Petitioning PAYPAL

[Toronto_Mike]

I just signed the petition "PAYPAL: Allow Processing of purchases for e-cig related products." on Change.org.

It's an American petition but the outcome would more than likely be the same for Canadians.

It's important. Will you sign it too? Here's the link:

link to Paypal petition

 

[farmer_bric]

Thanks for the link Mike.....signed

 

[retired1]

Before getting too excited about this petition, you may want to do a little research regarding online petitions and change.org. It's been alleged that change.org sells email addresses for non-members (in other words everyone who signs a petition and doesn't pay to be a change.org member). There's also not much evidence that these types of petitions really work.

And until the governments of both Canada and the US get off their behinds and classify e-cigs as a non-tobacco product, you'll never get Pay Pal to change their Acceptable Use Policy.

 

[mrpony]

theres also a reason paypal wont do the ecig thing. theyre afraid of getting sued.

i forget where i read it, but some anti smoking group told them that since ecigs are "untested" they could be named in a law suit for facilitating the sale of ecig products. so they quit doing the sales. unless they can be sure of not getting sued later on i doubt any petition will change their minds

 

[Toronto_Mike]

Pretty sure, it has nothing to do with the product as Paypal is used by a huge majority of vendors to acquire their hardware.

Paypal has no problem with China accepting millions of dollars of ecig purchases.

 

[Toronto_Mike]

Before getting too excited about this petition, you may want to do a little research regarding online petitions and change.org. It's been alleged that change.org sells email addresses for non-members (in other words everyone who signs a petition and doesn't pay to be a change.org member). There's also not much evidence that these types of petitions really work.

I'm not too excited, but this has been an issue for a long time & nobody to my knowledge has done anything. This is at least, something.

I'm not too worried about change.org - they have 174,873,676 signatures in their database what's a few 100 more?

You would be surprised who passes on your information. I registered an account with Canada Post for shipping discounts with a previous hobby. Months later, I was getting mail from America Express & U-Line. Only Canada Post had the info. If you can't trust a Canadian Crown Corporation with your personal info, who can you trust?

 

[retired1]

Pay Pal's Acceptable Use Policy.

Under Prohibited Activities.

5. violate applicable laws or industry regulations regarding the sale of (a) tobacco products, or (b) prescription drugs and devices.

Again. Until you get both governments to get off their backside and declare e-cigs and juice as a non-tobacco product, you aren't going to change anything with Pay Pal.

You're petitioning the wrong people. It's the government and law makers who need to be petitioned.

 

[Toronto_Mike]

Pay Pal's Acceptable Use Policy.

Under Prohibited Activities.



Again. Until you get both governments to get off their backside and declare e-cigs and juice as a non-tobacco product, you aren't going to change anything with Pay Pal.

You're petitioning the wrong people. It's the government and law makers who need to be petitioned.

So it's ok for Canadians and American's to purchase ecig hardware & ejuice with nicotine with Paypal from China but not from within North America? Seems like something is amiss here. As a vendor, I buy all by ecig goods with Paypal but I can't sell any with Paypal. Paypal & eBay have chosen to classify ecigs as tobacco products.

Where in Canadian Law does an ecig or ejuice have a classification of a tobacco product?

Ecigs have no legal classification, here in Canada.

Don't give me the HC advisory BS either. That's not Canadian Law.

 

[retired1]

Pay Pal is going to go by whatever the government agencies say. They don't care whether it's legal or not. As a business entity, do you go by what your customers say or what the government says? Hmm?

And there are already states attempting to classify ejuice and ecigs as a tobacco product. Some local governments have already done so. Pay Pal already has ample legal justification to treat it as such. Again, you're petitioning the wrong people.

 

[Toronto_Mike]

Pay Pal is going to go by whatever the government agencies say. They don't care whether it's legal or not. As a business entity, do you go by what your customers say or what the government says? Hmm?

And there are already states attempting to classify ejuice and ecigs as a tobacco product. Some local governments have already done so. Pay Pal already has ample legal justification to treat it as such. Again, you're petitioning the wrong people.

OK, so let's break this down a bit.

Paypal is a 3rd party service that transfers payments from one end user's account to someone else's account. Those accounts are linked to either a personal bank account or a credit card account.

The banks & CC company's don't seem to have an issue with accepting transactions for ecigs but this one 3'rd party does(Paypal).

Interac is a 3rd party company that transfers funds between personal bank accounts.

Wouldn't you think that Interac, the banks & CC company's would all have the same policy?

 

[retired1]

Nope. They would not. Pay Pal is a regulated as a money transmitter according to US law. And they must follow all applicable state and federal laws. It's much easier for them to set a blanket rule so they can do business in all 50 states, rather than having 50 different sets of rules for money transactions.

 

[Toronto_Mike]

Nope. They would not. Pay Pal is a regulated as a money transmitter according to US law. And they must follow all applicable state and federal laws. It's much easier for them to set a blanket rule so they can do business in all 50 states, rather than having 50 different sets of rules for money transactions.

That's understandable, I'll give you that but there are just too many holes in the justification.

It's ok to use to buy the product but you can't use it to sell the product. I smell a BT payoff, here. Maybe it's just me.

 

[KatyLoo]

Mike, you are arguing on the side of what's fair and reasonable and in the best interest of people trying to quit smoking. But that is not what this issue is about. It's about politics, and the ever present "money trail". PayPal has made a business decision that they have more to lose than to gain from processing E cigarette transactions.

 

[retired1]

It's politics, yes. But not in the manner you may think. Until the respective governments declare that e-cigs are NOT tobacco products, Pay Pal is going to err on the side of caution to stay out of the limelight when it comes to the purchase of e-cig products. This is most likely being driven by their legal team to stay out of hot water with the individual states and the federal government.

 

[retired1]

In addition, I'd prefer to stay out of the limelight when it comes to petitions like this. It's a simple matter to take the email addresses listed on the petition and cross reference it with their customer database. I'd prefer to have my purchases "sneak under the radar" so to speak, rather than run the risk of increased scrutiny by Pay Pal.

 

[Toronto_Mike]

Mike, you are arguing on the side of what's fair and reasonable and in the best interest of people trying to quit smoking. But that is not what this issue is about. It's about politics, and the ever present "money trail". PayPal has made a business decision that they have more to lose than to gain from processing E cigarette transactions.

Hi Katy

I'm not arguing with Retired1, just having a discussion to get my head around the issue. At best, I'll walk way better educated with a bigger knowledge. Within this discussion, we have to remember that anything we think or say is purely opinion & speculation. No one is right & no one is wrong. I agree that the issue has been driven by politics & corruption. There's no doubt about it. As a community of vapers, we have huge challenges like this to get through. Just saying it's some company's policy based on a federal classification is fine & groups like CASAA are addressing the government issue is ok but it doesn't hurt to push a bit of pressure onto Paypal to achieve the same result. If something ain't right, hit them from all sides.

 

[mrpony]

the gist i got from the article i read and granted, it was an older article, was that the issue with paypal wasnt so much about US laws. but potentially being named in future litigation for facilitating sales and then having someone pop up if a few years and blame paypal for helping them get hooked on niccotine by helping them buy ecigs. its america and it is a litigious country. the new get rich quick plan is to sue your way out of debt.a law suit like that could ruin them.
i havent found any american ecig seller web sites that accept paypal. but i have found e few european sites that do.

i did go through my web browser history and found the article. and that aricle can be found here:

PayPal Warned About E-Cigarette Legal Liability | Tobacco Facts.

 

[Toronto_Mike]

Thank you for posting the article. There is some good clarification there, as it pertains to this thread.

But, holly cow! What a bunch of malarkey. "illegal products"? and so on.

"PayPal was also warned that: “As the FDA and others have noted,
e-cigarettes pose a wide variety of potential dangers to users, and perhaps also to those around them, both of whom inhale a mixture of nicotine (a dangerous drug) and propylene glycol (which is used in antifreeze, and may cause respiratory tract irritation)."

It's so 2009 & the content of this article makes my stomach sick.

But, on the other hand - this can be kinda good. So 4 yrs ago, we had a new product hit the street. We don't know much about it but we believe it's bad & should be illegal. So you guys at Paypal, do diligence & don't support it.

Fast forward to 2013 & hey lots of information has surfaced & now maybe it's not such a bad product. It seems to be growing faster than any other market, doctors are now prescribing it.

It seems like a good time to me, to say to Paypal - hey wake up & smell the coffee - you were wrong, the FDA was wrong & the sources feeding the corrupt info were always wrong.

Why wait another 4 years?

 

[mrpony]

It seems like a good time to me, to say to Paypal - hey wake up & smell the coffee - you were wrong, the FDA was wrong & the sources feeding the corrupt info were always wrong.

Why wait another 4 years?

because that would make sense

 

[retired1]

You still have States that are still attempting to classify this as a tobacco product. And as long as that continues to happen, Pay Pal's legal team isn't going to give the green light anytime soon.