NeWcS 0 Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 (edited) Everyone should outraged by this: Citi Merchant Services drops firearms distributor January 7, 2008 CREDIT CARD PROCESSING COMPANY REJECTS FIREARMS INDUSTRY REFUSES TO PROCESS TRANSACTIONS . . . Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp. are refusing to process any credit card transactions between federally licensed firearms retailers, distributors and manufacturers -- a move which will severely limit available inventory of firearms and ammunition to military, law enforcement and law-abiding Americans. The first company to be affected by this decision appears to be firearms distributor CDNN Sports Inc. "We were contacted recently by First Data/Citi Merchant Services by a June Rivera-Mantilla stating that we were terminated and funds were being seized for selling firearms in a non-face-to-face transaction," said Charlie Crawford, president of CDNN Sports Inc. "Although perfectly legal, we were also informed that no transactions would be processed in the future, even for non-firearms. I find this very frightening." To voice your concern to Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp., please contact June Rivera-Mantilla at 631-683-7734 or her supervisor Robert Tenenbaum at 631-683-6570. To change to an NSSF-affiliated credit card processing program, contact Payment Alliance International at 1-866-371-2273 (ext. 1131). From Citi's letter to CDNN Sports:"Keep in mind that a violation of the Gun Control Act occurs when a gun offered online is sold to an individual in another state; the act prohibits selling a handgun to a resident of another state. Shipping accross state lines is also banned, yet guns for sale reach people accross hte country. We at Cit Merchant Service are nable to monitor or track adherence to these Gun Control laws." June Rivera-Mantilla letter to CDNN: http://www.nssf.org/share/images/letter.jpg How sad that now credit card companys are trying to police the people. -Jay Edited January 9, 2008 by NeWcS Quote Link to post Share on other sites
termite 463 Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 WTF?????????? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shaneman153a 39 Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 Ever heard of a CC company getting sued for processing a firearms transaction related to a shooting? What about transactions within TX? Absolute horse shit. They're not shipping firearms to individuals, only FFLs. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SaigaNoobie 66 Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 Me thinks Ms. June Riviera-Consuela-Rodriguez-Himenez-Mantilla, should read the laws again. While it's an individual's MONEY, it's not being shipped to the individual. It's being shipped to an FFL, which is perfectly LEGAL. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
patriot 7,197 Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 I smell a lawsuit for interfering with lawful commerce. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
G O B 3,516 Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 I think that is the NEXT case that will go to the Supreme Court. Citi needs to have their charter revoked. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chris410 0 Posted January 9, 2008 Report Share Posted January 9, 2008 From Citi's letter to CDNN Sports:"Keep in mind that a violation of the Gun Control Act occurs when a gun offered online is sold to an individual in another state; the act prohibits selling a handgun to a resident of another state. Shipping accross state lines is also banned, yet guns for sale reach people accross hte country. We at Cit Merchant Service are nable to monitor or track adherence to these Gun Control laws."June Rivera-Mantilla Uh What!!! Its not a violation to ship to a DEALER in another state, nor is it banned to ship arms across state lines. What a crock of shit!!!! Unless CDNN was shipping to out of state individuals this is completely bogus. Obvious anti-gun agenda. These people should be hung in the streets like tyrants. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Combat Medic 5 Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 exactly this is just the start! it will get worse the more we take! we need to write our congressmen.....if they are willing to listen and have them pursue these criminals to the fullest extent of the law! if you have a debt to this bank pay it ASAP and take your money elsewhere! its not about the law its about stopping "Violent Crime" for the intrests of "Humanity" these people are criminals! Fuck them! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Navy87Guy 1 Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 CDNN won't even take your order if they don't already have y our FFL's license on file (I know...I missed out on a gun in the time it took for the license to get there!) - so I highly doubt they were doing anything illegal. Just another case of the ignorant proving it to the world... Jim Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RangerM9 1 Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 CDNN won't even take your order if they don't already have y our FFL's license on file (I know...I missed out on a gun in the time it took for the license to get there!) - so I highly doubt they were doing anything illegal. Just another case of the ignorant proving it to the world... Jim I remember that Jim!....Ruger 93 or 94 wasn't it? Yup...think i may just cancel my CITI card....don't use it anyway.....makes me wish my student loans were not through them though.....ignorant self righteous dumbfucks..... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
zakmatthews 14 Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 Fuck Citigroup. They're suffering big with the country's recent credit troubles ect, and I hope with the coming recession they file for bankruptcy. Financial experts are considering it a high possibility. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bvamp 604 Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 yeh? and what if they all join hands then? hows about not being able to use visa or mastercard at the gun shop because the company wont carry them as a merchant? what then. seen this happen in another way, but of same form, back locally in NY where I moved from. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chris410 0 Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 I called and left a message with Mantilla, anyone else? Its better than just bitchin on the net about it. (no offense) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paladin 37 Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 I smell a lawsuit, and it smells good. Those bastards are all about profit, They would finance crack sales if they made money at it. Someone let their personal agenda get in the way. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
NataSS Inc 0 Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 I really would like to make a call on this one but really dont have any idea what to say other than that Citigroup needs to understand the law before making a decision like this. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
G O B 3,516 Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 Anyone who has had a transaction refused--Send aletter of protest to you'r Congressmean and Senator. Be nice , but make it clear that you are OUTRAGED! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
fasdfs 5 Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 If you ask me, this stinks of backdoor gun control. CDNN is probably just the litmus test. Congress doesn't need to ban guns when the de facto result can be achieved through corporate channels. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cscharlie 107 Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Citi bank is on my poop list for other reasons already. I've wondered how long it would be before this happened. Wellsfargo has used the company to foster/support personal agenda. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bill 0 Posted January 12, 2008 Report Share Posted January 12, 2008 ....'Bad Karma to Finger of God.....Bad Karma to Finger of God ,over....'This is Finger of God,go head........Finger of God ,this is Bad Karma--call for fire,call for fire..over......Bad Karma,fire incoming,over.........Pattern is good ,repeat, pattern is good-over.....Bad Karma to Finger of God,fire for effect, repeat fire for effect...over........ Quote Link to post Share on other sites
NataSS Inc 0 Posted January 15, 2008 Report Share Posted January 15, 2008 Wonder if this had anything to do with it. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080115/citigroup.html Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Racer 27 37 Posted January 15, 2008 Report Share Posted January 15, 2008 So that's why when I was 2 days late on my $20 min payment I couldn't use my card. Ha Ha what a fucking joke. Called up and payed off balance but it made my look like an dumbass buying beer with a card that doesn't work. Need to keep a better eye on the due date and get a dif. card. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Navy87Guy 1 Posted January 16, 2008 Report Share Posted January 16, 2008 Wonder if this had anything to do with it.http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080115/citigroup.html Yeah -- that's what I would do if I were in financial trouble: cancel a reliable, profitable customer because I'm an ass hat! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BryanSpaulding 0 Posted February 6, 2008 Report Share Posted February 6, 2008 CREDIT CARD PROCESSING COMPANY REJECTS FIREARMS INDUSTRY I figured I'd pass on my experience with getting the credit card processing set up for Viking Kitty Armory - it was not fun. The only reason I stuck with it and pushed the process thru, instead of just accepting checks, was the increased level of protection credit cards provide consumers. The threat of a chargeback should be enough to keep any merchant on their toes. We knew when we started Viking Kitty Armory we needed to find the people in the companies we had to do business with that understood the firearms industry. Or at the very least, understood how to pick up the phone and call their Legal department for clarification. We were a little surprised when our original bank declined to setup credit card processing for us. I think the reason we were given was that processing money from firearm transactions, "... was against company policy." We thought this policy applied to both merchant services and our corporate checking account. Many phone calls later we found out Merchant Services is a department separate from Bank Accounts. Our money was good enough in their vaults, but not good enough to pass thru their merchant services. Our second bank was happy to offer us a checking account and process our credit card transactions. To their credit they did offer to process our credit card transactions, but not very reasonably. I don't know if we got the standard package offer, a special "firearms industry" offer, or the special "small business" package. After dealing with a number of credit card processing companies directly that just flat out would not process "firearms" transactions we found one that would. After all the paperwork was filled out, and more then one week of waiting, we were told the underwriter required a reserve. This is essentially an amount of money that sits in a bank account used as security against chargebacks. The reserve amount doesn't get returned immediately when you change processing companies or cancel your processing account. In our case, if we canceled or moved our processing account, they would keep it for six months before returning it. At one point we were asked how we were able to sell firearms to anyone but another FFL. I believe someone in the paper trail somewhere thought a firearm manufacturer could only sell to firearm dealers, who in turn, could only sell to people. I sent them a copy of Federal Law - this isn't alcohol manufacturing. We eventually got our account set up on more reasonable terms. Google Checkout and Paypal won't touch firearms. Ebay won't touch firearms. The first hosted shopping cart vender we looked at wouldn't touch firearms. We were sent on a wild goose chase for approvals that didn't exist for our county Occupational License (we just moved the business to a different county after a couple weeks of that). We ran into landlords who would not rent to us because their heavy industrial zoned property was not a good "fit" for our use. We ran into zoning issues when property that was zoned for "shooting ranges" wasn't the right zoning for gunsmithing. When the city government classified us as a Manufacturing business, our county government originally wouldn't issue a Business Tax Certificate until we got our city classification changed to gunsmithing. The only problem is the city doesn't have a category for gunsmithing, the city calls it "Manufacturing." While I am not certain we ever really ran into "backdoor gun control," I do believe that many companies are afraid to touch anything related to firearms due to the complicated legal restrictions placed on them. In many industries forgetting to file, or misfiling, paperwork is just a $50.00 late fee, in the firearms industry that same error could result in a felony charge. I believe these companies feel the only way to mitigate this risk is to just not do business with firearm related industries and that this fear is the cause for a lot of what could be attributed to "backdoor gun control." I don't think this is going to change unless our society, as a whole, changes how they look at firearms. Looking back, there were some very humorous exchanges. There is a subtle satisfaction in answering a question about the authority of our corporate policies by saying, "It is Federal Law." - Bryan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MD_Willington 11 Posted February 6, 2008 Report Share Posted February 6, 2008 "backdoor gun control." more like the CC industry has their heads in their "backdoor" I used my Paypal Visa to buy my S&W-5906 a few years back before this BS... since then I have ditched the Paypal visa... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
taurussvt 0 Posted February 6, 2008 Report Share Posted February 6, 2008 I've spent a couple of grand between guns, ammo, and accessories with my citibank card. I'll continue to do it as well just because it's pissing them off. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
G O B 3,516 Posted February 6, 2008 Report Share Posted February 6, 2008 If making it almost impossible to get anyone to do buisness with you isn't back door guncontroll then what is? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Navy87Guy 1 Posted February 7, 2008 Report Share Posted February 7, 2008 "backdoor gun control." more like the CC industry has their heads in their "backdoor" It's more like they're covering their "backdoor". You saw what happened after Va Tech -- lots of CYA to make sure that the next time, no one could blame the companies. Ignorance and paranoia are a dangerous combination - and it looks like the credit and banking industries have both in abundance! I recently had my PayPal account locked. Apparently they have a search engine that crawls web sites looking for the words "PayPal". I was selling a gun and a holster on Glock Talk. I listed PayPal as an option for the holster only -- but the words tripped the search engine, identified it in a firearms forum and generated an automatic response. Clearly, there were no humans in the loop. If they had read my post, they would have seen it was completely within their policy guidelines. Regardless, I ended up removing the PP reference and they unlocked my account. I did include a rebuttal in my email reply notifying them I had "rectified" the problem -- but I doubt anyone read it. I guess it's a matter of how much are you willing to put up with for the sake of convenience. Jim Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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