Hi Wishin. My reluctance is because of exposure to my customers. I have been in touch with the president of the company for many years and he knows that I tried to do this myself about 4 years ago. I even own guncash.com. When I got involved with it I was confronted with a banking industry that is so ignorant to gun laws that you have to start at ground zero with them and go from there. Plus, to do a real paypal, you have to either be a bank, or have a bank underwrite the whole thing, which I could do neither, so I abandoned it, and instead found a reliable pro gun credit card processor, and started my GunsAmerica Live Payments system for gun dealers that plugs into our dealer website automation application.
The concerns I have are two. One is that even though I know the code has gone through scrutiny by federal banking experts, it is untested. Paypal had gaping holes in their system and account hijacking and fraud was rampant for many years. The reaction by paypal was worse, and people had their accounts frozen for no reason, and had to fight to have them unfrozen. Gun dealers are generally small operations with few if any employees, and trying to figure out how to get your 20k out of your payment system just isn't something that people have time to do.
The other thing is the bank itself. Although the company board is made of all lawyers who are gun people, and they have had the whole thing worked through a real and long established bank, I started my Live Payments with a pro gun bank too, and when one serious fraud case came through, all of my dealers were shut down with no notice. We later picked back up with another bank who has been fabulous, but we had to put additional protections in place to make sure that only gun dealers could get these merchant accounts.
It is one thing to say that someone is on your side, and it is another to look over your shoulder when the bullets are flying and see them standing their with your back. I know for a 100% fact that the same guy who got my dealers shut down (he is an old fraudster from the antique side of guns who lost his FFL years ago) is going to use their system in a fraudulent manner. I have never seen him not show up for something new and try to exploit it. We will see if, when real cases of people selling guns illegally and people ripping people off on guns come through, they stand and deliver.
As a side point, the "anti-gun" position of the bank has nothing to do with guns or gun freedom. For the banks, it is all about chargebacks. When you take payment for something using a credit card, the bank is in effect giving you credit by letting you spend that money, assuming that a chargeback will not come in. With guns, you have a product that not everyone can legally own, and that is frequently stolen and sold illegally online. Plus they are relatively high ticket. Plus, and this is a big big big plus, when someone sells you a gun online and ships it to your FFL, if you want to return that gun, the guy has to be able to pass a nics check and pay a transfer fee most likely to get the gun back. Not everyone who owns guns can still buy that gun today, in the state where they live.
It is my responsibility to protect my GA people from fraud. It is by far the biggest single issue that my customer service deals with every day, and I can count on one hand how many legit cases of my people getting ripped off have occured in 12 years. Several of these resulted in arrests and the money or guns being returned, including large multi-agency stings operations.
I 100% trust GUNPAY. They are stand up gun guys. But I can't expose my GA people unless I understand the guts of the company, and they pass some test of time. They know that I wish them the best of success and I hope they are wildly successful. A real paypal type payment system for the gun industry is long overdue and it will help us all move as a gun community into the next era of gun ownership and gun freedom.
