The Final Count Down -- Are You Ready?

[Brewdawg1181]

fasttech lost their merchant account many months ago. And I don't know of any dedicated Chinese online vape shop that takes CC directly anymore (please post of any you know that do). They all use Paypal as their credit card processor.

But I suspect it's only a matter of time when even Paypal and all other 3rd party processors will be forced to forbid vape sales overseas just as they were forbidden to take vape transaction in the USA.

it doesn't matter if you sell a bunch of other stuff besides "high risk" items. As soon as you take payment for "high risk" items, you become a "high risk" merchant, even if 99.999% of the items you sell are not in the "high risk" category.

I don;t think FT or any other Chinese vape seller will ever get their merchant accounts restored, even though FT mods on the forum claim they are working on restoring direct CC payment. They would have found other merchants accounts by now. It doesn't take months to get a merchant account, especially for a high-volume, established merchant.

Okay, I'm confused. You say they "lost" their merchant account? How would they lose it? Are you sure that because of their global sales, they didn't just make a business decision to choose to use PayPal (an Aggregator) vs. a Merchant Services Account? It generally would likely cost them more per transaction, but streamline a lot of their processes.

Doesn't make sense to me that they'd lose it. There are literally thousands of merchant services companies. How would they lose theirs, and not be able to replace? Hell, even I get a dozen calls a week asking me to switch to a new one.

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

Okay, I'm confused. You say they "lost" their merchant account? How would they lose it? Are you sure that because of their global sales, they didn't just make a business decision to choose to use PayPal (an Aggregator) vs. a Merchant Services Account? It generally would likely cost them more per transaction, but streamline a lot of their processes.

Doesn't make sense to me that they'd lose it. There are literally thousands of merchant services companies. How would they lose theirs, and not be able to replace? Hell, even I get a dozen calls a week asking me to switch to a new one.

I assumed that because the forum moderator replied several times to disgruntled customers asking about when CC function would come back. She said they are working on getting a new provider soon on several occasions. If FT decided to drop their merchant account and force the use of Paypal for a processor, why would the moderator give customers false hopes by making it seem FT was looking to restore CC function "soon", several times? People were, and still are, pist AF about it.

As I understand it, some people in some countries cannot have a PP account and can't even use PP merely as a credit card processor. If they try, Paypal will reject the credit card payment attempt because the card # originates from a forbidden country. So naturally this is a problem and FT does business with many people in many countries. So I highly doubt FT would alienate these people just to streamline payment processing, but I could be wrong.

Do I know for sure? Nope. But all signs point to merchant account being lost, not dropped.

 

[Brewdawg1181]

I assumed that because the forum moderator replied several times to disgruntled customers asking about when CC function would come back. She said they are working on getting a new provider soon on several occasions. If FT decided to drop their merchant account and force the use of Paypal for a processor, why would the moderator give customers false hopes by making it seem FT was looking to restore CC function "soon", several times? People were, and still are, pist AF about it.

As I understand it, some people in some countries cannot have a PP account and can't even use PP merely as a credit card processor. If they try, Paypal will reject the credit card payment attempt because the card # originates from a forbidden country. So naturally this is a problem and FT does business with may people in many countries. So I highly doubt FT would alienate these people just to streamline payment processing, but I could be wrong.

Do I know for sure? Nope. But all signs point to merchant account being lost, not dropped.

I don't know enough about it, it just seems odd to me. I wonder what would make them lose it? China is all about making money, and wouldn't care about anything to do with vaping & what's happening in the US. But of course, even Chinese merchant accounts would have to comply with the cc companies requirements. I really do wonder what would cause them to lose the ability to use a merchant account. I haven't bought from any in a while, and didn't realize FT had changed their options. Would be interesting to know what's behind it.

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

I don't know enough about it, it just seems odd to me. I wonder what would make them lose it? China is all about making money, and wouldn't care about anything to do with vaping & what's happening in the US. But of course, even Chinese merchant accounts would have to comply with the cc companies requirements. I really do wonder what would cause them to lose the ability to use a merchant account. I haven't bought from any in a while, and didn't realize FT had changed their options. Would be interesting to know what's behind it.

If I had to guess, it would be that it is part of the Chinese govt crackdown on vape/ecig shipments to the USA causing banks to drop merchant accounts. Yes, they ship to other counties, but US is a big market. So the easiest thing to do for the short term is to prohibit all transactions.

If I'm right in my guess, it could be that FT could restore CC processing in the future only for shipments to non-US addresses.

Again, I'm just guess sing here.

 

[BigPappa]

it is part of the Chinese govt crackdown on vape/ecig shipments to the USA

Where did you hear that there was a crackdown by the Chinese government on vape shipments to the USA??

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

Where did you hear that there was a crackdown by the Chinese government on vape shipments to the USA??

I'll give you 3 guesses.

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

alibaba bans vape to usa - Google Search

china vape ban to uSA - Google Search

China: E-Cigs Still Available Online Despite Ban

Google is full of information.

 

[Don29palms]

alibaba bans vape to usa - Google Search

china vape ban to uSA - Google Search

China: E-Cigs Still Available Online Despite Ban

Google is full of information.

Old news

 

[Brewdawg1181]

Where did you hear that there was a crackdown by the Chinese government on vape shipments to the USA??

I know they banned domestic online sales, in November. I looked for recent info on a crackdown on US shipments to get more specifics. This isn't it, but it is interesting- from 12/20. China's e-cigarette industry cuts 10% of staff, slows production as regulation tightens

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

Old news

I'm not the one asking for it lol

 

[Don29palms]

I'm not the one asking for it lol

It's still old news that was debunked.

 

[BigPappa]

alibaba bans vape to usa - Google Search

china vape ban to uSA - Google Search

China: E-Cigs Still Available Online Despite Ban

Google is full of information.

Yes, but you must first understand how to use that information.

I think you are confused.... Alibaba banned vapes to the US, not China. And China's online vape ban is for Chinese citizens only.

 

[zoiDman]

...

I think you are confused.... Alibaba banned vapes to the US, not China. ...

There is a Very Blurry Line between Chinese Companies and China as a Nation State.

 

[BigPappa]

There is a Very Blurry Line between Chinese Companies and China as a Nation State.

Still, it was one single company out of countless..... It was not a ban of all companies sales to the US by the country of China.

 

[zoiDman]

Still, it was one single company out of countless..... It was not a ban of all companies sales to the US by the country of China.

Just making the Comment that Governmental Influence on Businesses in China is much Different than what it is in the USA. And that there can be Many Dynamics involved when considering what is going on in China.

Especially when something like a Trade War might be in Effect.

It's Hard enough to get Objective Information in the USA on most things going on in the USA. Knowing what is Going on in China can be Very Difficult.

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

It's still old news that was debunked.

No one with any solid proof ever debunked anything. lol

You just want to be confrontational with me....yet again. Fair enough, that's who you are. I accept that.

Here's one way we can prove that Alibaba did in fact comply with Chinese govt directives to not sell vape to USA customers. It's really easy to do. I uncovered it by mistake about 3 months ago, but it was probably happening for a few months before that. I don't use Alibaba. I was just looking for a really hard-to-find vape gear and had to resort to Alibaba as a last resort.

Anyhow..........................................

If you go to alibaba.com using a USA IP address and search for "SMOK Vape Penn 22", you get suppliers selling the SMOK Vape Pen 22 with listings for the SMOK vape pen 22 right next to their search result...

But, with your US IP address, if you click on those SMOK Vape Pen 22 listings, after the page is fully loaded in, you get redirected to the "cant-ship.html" page...

Click on the same listing using a non-US proxy (in this case I had to use a UK proxy) and you see the listing without a problem, as you normally would have from a US IP address pre-China-vape-to-USA crackdown...

This has been happening for months now.

Same thing happens on AliExpress except I believe their pages just tell you the "page doesn't exist" instead of telling you the product can't be shipped to your region. Use a non-US proxy, though, and the listing, in fact, exists.

The crackdown is not 100%. But it gets worse as time drudges on.

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

Yes, but you must first understand how to use that information.

I think you are confused.... Alibaba banned vapes to the US, not China. And China's online vape ban is for Chinese citizens only.

There is a Chinese user on another popular vape forum that claims the Chinese govt hasn't banned a thing within china. Vape is everywhere and the vape company Relx is supposedly a huge hit there such that they almost have a monopoly. Claims the Chinese govt is just letting it slide and monitoring the situation.

Alibaba acted upon directives from the Chinese govt, not on it's own. Marketplaces exist to make money, not to find ways to prohibit sales lol

Amazon and Ebay and Paypal would allow vapes sales if they weren't pressured by banks and the US govt not to. Money is the goal.

 

[mikepetro]

I know they banned domestic online sales, in November. I looked for recent info on a crackdown on US shipments to get more specifics. This isn't it, but it is interesting- from 12/20. China's e-cigarette industry cuts 10% of staff, slows production as regulation tightens

I wonder what the reduction of vape related employment is here in the USofA with all of the bans and threats, I bet it is more than 10%.

 

[UncLeJunkLe]

Gee, whooda thunk it

 

[Don29palms]

Gee, whooda thunk it

When you're wrong, like you usually are, I will disagree.