Firearm agnostic online payments

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  • pez34a

    Active Member
    Feb 17, 2013
    195
    Columbia, MD
    Hi all,

    Bought something from a member on another forum, something perfectly legal and easily would have used Paypal if Paypal permitted firearm related goods. As I was dropping the check into the USPS mailbox, I was thinking there must be other services out there, so I thought I'd do some quick research. Thought I'd type it up to share; maybe others will find it interesting.

    The three 'send money' services I found that seemingly permit firearms and firearm parts:

    • American Express 'Serve' card (https://www.serve.com/) - Requires both sender and receiver to have a Serve card account but no person to person transaction fee, seems to be either a $1 monthly fee or is free if linked to a mobile app (isis wallet). Policy only says no unlawful purchase of firearms
    • Dwolla https://www.dwolla.com/ - $0.25 cent transaction fee. Policy has no mention of firearms - some posts online quote Dwolla reps saying legal firearms transactions are ok too.
    • Western Union http://www.westernunion.com/ - $5 fee to transfer to bank accounts, $8 fee for cash pickup at a western union location. Policy doesn't mention anything about firearms

    For completeness, the below services' policies specifically do not permit firearm related purchases:
    • Paypal
    • Google Wallet
    • Amazon Web Payments
    • Square
    • Paytoo
    I wonder if it was the liability folks or the marketing folks at these companies that put the ixnay on enabling completely legal transactions?

    Also, one could just use bitcoin and cut out the transaction middlemen entirely.
     

    kazan182

    Active Member
    Aug 3, 2011
    510
    Hi all,

    Bought something from a member on another forum, something perfectly legal and easily would have used Paypal if Paypal permitted firearm related goods. As I was dropping the check into the USPS mailbox, I was thinking there must be other services out there, so I thought I'd do some quick research. Thought I'd type it up to share; maybe others will find it interesting.

    The three 'send money' services I found that seemingly permit firearms and firearm parts:

    • American Express 'Serve' card (https://www.serve.com/) - Requires both sender and receiver to have a Serve card account but no person to person transaction fee, seems to be either a $1 monthly fee or is free if linked to a mobile app (isis wallet). Policy only says no unlawful purchase of firearms
    • Dwolla https://www.dwolla.com/ - $0.25 cent transaction fee. Policy has no mention of firearms - some posts online quote Dwolla reps saying legal firearms transactions are ok too.
    • Western Union http://www.westernunion.com/ - $5 fee to transfer to bank accounts, $8 fee for cash pickup at a western union location. Policy doesn't mention anything about firearms

    For completeness, the below services' policies specifically do not permit firearm related purchases:
    • Paypal
    • Google Wallet
    • Amazon Web Payments
    • Square
    • Paytoo
    I wonder if it was the liability folks or the marketing folks at these companies that put the ixnay on enabling completely legal transactions?

    Also, one could just use bitcoin and cut out the transaction middlemen entirely.

    Many folks continue to use PP but just mark the payment as a 'gift' or other item. They don't need to know why the payment is being made and in fact, I think if you mark Gift you can avoid some fees.
     

    Chevyman85

    Active Member
    Feb 14, 2013
    468
    DoCo
    Many folks continue to use PP but just mark the payment as a 'gift' or other item. They don't need to know why the payment is being made and in fact, I think if you mark Gift you can avoid some fees.

    Gifting on PP just means the sender pays the fees instead of the recipient.
     

    Pinecone

    Ultimate Member
    MDS Supporter
    Feb 4, 2013
    28,175
    It depends on the source of the payment:

    If you send a gift payment from your bank account or PayPal balance, there will be no fee. However, if you send it from a card the normal 3.4% + 0.20p will apply.
     

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