Payment providers should not be able to control what users are or are not allowed to purchase with their cards. It's a downward spiral. Electronic payment is a necessity in nowadays life.
As long as it's a legal transaction, the providers should STFU.
In many states, and federally, marijuana sales aren't legal transactions, and that's the point. I don't think Mastercard is necessarily doing anything wrong here, they're just covering their asses. This one is on our politicians who are still dragging their heels on legalizing marijuana.
I'll never use Mastercard out of principle after this. Fuck them.
You do realize that there are no banks in the United States that will allow marijuana related business to work with them either, right?
It's highly illegal under federal law. My business is done business with marijuana related businesses in the past, and they all have to operate with cash and hand only. It's insane.
Nothing like carrying a suitcase full of $250,000 in small sequential unmarked bills to the bank you know...
fyi slight bone apple tea there
it’s cash in hand
Sets a precedent though, and implies that the card companies are responsible for what people buy. First it’s drugs, then it’s porn, liquor, gender affirming items and hormones, contraceptives, or whatever else the fascists don’t like. Companies won’t want to be fined by the fascist right once they start pushing to ban things.
Mastercard is adhering to federal laws, not taking a moral stand. Credit card companies aren't obligated to facilitate illegal transactions. If they were banning something whose sale was completely legal, there would be a argument to be made here, but that's not what's happening. They aren't going to go after porn, liquor, gender affirming items, hormones, or contraceptives, unless some fascists ban them, at which point it's not the credit card companies restricting you, it's the fascists. Go after the fascists.
What federal law are they adhering to? Mastercard isn’t buying the drugs they are denying a person access to the funds that that person already owns. Mastercard should be agnostic to what the person uses that money for.
It sets a precedent that card companies are responsible for what their client’s purchase, and can reject transactions based on what their clients are purchasing, not how much money/credit they have.
I can go after corporate shitheads and fascists especially when they are holding each other’s cocks.
Payment processors have a functional monopoly and should not be permitted to refuse or otherwise be punitive to any category of purchase.
This is lame. Mastercard telling people what not to by is outrageous but not the first time they've done this.
What else have they done? I had no idea this was even legal.
they did it with pornhub at least
Onlyfans too
That one was due to pornhub supposedly not doing any content management to make sure illegal content (child/bestiality/ revenge porn) wasn’t available. Once pornhub put in better security measures, the providers authorized transactions again.
That’s little different from the providers revoking my businesses ability to accept credit cards if I’m found to not follow the standards required of me for SOX compliance
of course pornhub does content management. You're not gonna find a more strictly managed porn site anywhere. They instituted unprecedented regulation, most of their content was wiped and they manually verify studios to be able to upload.
and no, they did not authorize transactions again.
Well, they can't stop a cash withdrawal on your card to pay for it. So, it appears they still have to pay for it in a way.
Cannabis users should move to ban Mastercard.
From the article: "The federal government considers cannabis sales illegal, so these purchases are not allowed on our systems," the spokesperson added.
Seems like this isn’t a Mastercard thing, but a government thing. Marijuana is still illegal at the inter-state level unfortunately.
This is exactly it, and everyone crowing about "credit card companies shouldn't be able to restrict what you can buy" didn't read the article. Mastercard doesn't want to restrict people from buying things they are legally allowed to buy, because more Mastercard transactions = more money for them. But they have to follow the laws, and being complicit in illegal purchases puts them at risk for litigation.
No point in getting mad at Mastercard for this. Get angry at our politicians who still haven't legalized marijuana. If marijuana is legalized federally, and sales of marijuana are legalized federally, I guarantee you MC will lift this ban in a heartbeat so they can get a piece of that pie. Cannabis is a cash cow.
that hasnt been being enforced for a long time, so if something's changed it'd help Mastercard's PR quite a bit to point to a government order or something.
Otherwise yeah it's a mastercard thing
It's still a non-trivial legal liability that any major company would prefer to not have.
If you could spend $1 to eliminate a 1% chance that you're going to be arrested, you're probably gonna take it.
That's a very dumb business move, it might be illegal for then to do that in Canada
It should be illegal for a company to limit what you can purchase anywhere in the world.
Under the law, they literally have to limit transactions for illegal goods, otherwise they become complicit in that crime.
The real stupidity is that Marijuana is still illegal under federal law.
There's nothing illegal about them blocking illegal purchases on their cards, of which the US federal government still considera marijuana illegal
This was a maneuver by VISA and MC in the Aughts when Wikileaks was publishing information embarrassing to the US Federal Government.
Pharmacies and medical doctors have long been creative about preserving privacy. Dispensaries will go back to selling tea or candy or miscellaneous OTC pharmacological product which they've been doing since prohibition if not before.
You'll not stop me! I'll just withdraw money from an ATM, and what I do with that is nacho business.
Bitcoin looks better everyday.
bitcoin looks worse every day, however there are some potentially useful crypto currencies that do continue to hold some appeal
And over here in Sweden we're 99% cash-less at the moment. I tried to warn as many as possible that we do not want to give up transactional independence.
Widespread cryptocurrency adoption will set us free.
No. Aside from the fact that cryptocurrencies are just Ponzi schemes and you'd have to be a fool to continue falling for them, using crypto instead of traditional currencies isn't going to make illegal transactions any less illegal, which is the whole reason Mastercard banned the transactions to begin with.
Ponzi schemes
Surely there's a Rule of Acquisition encouraging this, Rom.
Touche. 🙂 Altough I don't agree on the Ponzi part, well maybe partially.
The solution to "I can't use my credit card to buy weed" is not "guess I'll join a cult."
That sounds like a very cool concept for a music video.
Ok, I’ll just switch, they already ban porn purchases 👍
I buy all my weed from “my guy.” 10x better product for half the price. And at least I know the person I’m dealing with is one making a living instead of some weed bro millionaire fuckboi who’s dad helped him start his weed venture.
Hey, welcome to BrainWorms.
This is a place where I post interesting things that I find and cant categorize into one of the main subs I follow. Enjoy a front seat as i descend into madness