Thompson Center *
97D Rifle/BF Pistol *
Encore Accuracy Barrels *
Savage Accuracy Barrels |
No More PayPal at EABCO... Here's the Story:by Eben Brown, president, E. Arthur Brown Company, Inc.Over the years, we've been encouraged by customers to accept PayPal as a method of payment on our shopping cart. Until the last couple of years, we figured it was much more convenient to just accept the major credit cards (and we continue to accept Visa, MC, Discover, and American Express). But recently, we decided to give the PayPal payment method a try. As is my nature, I jumped in with both feet and stuck my neck out to write a very complimentary promotion... I probably should have just quietly added it to our payment methods and not made such a big deal of it. Anyway, now I've got a bit of egg on my face... PayPal emailed us on Friday July 9th to say they were stopping our PayPal transactions, saying we are in violation of their Acceptable Use Policy by selling firearms and ammunition. Since our offices are closed on weekends, we didn't get the email until Monday morning (the 11th) and so I'm sure at least a few customers were inconvenienced if they tried to check out their orders using PayPal as a payment method. Please accept my apologies if this happened to you. I logged into our PayPal account this morning, where the account status said, "No Appeal". Thinking there must be a misunderstanding, I called the support line and explained, "Everything we do and sell is perfectly legal. We're licensed for everything we need to be licensed for and we operate a straight up business". I was told it doesn't matter that we're a legal business and our products are legal. The support person said, "PayPal does not wish to associate with businesses who sell firearms and ammunition." And that's all there is to it... No More PayPal at EABCO. Update February 14, 2012 - After 6 months of punishment, PayPal finally released the funds it withheld from our account... A few thousand dollars... No small matter. I see firearms and ammunition sellers using PayPal all the time. I don't know why they decided to selectively enforce their anti-gun rule on our company. I DO know they are riding high and can do whatever they want when other businesses have to be careful... It Won't Always Be This Easy For Them. |