Can't use credit cards to buy loose tobacco online?

[sparroa]

It's definitely a big claim to be made out of the blue; if it isn't then they made a very rash proclamation. If it is, then this is a very unfortunate situation for most.

 

[jbbaldwin]

That is news to me. I know we can't use credit cards to buy tobacco from England, but here in the USA. Puzzling!!!

I have purchased pipe tobacco and snuff from Mr. Snuff in Ireland with a credit card.

Bah. AKAIK, only MasterCard has a fixation on any kind of tobacco thus anyone with a MasterCard cannot use it for tobacco purchases. I've been using a CC other than MasterCard for tobacco as recently as less than a week ago without issues.

I used MC with no problem. I also use MC for orders from null

 

[numbersix]

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt...for now.

+1.
I find it hard to believe that it would be deliberate misinformation but something sounds fishy. It may be something they were mistakenly told by a CC rep. Will have to wait and see. :puffpipe:

 

[crazypipe]

 

[hawk60ce]

From their front page

Due to credit card company policies we are no longer able to accept payments for pipe tobacco by credit card over the internet. All pipe tobacco purchases must be payed by check or money order.

 

[crazypipe]

BELIEVE ME IT'S COMING ,SO STOCK UP.

 

[cigrmaster]

That picture has no business on this site, please take it down.

 

[hotlips]

Good Afternoon - I am Jessica, one of the owners of Just For Him. I am happy to answer any questions and can always also be reached by phone at 417-886-8380 or email at jessica@justforhim.com
I'm going to hit as much as I can - If I miss a question, please call me on it. It was an oversight, not deliberate.

Does this go for all vendors in the US?

Yes, but... This is a policy that is apparently very new. We were not aware of it until they called and they told us that we were found by a "secret shopper." If I was a store that had not been "caught" yet, I would continue business as usual.

I wonder when this policy was supposedly implemented. I just ordered and received eight ounces of bulk this week, paid for with a VISA. Different vendor, but that should not matter. Unless, of course, certain vendors are opting to ignore this policy.

We were notified the day before the email we sent went out. We have always been a fairly transparent company. We spent the first day talking to the credit card companies, our bank, our processor and our lawyer as well as contacting other online vendors and the IPCPR. I do not have an implementation date from the credit card company. I do know of at least one site that was contacted before us and one after us. Neither is releasing their name, so I can't give you more than the knowledge that we are not the only ones that have seen or will see changes.

I'm sure the retailers are in the loop as far as legislation and policies go. If the Credit Card companies decided to no longer support non face to face transactions for tobacco, that policy wouldn't be made and implemented overnight? This has had to been on the table for a while?? If its a policy made by the CC companies then I would assume it effects everyone? Not just a certain state or vendor? I'm completely in the dark as it appears most of us are. Hopefully someone in the loop can enlighten us all soon

As far as legislation goes, we tend to be in the loop. This policy did catch us unaware. It does apply across the board. I suspect the biggest place they will enforce right now is on new applications. That is a guess, not insider info.

This is for loose tobacco, you say. What is loose tobacco as they define it? Bulk in ziplock? Bulk in factory sealed bags? Cans?

Based on what we were told, this is for pipe tobacco specifically. The reasoning is that many places sell those bags of tobacco that are called pipe tobacco, taxed as pipe tobacco and are not used for anything but rolling. It is not legal to ship rolling tobacco, but it is legal to ship this form of pipe tobacco as a retailer. Apparently, because this form of tobacco appeals to underage smokers, it is more prone to chargebacks. This puts us in a high risk category with special rules. Some of these rules trickle in to us as we keep contact with the credit card company and while Mastercard told us that this was all credit cards, they are most definately the strong arm in this based on our experience.
--more to come--

 

[captainprophesy]

Thank you so much Jessica... are you still taking orders via phone with a credit card? I need to place an order

 

[hotlips]

JFH tends to play by all the rules that other companies do not play by. When Maryland instituted a year long ban on any online ordering of any tobacco product to any non-business property in Maryland, JFH was the only company that said they would not ship here. Every other company would ship illegally here because the law was not being enforced and they knew it. Now the law no longer exists, but a new one has cropped up, no suprize here that JFH is the only company abiding by it once again (except this is no longer only state level). I am not really sure what the credit card companies would do to a company that violated it's policies (perhaps ban them, if it is possible?).

This is very true. Our online business is a decent chunk of what we sell and we have always played by any rules we are aware of. For example, there are states we do not ship to as evidenced above. There are also states that require us to turn in a list of our customers in their state so that they can "follow up" on local taxes. We have a lawyer look through each of those requests and help us determine which we can send a polite "no" to and which we are better off denying customers online sales. It sucks, but we choose not to either hand over customer records or ignore these. We also won't mark tobacco as a gift.
Yes, we were told that we would not be able to use Mastercard in our store front or online at all if we did not follow these new no online pipe tobacco rules.

 

[hotlips]

Thank you so much Jessica... are you still taking orders via phone with a credit card? I need to place an order
Give me a call and I'll see what I can do to clarify

 

[hawk60ce]

so is visa still good to go? if so i'll be dumping my MC's

 

[hotlips]

I don't believe for one minute that this came from the credit card companies themselves.

I can assure you that this came directly from Mastercard.

I can't say I blame JFH for losing Paypal access, because Paypal is evil, and may have stripped JFH's account with or without cause. It happens, a lot. And they are probably still on a blacklist, hence the reason they are scrambling to figure out a way around it, instead of having a Paypal account setup same day.

We did not lose Paypal. We have a current account, but their standard account is not approved for tobacco purchases. We were not aware until following up with the company that was contacted before us that PayPal has instituted a work around since the last time we spoke with them about their policies (feel free to wander through their site, you will see they do not allow tobacco with their public account)
We are working with PayPal to set up what they consider a high risk account that will allow tobacco purchases. There are additional charges and paperwork. I do not know the mechanics of how they are able to accept or what their deals are. I do know that other processing companies are not workable and that we were also turned down by authorize.net for ACH or echeck services for any tobacco sales.
Once we are set up, we will most likely drop Mastercard. Not only did they lead this charge, but they are also requiring a 500 dollar yearly payment for our storefront now and a legal opinion that we are not breaking any rules. In order to use Paypal services, Mastercard also requires and additional 2,000 on top of the otehr charges yearly.

But I truly believe what happened in this case is that the service JFH was using to process the credit cards, the gateway company (seperate from Visa/Mastercard), cut them off. Some gateway companies don't want their clients dealing in tobacco, or want to charge them more for dealing in tobacco. Were the rates raised and JFH didn't want to pay? Were they trying to sneak tobacco sales by a gateway that forbids tobacco sales? Did the gateway company suddenly go anti-tobacco sales and cut them off?

We were using the same gateway online that we use in our store. Our store front sales are still fine. This was not an issue with our processor or an issue with our business practices outside of selling pipe tobacco. There obviously will be a rate raise when we move forward, but there was not a more expensive option given to us that we denied or any other scenario discussed. I may not be happy about paying more, but I would not mislead our customers or publically name someone else when the fault was my own choice.

There are gateway companies out there that allow tobacco sales. You just have to pay more in processing fees, and you have no problems. How do I know this? SmokingPipes, pipeandcigars, etc. are still up and running. If the big boys crash, then we can run around chanting "the sky is falling." Until then, I believe it's just another retailer who didn't pay the electric bill, and not a blackout.

I will not speak on behalf of any other company. In general, some are already on PayPals high risk system. Some simply have not been noticed yet. I just received the official paperwork from Mastercard and it appears that the date of implementation was August 1. I have not verified this. I can't make you believe anything. All I can do is sign my name and tell you that this is my experience. We paid our bills and chose to go public when an issue arose.

One more thing...the owner of JFH is a man. So I don't know if the woman someone spoke to on the phone was his wife, or just a checkout clerk. I would expect to speak to the owner before I believed the first person to pick up the phone. JFH changed ownership a few years ago. It's still a decent brick and mortar, but they have had their speed bumps along the way. Somewhat recently an anti-smoking law was passed at the city level, and created all kinds of headaches for local bars and JFH.
JFH deserves support, but only if they are upfront and honest with their customers. Causing a panic by saying "we are the first retailers to be notified of impending collapse of online tobacco sales" is reckless at best, disgusting at worst if it isn't true. I guess we will know in a month's time, if all the other online tobacco sites go down. If they don't, my business with JFH is done.

My husband Christian and I own the store. We have kept our employees up to date on the situation. I have answered many questions myself including most of the emails that have come in. I believe the person on this thread spoke with Amanda who is our newest employee, but is aware of the situation and what we are doing.
Ironically, it appears that most of the questions ad discomfort here has occurred because we are being upfront and honest. I know that if we had heard about this when the first company was contacted, we would have already taken precautionary measures behind the scenes and been ready to switch our payment structure as needed. My hope is that other companies won't have the downtime we are because they will be aware of the issue and potential ways to work with the system.

 

[hotlips]

so is visa still good to go? if so i'll be dumping my MC's

They will be when we are fully implemented with the PayPal system.

 

[hotlips]

I've never been able to have a relationship with Just For Him. They won't ship to Iowa, despite the lack of any law forbidding buying pipe tobacco out of state. As near as I can understand, out of state cigerette purchases are illegal and Just For Him won't differentiate a cig order from a pipe tobacco order. [:evil:]

This is not because of the cigarette laws, this is because we will not send Iowa a list of our online customers from their state. If they stop this request, I would love to ship to you! There is always the possibility that a requirement has been dropped and we are not aware. As much as we try to stay on top of things, each state and country seems to change their laws and requirements pretty quickly and we do everything we can to keep up.

 

[hotlips]

The OP never said where the hell he tried using his CC and unless I missed it, he and no one else said where that Email came from. I certainly didn't get that Email.
If you happen to live in certain states, I know there's on line vendors that won't sell to you -- they just don't want to bother with certain state laws.

The email went out to our newsletter list.

 

[hotlips]

I have been watching this thread and trying to figure out what really is going on. I know it is not an issue with Mastercard, because I can buy Cuban cigars all day long using my Mastercard and that is trading with the enemies. I knew it had to be something JFH did or didn't do. I think you are right and if they are trying to sell us disinformation for their own gain, I too am done with them

I debated answering some of these because I don't want to get into a "he said, she said"
I cannot speak to what anyone else is doing or who has been contacted. I don't know or won't share how anyone else has chosen to handle this. I can share our experience. We choose to share because we have chosen to be in the middle of many fights recently - whether tax related, smoking ban related, or now this. This is our method of handling issues - we shine a light on them and speak out.
I neglect to see our shutting down our credit card system creates any gain for us.

 

[hawk60ce]

Thanks for clearing the air hot lips.

 

[hotlips]

I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt too. But when they start accepting Mastercard/Visa online again in a few weeks, I may not be so kind. Remember what they said...
"This is due to a policy that has been implemented by the major credit card companies. We have been informed that they are no longer allowing sales of any loose tobacco over the internet to be paid for with their cards."
This is either blatant misinformation, or the true end of tobacco sales online. I will personally thank them if they are indeed the first messenger of the coming shutdown of online tobacco sales. But blatant misinformation is ridiculously stupid given our current climate, because it places stress on the already stressed community they claim to serve. If the sky doesn't fall, I will be boycotting them.
It's definitely a big claim to be made out of the blue; if it isn't then they made a very rash proclamation. If it is, then this is a very unfortunate situation for most.

To add to earlier clarification. Mastercard is behind the push - at least as it pertains to us. Putting this information out to our customers was my call (and Christian's). Either of us would be happy to discuss any concerns at any time. 417-886-8380
I hope that by putting this out and contacting the other companies that may be affected in the future we can help make sure the sky doesn't fall.

 

[hotlips]

I'm heading out to football practice - I do hope this helps
Jessica