services any way. :confused:

If you did NOT read the terms before accepting and using their services. :confused:

Either way, I am not seeing the problem on their end. I guess it's only a problem on your end. Maybe next time you will be more careful before you "sign on the dotted line".
 
Thanks, I feel the same way. Sometimes there are no good alternatives though.

Tell me you don't mean the NRA Payment Alliance. They also use authorize.net but lie to everyone that it's OK.
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Authorize.net is nowhere in that setup. Eprocessingnetwork does the front side and then it goes through the PAI back end to be cleared (HSBC is their bank). Where did you see Authorize.net in their setup?


BTW Firstdata also does not allow firearms (online especially). Thats who many banks use and they cancelled our account we had for counter sales because our bank "lied" to them and didnt tell them they were underwriting a gun store, even though they allow counter sales.
 
BTW Firstdata also does not allow firearms (online especially). Thats who many banks use and they cancelled our account we had for counter sales because our bank "lied" to them and didnt tell them they were underwriting a gun store, even though they allow counter sales.
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I mentioned Firstdata above. Years ago we were all up in arms about them and Citibank. Needless to say, despite their position changes to not doing gun vending sales, our boycotts did nothing, their oh-so-vital 1% didn't get harmed, the FTC didn't go after them, and the NRA didn't save us all by forcing them into compliance.
 
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Thanks, I feel the same way. Sometimes there are no good alternatives though.

Tell me you don't mean the NRA Payment Alliance. They also use authorize.net but lie to everyone that it's OK.
Click to expand...

Authorize.net is nowhere in that setup. Eprocessingnetwork does the front side and then it goes through the PIA back end to be cleared (HS BC is their bank). Where did you see Authorize.net in their setup?


BTW First data also does not allow firearms (on line especially). Thats who many banks use and they canceled our account we had for counter sales because our bank "lied" to them and didn't tell them they were underwriting a gun store, even though they allow counter sales.
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Actually, PIA does use authorize.net. I spoke to a guy there today and asked how they get around authorize.net. He said, most merchants they set up get authorize.net. If firearms are sold, they can use eprocessnetwork.com or a combination of eprocessnetwork.com for firearms and authorize.net for non-firearms. That still seemed to be a little grey to me but I accepted what he said.

Later a sales rep from NRA Business Alliance called. We discussed the issue. I told her I thought her rates were a little high. She sent me a revised quote to come in just under my processor. I said I would switch over to NRA through her as a reseller for PAI and with eprocessnetwork.com for the gateway. Plugnpay was OK but were missing some features like automatic batch settlement. Settlements could be easily scheduled but I figured there were probably would be other small features missing too.
__________________
NRA Instructor and FFL in Central Ohio.
Owner of GunEnvy. Home of the $20 transfer and many other deals. See our Facebook page for more.
 
I mentioned Firstdata above. Years ago we were all up in arms about them and Citibank. Needless to say, despite their position changes to not doing gun vending sales, our boycotts did nothing, their oh-so-vital 1% didn't get harmed, the FTC didn't go after them, and the NRA didn't save us all by forcing them into compliance.
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There are probably more white collar crooks inside one big bank than all the bank robbers and petty thieves on the street. The merchant services resellers are no different than the mortgage brokers who over sold the housing market. The banks just kept taking the money. If a bank says they have a no firearms policy, they claim it is due to chargebacks.

Firearms sales get lumped in with tobacco, online gambling, p**n (four letter word?) and 1-900 fortune telling.

Heck there are far more chargebacks with an online electronics stores than with firearms stores. It is about money and greed.

The way it works is that a bank needs a favor from a politician who is pushing gun restrictions.

The bank pays the politician and the bank gets a favor that saves them more than the 1% loss they might miss for not accepting gun sales.

Harry Reid has made a fortune this way and the banks probably made even more.

The NRA exists because it is a lucrative business. The lobbyists there make even more than the crooked politicians and banks.
 
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Actually, PIA does use authorize.net. I spoke to a guy there today and asked how they get around authorize.net. He said, most merchants they set up get authorize.net. If firearms are sold, they can use eprocessnetwork.com or a combination of eprocessnetwork.com for firearms and authorize.net for non-firearms. That still seemed to be a little grey to me but I accepted what he said.
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Sorry, you made it sound like they use it all the time, which they do not. You can use any gateway to connect, and when signing up you can choose based on the terms and conditions of the gateway. (Hence why we use Eprocessing all the time, even now with Payex). Eprocessing has an Authorize.net emulation anyway and works great with Zencart etc... even our custom written POS talks nicely to them.
 
docpadds,

You do some coding yes?
Setting up an authnet like emulation just requires using the gateway's payment AIM Key or SIM Key and merchant ID, and changing the code in a cart checkout page to point to their site instead of to authnet.

My sites are a little more complicated. We have customized Zen cart so when a customer has a firearm in the basket it directs him to our ffl finder. He/she can also manually fill in the fields we need if he has an ffl that's not in our database. We do something similar with hasmats and shipping.
 
We wrote all that logic into our Zencart too. We actually used to have to choose between two different merchant accounts depending if you had firearms in the cart, but thankfully no more so that logic is idle.

Our POS is fully integrated with the cart, as is the automated inventory load etc... Thankfully now using just one merchant account we can send the relevant code for swiped, phone and internet etc and receive the relevant rate.
 
We wrote all that logic into our Zencart too. We actually used to have to choose between two different merchant accounts depending if you had firearms in the cart, but thankfully no more so that logic is idle.

Our POS is fully integrated with the cart, as is the automated inventory load etc... Thankfully now using just one merchant account we can send the relevant code for swiped, phone and internet etc and receive the relevant rate.
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Two merchant accounts is one way. You could use multiple database too. Where distributors offer web services we will use their DB and write SOAP to read what they usually output in XML. Some hosts have a problem with enabling PHP SOAP. We are on private servers so we do what we want. There are other ways besides SOAP if needed you could use CURL or even RPC.

Technology is great when it all works right. You can even go wireless with a POS.
 
As the OP called for a boycott and noted how the business practices of Authorize.net would come back and bite it, an apparently damaging policy that would be bad for business, I thought I would check on Authorize.net and see how they were doing as a followup as it can take boycotts a while to have much of an effect.

Did a quick check. Authorize.net is still alive and well. It seems that back in 2007 they were acquire by Cybersource and Cybersource was taken over by Visa US around April 2010. At that time, Cybersource was running approximately 1/4 of all online money transfers through its systems.
http://www.authorize.net/
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Visa-Acquires-CyberSource-with-Two-Billion-Dollar-Tag-140302.shtml

It would seem the boycott was not a significant event. Visa stock prices are higher than in the last 5 years and it continues to pay quarterly dividends. Authorize.net has over 300,000 primary customers and handlings millions upon millions of transactions each year.
 
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