New credit card code for gun shops

[CoalCrackerAl]

Yeah i remember when the stores has cards only at the registers.

 

[mokin]

I’ve yet to figure out *who* is making the decisions.. if the CC companies are simply adding a code and therefore creating a new list of purchases, do THEY analyze and report? Or do they turn it over to the Feds? I think the latter is most likely. Yet we’ve yet to see how this works. So the Feds will be making yet another list …

Los Federales already have lists. CC companies aren't going to analyze didly. I'm not attacking you here. Your questions are succinct and to the point.

Some social injustice warrior will request sales data under some pretext from the CC company. The dollar volume will be "leaked" for the world to see. The CC company will then have to repent thier evil ways of doing business with firearms companies and as a sign they are serious, start declining those transactions.

 

[KyJim]

Some online dealers accept ACH transfers. That eliminates the merchant code problem.

 

[Howland937]

Look at Wally receipt, EVERY item listed.
Toilet paper, aspirin, spray paint, car battery and BUCK knife.

How many of those are listed on your bank or credit card statement? I just checked my bank statement for debit purchases (I don't do credit cards). Says where, when, how much, etc...but no itemized list or breakdown of even how many things were on that purchase. Merchant codes identify the business type, but not what items. That's the rub.

Now, if the credit card companies decide they want transactions done item by item and can strongarm the retailers into adopting such procedures, you might be on to something. This isn't that. Not yet at least.

 

[CoalCrackerAl]

Yeah my bank card just has the amount a merchant.

 

[Outlaw75]

Yeah my bank card just has the amount a merchant.

And that's all the Bank/CC Company wants to see. They deal with enough data as it is. They don't want to have to deal with every cup of coffee, pack of gum, or box of tampons somebody buys.

Los Federales already have lists. CC companies aren't going to analyze didly. I'm not attacking you here. Your questions are succinct and to the point.

Some social injustice warrior will request sales data under some pretext from the CC company. The dollar volume will be "leaked" for the world to see. The CC company will then have to repent thier evil ways of doing business with firearms companies and as a sign they are serious, start declining those transactions.

This! The real goal of this is to get the Banks and CC companies to refuse to deal with gun sellers.

 

[Seedy Character]

Not, YET.

 

[hso]

Ha!


Look at a Goodyear tire. There is a bar code embedded in the tire. Goodyear can enter that bar code, tell you what plant it was build in, at what time, on which machine and by what builder.

It isn't difficult and a power hungry tyrant would have no problem at all.

Let's assume this isn't tin-foil-hat thinking. Tell us HOW those dots get connected between a store that sells firearms code and a firearm bought at the store? Where's the missing link between your tire and your store?

 

[MEHavey]

credit card companies decide they want transactions done item by item

I will just be "firearms"-related as a single broad catch-all category... (guns ammunition, powder, bullets primers, brass, etc)
... to start.

Very simple to have the items' bar codes imbed that level of info -- automated tracking in the store's database

 

[Howland937]

will just be "firearms"-related as a single broad catch-all category

Right, which circles back to my first post (#35 in this thread).

The reality is if they see this all the way through, the CC companies are basically limiting how they'll allow people to spend money borrowed from banks. And they'll get away with it because it's the banks' investor's money to lend. Is there any rumblings that debit purchases would be treated the same way? Will the same companies that issue debit cards require my purchases using my funds be tracked too?

 

[reddog81]

The computer does all the coding.

Whether it is Academy, Atwood, Wally or Lowes and even smaller shops; when the bar code is scanned the register records the sale to the appropriate dept.

A bit of programming and differentiating between a rifle and fishing rod would occur.

Had your card been flagged as having too many guns or a suspected person and a decline is sent.

Our shop, similar to Cracker Barrel, the register differentiated between food, gifts and consignment items; separated the sales tax and gave daily totals for each.

It really isn't difficult.

What are you talking about? This thread is about a new merchant code for credit card processors.

Point of sale software used by merchants is completely separate and different from what is transmitted to credit card processors.

 

[MEHavey]

the CC companies are basically limiting how they'll allow people to spend borrowed money

Not the credit companies, per se.
VISA, MasterCard, etc are just middlemen.clearing houses for individual banks.
The individual banks (Chase, Citi, BofA, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp, Tuist(BB&T), however, can/will be pressured to control use of the transaction.

What I find fascinating is the blather about "...being able to forestall even one mass shooting...."
Someone please tell me if any mass shooting of late went through a flagable credit card sale.

.

 

[TomJ]

It mentions Visa, Mastercard and Am Ex. Is using a Discover card a way around it?

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Not the credit companies, per se.
VISA, MasterCard, etc are just middlemen.clearing houses for individual banks.
The individual banks (Chase, Citi, BofA, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp, Tuist(BB&T), however, can/will be pressured to control use of the transaction.

What I find fascinating is the blather about "...being able to forestall even one mass shooting...."
Someone please tell me if any mass shooting of late went through a flagable credit card sale.

.

Well, Vegas maybe.

But thats not what its really about, of course. Mass shootings aren't really a threat to the regime, especially not the current one whch can use them as a handy source of political capital.

It's about the ultra-MAGA, semi-fascist, "domestic extremists" who buy .22LR by the brick. Those are what they really hate and fear.

 

[silicosys4]

By enacting rules that will rightfully make many firearm buyers leery of using credit cards, expect scammers to take advantage of the loss of protection to the buyer that only a credit card provides

 

[D.B. Cooper]

It appears, to me at least, that there are some misconceptions here. As I understand it, gun purchases will be flagged as a such with a code on the transaction. If so, it doesn't really matter where you shop. The card-issuing bank will have record of the purchase (which can then be given to .gov) and the ability to decline the transaction.

For those of you who think that going back tot cash is the escape from this, think again. Cash is dead, or at least on life support. The Fed is talking about rolling out a digital currency as soon as next summer. Cash will remain for a few, perhaps many, years, but it is essentially dead. Digital money gives .gov near absolute control over the currency.

Regarding firearm purchases in a FedCoin (digital currency), you might, for a while, be able to trade in precious metals outside of that system, but if they figure out how to either a.) devalue gold and/or b.) make it impossible to convert into currency, it's utility will become extremely limited.

 

[shoobe01]

Okay, since most people are unaware:

This is simply adding an MCC. A Merchant Category Code. When they started there were a few. Retail, Gas Station, Restaurant. They add more all the time to more specifically target things for fraud (changing rates for merchants etc), marketing, etc. There are around 500 now.

You can see them (usually turned into plain text) on your statements, and have likely engaged with them; if you pick your rewards categories, you are picking from MCC high level categories if not the specific ones.

Here's a 25 page list:
https://www.dm.usda.gov/procurement/card/card_x/mcc.pdf

Note some are still pretty generic:
5735 Record Shops
5811 Caterers
5812 Eating places and Restaurants
5813 Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages), Bars, Taverns, Cocktail lounges, Nightclubs and Discotheques
5814 Fast Food Restaurants
5912 Drug Stores and Pharmacies

Some are getting fairly specific subsets:
1740 Stonework and Masonry Contractors
1740 Tile Settings Contractors
1750 Carpentry Contractors
1761 Roofing - Contractors
1761 Sheet Metal Work - Contractors
1761 Siding - Contractors

But some are per merchant!
3000 UNITED AIRLINES
3001 AMERICAN AIRLINES
3002 PAN AMERICAN
3004 TRANS WORLD AIRLINES
3005 BRITISH AIRWAYS

Breaking out gun stores from sporting goods generally is just the trend. I'd guess more liability, etc. than politics per se:

"Following the shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Highland Park, Illinois, in recent months, there was increased pressure from state officials, pension leaders and gun-control advocates for ISO and the big card companies to approve a new code.

After one ISO group considering the bank’s application was unable to reach a decision Wednesday, the application was put before another ISO committee that met the same day, an ISO spokesperson said in the email. With the application satisfying necessary criteria “and no material arguments” to reject the code, that group approved the application “to comply with the standard,” the ISO statement said."

I would also not be surprised if they have a different chargeback rate, or something else the processors care about so this was already on the list for the long term. As stated: It is a merchant category, so someone can use it to more effectively blacklist the merchant /I guess/ but not to track gun sales, etc. as most transactions are not firearms, and there are already other ways to do that.

If there's anything to worry about, it SEEMS someone has the idea to extend fraud reporting systems into firearms transactions, I guess:
“The new code will allow us to fully comply with our duty to report suspicious activity and illegal gun sales to authorities without blocking or impeding legal gun sales,”

Though by what operational and legal mechanism this would happen I do not know and cannot imagine. There isn't a good one now.

No idea what the new code IS or what it will be listed as in human-readable; likely, this isn't set yet but is an operational detail the committee level do not vote on.

 

[old lady new shooter]

Certainly not from any rational perspective.

Especially considering that over 90% of guns used for criminal activities are either stolen or acquired from other criminals, i.e. NOT from gun stores.

 

[old lady new shooter]

I wonder if the Visa debt cards are included. And the Cabela's card is through Capital one.

A store card that is not dual-branded with Visa / MC etc is not included AFAIK.

 

[old lady new shooter]

Let's assume this isn't tin-foil-hat thinking. Tell us HOW those dots get connected between a store code and a firearm bought at the store? Where's the missing link between your tire and your store?

The point-of-sale system keeps all that data, which for the business owner is very useful in analyzing how which products are moving etc. I suppose by now all the canned sytems even do "shopping cart" analysis (what items are typically bought at the same time, for example customers who buy item x frequently buy item y at the same time... so the store might decide to put x and y near each other in the store layout) out of the box but back in the day I once wrote an algorithm for that... There is an apocryphal story about "shopping cart" analysis of some store that was open 24-7 where it was observed that diapers and beer were frequently bought together at night... supposedly that was the dads making shopping runs LOL.

 

[old lady new shooter]

It appears, to me at least, that there are some misconceptions here. As I understand it, gun purchases will be flagged as a such with a code on the transaction. If so, it doesn't really matter where you shop. The card-issuing bank will have record of the purchase (which can then be given to .gov) and the ability to decline the transaction.

That's not the way a merchant category code works. If you buy beer at the grocery store, it's just coded as grocery store.

For those of you who think that going back tot cash is the escape from this, think again. Cash is dead, or at least on life support. The Fed is talking about rolling out a digital currency as soon as next summer. Cash will remain for a few, perhaps many, years, but it is essentially dead. Digital money gives .gov near absolute control over the currency.

They already gave up the idea of FedCoins, I forget why now, but it's off the table.

Regarding firearm purchases in a FedCoin (digital currency), you might, for a while, be able to trade in precious metals outside of that system, but if they figure out how to either a.) devalue gold and/or b.) make it impossible to convert into currency, it's utility will become extremely limited.

 

[hso]

What I find fascinating is the blather about "...being able to forestall even one mass shooting...."
Someone please tell me if any mass shooting of late went through a flagable credit card sale.

The only way that would work would be a large enough single purchase at a single coded firearms retailer that triggered an alert. Buy a gun and a gun safe and a dozen boxes of ammo in a single transaction, probably not. Drop several thousand at once, maybe...depending upon who and how they're report that to.

 

[CopperClad]

It's really too late to worry about this. With cheap computer storage and processing available, it's just a matter of tying it all together. Take a look at USPS Informed Delivery, almost every piece of mail is photographed and scanned in system, packages as well. Same tie in with UPS and other services. It all available online and almost realtime.

Cross this with bank statements, Credit and Debit tracking, it's all cradle to grave trackable. When the Fed does away with cash, and they will, it will further tighten the noose.

Modern computerized authoritarianism is here, no one really noticed the water getting warmer. Shame really.

EDIT: The Feds circumvent the 4th by buying data from brokers, no warrant needed.

 

[Spats McGee]

....Is there any rumblings that debit purchases would be treated the same way? Will the same companies that issue debit cards require my purchases using my funds be tracked too?

An excellent question.

Buy a gun and a gun safe and a dozen boxes of ammo in a single transaction, probably not. Drop several thousand at once, maybe...depending upon who and how they're report that to.

While I've bought a couple of guns with credit or debit cards (usually debit), ammo is a different story. There's no way for me to buy ammo locally and still get close to the bargains I can find buying ammo in bulk online, even if I have to pay for shipping. And the last time I bought .22LR, I bought 5K rounds. I only paid ~$0.05/rd, which comes to about $250. Would that be enough to have if flagged as a "suspicious" purchase? (I don't think we know yet.) And what if I bought $250 worth of .223 at one place, $250 of .223 at another (maybe because I had a $250 gift card somewhere), etc. Will they be flagging individual purchases, or aggregating them within certain time periods? (Again, I don't think we know yet.)

Just some observations & questions.

 

[CopperClad]

An excellent question.

...... And what if I bought $250 worth of .223 at one place, $250 of .223 at another (maybe because I had a $250 gift card somewhere), etc. Will they be flagging individual purchases, or aggregating them within certain time periods? (Again, I don't think we know yet.)

Just some observations & questions.

Easy answer; expect the worst interpretation.