Apparently Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp are being evil and refusing to allow credit card transactions between federally licensed dealers. NSSF provides contact info in the link above if you’d like to call them to tell them (politely) how much they suck.
3 thoughts on “NSSF Alert”
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We need to get this issue reversed…by lawyering up if necessary. Sounds to me like some midlevel bureaucrat in one of the largest banks in the world made an uniformed decision, and needs to be firmly reminded, by letter or by litigation, that these are lawful commercial transactions made via FFL or C&R licensed persons…not sure in this case which but CDNN has been at this for a while. Will the NRA weigh in on this also? The legal right doesn’t matter if there’s no one left in business to sell arms or ammo.
January 10, 2008
Dear Ms. Etheredge:
This is to confirm the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s receipt of your e-mail response on behalf of First Data Corporation and Citi Merchant Services on Wednesday, January 9, 2008, concerning First Data and Citi Merchant’s unilateral decision to stop processing credit card transactions involving the lawful sale of firearms by law-abiding, federally-licensed, firearms distributors/retailers. Regrettably, your e-mail serves to confirm the anti-gun corporate policy of First Data and Citi Merchant Services and that the article in our publication “Bullet Points,†and subsequent posting to our Website, was based on a correct and accurate understanding of that policy as articulated in the December 26, 2007, letter to Mr. Charlie Crawford at CDNN Sports Inc.
We had hoped to hear from First Data Corporation and Citi Merchant Services that this was not your corporate policy and that the letter was merely the ill-considered actions of a single employee.
Your anti-gun corporate policy is based on ignorance of the law applicable to the sale of firearms. It is perfectly legal, in fact commonplace, for a federal firearms licensee in one state to sell a firearm to a non-licensee (consumer) from another state. What you fail to appreciate is that the firearm is not shipped in interstate commerce directly to the consumer. Rather, as required by federal law, the firearm is shipped by the selling licensee to another federal firearms licensee in the state of residence of the consumer who is purchasing the firearm. The consumer acquires the firearm from that licensed dealer in a face-to-face transaction after completion of a Firearms Transaction Record, commonly referred to as an ATF Form 4473, and a federally-mandated background check to ensure that the purchaser is legally permitted to buy the firearm.
Furthermore, the policy of First Data and Citi Merchant Services interferes with the receiving and shipping of inventory from and to federally licensed firearms retailers, distributors and manufacturers. This inventory supplies not only law-abiding Americans, but military and law enforcement agencies as well.
June Rivera-Mantilla’s original correspondence contained so many errors that one could only deduce that it was an uniformed mistake that would consequently be corrected. Instead, we learned yesterday that First Data Corporation and Citi Merchant Services stands behind the policy, which affects not only firearms retailers, manufacturers and distributors, but also law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels of government and law-abiding citizens.
NSSF will not remove its Web posting nor will we rescind or alter our story. However, if we receive written confirmation from you that, after having researched the law, First Data and Citi Merchant Services have changed their corporate policy, we will consider publishing that fact in a follow-up story.
Sincerely,
NSSF