So for the past who knows how many years, we have offered various ways for our customers to pay. We have always relied on PayPal and a few years back we added Amazon Payments.
One of the standard payment gateways that are used by our shopping cart program is Stripe which handles credit card payments. For many years our customers have been buying merchandise on our site using this safe and secure payment platform.
Well, today we got an email saying that because we sell tobacco our account has been suspended. Perhaps Stripe uses an algorithm to seek and destroy the term tobacco wherever it may appear on the Internet. I don’t know. I do know because New York State law does not allow an online-only store to sell tobacco products, Penn Valley Pipes has not offered a shred of tobacco online since 2006.
Now, out-of-the-blue comes this blanket decision to ban our website customers from using their credit cards on our site.
Ken is now in negotiations with the payment gateway to see what the rationale is for the suspension and if and when we will be able to reinstitute credit card payments through that gateway.
In the meantime, PayPal does accept all major credit cards whether or not you have a PayPal account. We hope you will continue to purchase our products using one of the alternative methods of payment including checks and money orders.
Ken