New firearms friendly pay site PistolPay.com

[TRguy]

New firearms friendly pay site PistolPay.com

http://www.pistolpay.com/

We all know the debacle known as GunPal and then GPal before it ultimately folded and the authorities did whatever they did.

In this month's issue of Shooting Industry they reveal PistolPay, albeit it is currently in beta testing. It should be rolling out for industry wide use soon.

A firearms friendly method of payment for web dealers, brick and mortar stores, individuals.....

I hope it is a success.

TRguy

 

[Birch Knoll]

Fees of 5.4% on credit card transactions seems kinda steep.

 

[captain awesome]

yeah, I thought 3% was bad.

 

[Birch Knoll]

... and the escrow is controlled by the receiving dealer, who is chosen by the buyer (or may actually *be* the buyer), and who has no particular responsibility to the seller.

I don't think I'd sell anything through this service.

 

[captain awesome]

I'll stick with postal money orders, never had even a slight problem doing it that way.

 

[pockets]

Yet another one?
.

 

[PistolPay]

hello Guys,

Yes we are new, the fee's are released when both party's are happy , the fee's are not 5.4% but 2.7% for each party, but right now we are doing a special where there are NO seller fee's till the end of the month to try us out.Also we will be rolling out that the buyer can pay by check and have it instantly approved with no worries for the seller and it goes into the sellers account at 1.6% at completion of the transaction.

As for Money orders , I myself have had 2 phonys my bank took and within 2 weeks I had to pay the bank back as they were fake. And with Paypal I had 2 accounts locked based on their suspicion that i was selling forearms. that is what pushed me to develop pistolpay. As a lifelong shooter I desired something that was gun friendly and secure.

If anyone has questions regarding Pistolpay, I will gladly answer them via email at [email protected]
being that we are a new business and very busy I probably will not be on here again for a while , but I do welcome all questions and inquiries.

Ira Goodstadt
Vice president of Pistol pay LLC.

 

[Birch Knoll]

Yes we are new, the fee's are released when both party's are happy

No, the funds are released when the *buyer's FFL* says the buyer is happy. How is the seller to know the FFL is a fair and impartial escrow agent, especially as the buyer chooses the FFL?

the fee's are not 5.4% but 2.7% for each party,

I shouldn't have to point this out to someone who is in the payment processing business, but 2.7% + 2.7% is 5.4%, Ira. Splitting it between the buyer and the seller doesn't hide that.

 

[PistolPay]

Sir, you are mistaken on both parts, there is not one single customer paying 5.4% despite how you try and curve it that way, yes it does total that but that helps cover the fee's and costes we incur when we are processing the credit cards and still function as a company. As much as we like we cannot do this for free, but as our user numbers grow we do intend on dropping it some, as well we will be rolling out the use of checks which get validated electronically and then deposited in the sellers account at 1.6% fee.

as for the funds being released, what you are reading is when a Premier FFL ( a network we are building ) and the buyer both agree that it is what the buyer bought , that is when the FFL could release the funds, if the Buyer is not happy , nothing will be released and it should be returned at that time or not taken from the shop unless arrangement's are made with the seller. If NO premier FFL is involved, once the buyer gets home and is happy he logs back on and says so, the money then will be released.If the buyer does not ever sign back on, then within 48hrs we will release the funds to the seller and the buyer is then on his own. We hope the FFL's abide by the terms they agree to when they sign up, if we do find out that things are not handled correctly then we will drop them from our list and probably our search list. They are not the Escrow agent we are. The buyer always picks there FFL with or with out us, There is nothing the FFL can do to alter this except if the buyer is not happy and they vouch for it. Then the gun gets sent back.

I am trying to hit the different forums to answer questions but it is extremely hard to do, so fi you have questions or issues , please email me, You have my word that it will be answered in a timely manner.( they come to my phone). All I can do is hope we gain your trust and you give us a try, right now is a great time as we are offering No seller fee's.
But chances are I will not be back here as soon as I would like (always wanted to check out the site as I have buddies from other forums who love it here and have only heard good things)

so I offer please contact me at [email protected] and I will get back to you .

 

[Tim the student]

Pistolpay, do you have all of your ducks in a row, legally speaking? If not, when do you expect to?

 

[PistolPay]

We have spent a lot of time and money covering ourselves, One of the my partners is one of our lawyers . We have met with The ATF and various banking and commerce government departments long before we even sat down to do programming, this has been under development for just under a year now. So I would say yes, we are all lined up. I just happen to be online and was able to answer this question, but as I stated before if you want answers please email me as I may not be back for a while.

 

[hso]

Who are your officers and your BOD? Who are your financial backers?

Why should members of THR think you're any different from the disastrous GunPal/GPal?

 

[Tim the student]

but as I stated before if you want answers please email me as I may not be back for a while.

I was hoping you would answer publicly - and you did. Thank you.

If you will respond to emails, why wouldn't you respond to the (email) notifications from THR? Do you not have your preferences set to receive them?

Until the next time you log on, I guess.

 

[Birch Knoll]

Sir, you are mistaken on both parts, there is not one single customer paying 5.4% despite how you try and curve it that way

I never said any one party paid 5.4%. But the transaction incurs a total 5.4% fee, all of which the buyer ends up paying. He pays the 2.7% from his end of the deal, and of course he'll also pay the 2.7% of the seller's end of the deal, either through an explicit surcharge the seller will add, or bundled into the price of the goods. If a seller wants $500 for a gun, he'll sell it for $513.50 on PistolPay, in order to clear $500. The buyer will pay $527.36, including the 2.7% buyer's fee. That's 5.47%, Ira, no matter how you slice it.

Here's a protip for you: If you're trying to build a reputation as an honest and reliable payment service, don't start off with deceptive spin about your fees on a public forum. It makes you look shifty.

yes it does total that but that helps cover the fee's and costes we incur when we are processing the credit cards and still function as a company.

Your discount rate should be well under 3%. You need another 2.4+% to cover your own costs?

As much as we like we cannot do this for free

Nobody expects you to.

we will be rolling out the use of checks which get validated electronically and then deposited in the sellers account at 1.6% fee.

ACH transfers cost pennies per line item, regardless of the transaction amount. That 1.6% is almost pure net revenue. But at least it's less than 2.4+%.

if the Buyer is not happy , nothing will be released and it should be returned at that time

"Should be"? "Should be"??? I think this part needs a little work, Ira. As a seller, you want me to ship an expensive firearm to somebody without first getting the money in my hand, trust you to hold the money, and if the buyer isn't happy, my property "should be" returned to me? Gee, I feel all warm inside now.

They are not the Escrow agent we are.

No, you're not. You're half an escrow agent. All you do is hold the money. You don't determine when the terms of the deal have been satisfied, you outsource that to some FFL that has no responsibility to you or to the seller, and whose only relationship and loyalty is to the buyer. As a seller, I'm putting both my property and the key to my money into this stranger's hands.

By the way, how many FFLs do you figure will want to place themselves into the middle of that little love triangle, anyway? I don't think I would, and if I did, I think I'd want a much larger transfer fee if I'm to act as arbiter of the deal. My normal fee doesn't cover being your transaction referee.

I don't think you've thought this out at all.

All I can do is hope we gain your trust and you give us a try

Not at 5.4%, I wont.

 

[captain awesome]

Yeah Sorry there Ira, I can really appreciate what your trying to do, but I am with ttolhurst on this one. the fee is too high, 3% is pushing it in my opinion, let alone 5+. And yes I do understand perfectly that you are trying to split it evenly, but as is said before, its always they buyer that pays. Even if indirectly.

I have been around to many shifty and "not caring about customers" type of FFL's to just trust a random one I don't know.

There is a reason I said POSTAL money orders. The post office offers you some protection from being screwed, they go after scamers involved in anyway with their services. And the fee for sending an envelope and buying a money order from them is WAY less than 5.4%, and they cash their own money orders on the spot at a post office. With one just around the corner, its not even an inconvenience, since I will end up there anyway to ship the item most of the time.
It is difficult to compete with that, I know, but if your fees come down, and you rethink the way the transaction is completed, then I might give Pistol Pay a shot.

Not trying to discourage you, just offering my own opinion and feedback, which I assume any entrepreneur would like to hear from potential customers.

P.S. The chick on the home page is a severe hotty. I'm tempted to use the service just because of her.

 

[Bubbles]

We ask that the Seller ship the item as soon as possible through FedEx or UPS, fully-insured, and provide a tracking number.

No USPS? I'm not driving 30 miles in either direction to a UPS or FedEx hub, and unfortunately scheduling a pickup with both is hit or miss. Everything we ship goes USPS insured.

Upon successful delivery of the item, the Dealer will enter into the PISTOLPAY system that the item has been delivered to the Buyer and we will immediately release the Buyer’s funds to the Seller, less our fee, via an ACH direct deposit to the Seller’s bank account.

As a transfer dealer I want absolutely no role or responsibility in the payment process between the seller and buyer.

However, if the Buyer chooses to decline the item for any reason, the Dealer will return the item to the Seller, and we will release the Buyer’s funds back to the Buyer, less our fees and actual return shipping and handling charges, which were incurred by the Dealer.

If the gun has to go back then I'm getting paid my transfer fee and shipping cost before it leaves the shop; I'm not waiting to be reimbursed by you.

Finally, what is your policy if the buyer doesn't pass NICS? Obviously the buyer accepted the firearm's condition, and it's not the seller's fault the buyer is a prohibited person.

 

[dragon813gt]

Fee is to high. I hate that sellers add the +3% for credit card payments to begin with. You don't find that any brick & mortar store you go to. IMO either don't accept credit cards or eat the cost. There is no way I'm paying over 5%.


Brought to you by TapaTalk.

 

[Birch Knoll]

IMO either don't accept credit cards or eat the cost.

Merchants don't eat costs. Buyers do. If there is no additional fee charged for credit cards, that means that it's priced into every item in the store.

In a market where buyers seek out the absolute lowest price, like online gun sales, any seller who prices credit card fees into his price will be noncompetitive with those who do not.

And there are plenty of brick-and-motor stores out there who surcharge for the use of a credit card.

 

[beatledog7]

Every merchant who takes a credit card "charges a fee" that at least matches his cost to process the transaction, including not only what he owes the CC company but also his time/labor/materials costs. It may not be itemized in the invoice, but it's a factor in the price.

That means that whenever you pay cash in a brick and mortar store where you could use your CC, you're actually overpaying, since you just saved that merchant all his CC-specific costs.

 

[smalls]

2.7% for both parties? Don't think for a second the seller isn't going to make buyers pay that.

That makes it 5.4% for the buyer.

 

[Birch Knoll]

Mr. Goodstadt has taken to replying by PM rather than public posting, apparently preferring to keep this discussion out of the light:

Sir,
I am sure you mean well, but your math with how we have to do our fee's is off,

Then please correct my math. If a seller wishes to net $500 for an item, after all PistolPay fees, how much will be charged to the buyer's credit card for that transaction?

You may not be aware but Banks and CC companies are not friendly towards Guns,

Oh, I'm aware. You may not be aware that more than a few of us here are in the gun business, and this ain't our first rodeo. Some of us even have day jobs which involve a fair amount of credit card and ACH payment processing. Last month, I processed about $4.8 millon in over 51,000 credit card transactions, and another $619k in 3300 ACH transactions. What's PistolPay's current transaction volume?

This being said we have to do processing at slightly higher rate when a card is not present then if say we were not a Gun friendly company.

Yes, we are all aware that card not present transaction incur higher interchange fees that swiped transactions. You're still paying less than 3%, and quite a bit less if you (a) know what you're doing, and (b) your bank takes you at all seriously.

We are not trying to "hide" anything as you said,

This would be a more persuasive statement if you didn't try to hide this discussion by taking it off-forum. And if you didn't insist that 2.7% + 2.7% does not equal 5.4%.

we post everything we do on our sight.

Site. S-I-T-E. It's a web site, not a web sight. You should know this, considering you have one.

Hopefully as we grow we can lower these rates some. If you also saw I posted about our check paying option which will lower the cost to1.6% on the sellers end.

If you saw, I responded to this, noting that your cost for processing an ACH is literally pennies, and that the 1.6% is almost pure net revenue. I notice, however, that you now say that it reduces the seller's cost to 1.6%. What is the buyers cost?

we understand fully that we have an uphill battle to gain trust and build our customer base ,

Unfortunately, you don't seem to be doing yourself much good so far. In my mind, at least, PistolPay has gone from an interesting idea worth looking into to a half-thought-out, prohibitively expensive service at best. At worst, well, you just don't seem all that trustworthy to me.

but we will try, we do listen to our customers as best as we can and still keep the lights on. I welcome you to email me any of your concerns and we can continue to discuss them.

I suggest that you conduct these discussions in the light of day, where everyone can see your responses.

So, as Bubbles asked, how do you propose to handle NICS denials? Or for that matter, how will credit card chargebacks be handled? What about repudiated ACHs? How will you handle fraud? C'mon, regale us with your well-thought-out payment protocol.

 

[PistolPay]

Guys, I chose to answer in Pm, early this morning, excuse my grammar mistakes. @ Bubbles , that is not our responsibility , if someone cannot take possession of the firearm they bought, the buyer has the responsibility to arrange to send it back and of course it must stay at the FFL until that is done, now if he chooses to blow it off or walk away. The FFL can either hold it or arrange with the seller to have it sent back (on the sellers dime of course). If the FFL chooses to hold it the seller still gets paid within 48hrs.

To answer your question about what gets held back , 2.7% that is it from the buyer.. never 5.4% . everything is posted in our check our system , nothing is hidden.

If you saw, I responded to this, noting that your cost for processing an ACH is literally pennies, and that the 1.6% is almost pure net revenue. I notice, however, that you now say that it reduces the seller's cost to 1.6%. What is the buyers still 2.7%

we know what we are doing sir, our cost are such as we are also using software that insures to protect our users from ID theft and to make sure the cards are not stolen when used on our system, this costs money too along with our fee's we take on as a processor. I do understand many here are in business too and I appreciate the insight of your opinions , but I learned a long time ago not to count other peoples money..

I am going to leave this conversation and again invite any and all who have questions to email me. I will not be coming back anytime soon . I do hope to see you as users but I understand I will not be able to show everyone we are a legitimate company who is here for the shooting community. Use of if you want a secure way to pay or don't that is your choice. and to answer your question about processing, our main business Merchants services LTD , we process just shy of 15 billion dollars worth of transactions a year and have been doing so for over 10 years. Inc magazine felt we do a good enough job that we were ranked 18th out of 100 growing business this year..

A Blogger from Texas did a story about the using our system.. thought i would share it before I leave. http://monderno.com/services/pistol-pay/

again if you want email me at [email protected]

 

[PistolPay]

Guys I had sent ttolhurst an email inviting him to call me , he politely declined which I respect greatly. I still invite anyone to email me and I will answer your questions. Our Fee's despite what you may think are what we have figured in order to run this business. I do not count others money and I hope others do not try to count mine. We have already developed a growing customer base who is very happy with us our service and hope you guys join us one day. If not I still wish you all well. if you have questions my direct email is [email protected] have a great day..

 

[Bubbles]

You may not be aware but Banks and CC companies are not friendly towards Guns

PAI, FNMS, Cordura, Square, and Intuit will all work with FFL's, though the latter two are swipe-only for firearm sales.

I also received a PM and told me all of my questions would be answered in their TOS. While a few were, I'm really not happy with how the dealer gets pushed into the buyer/seller financial side of the sale, nor the limits on the return shipping fee if the gun has to be returned to the seller.

I also don't care for the 48 hour policy to inspect/start the transfer. A lot of our customers can't get into the shop that quickly to pick up transfers, as they may reside here but don't work locally so they're only in town on weekends. We've also had many instances of guys in the military who will order guns that we hold for months until they return home.

 

[Birch Knoll]

our main business Merchants services LTD

Interesting. Why does the About Us page on www.merchantservicesltd.com say that you were founded in 2001, when the Florida Secretary of State says you first filed on 2/14/2008 as Total Merchant Services of South Florida, LLC? Were you doing business in another state before this time, under another name? Why the change?

In what manner is Merchant Services LTD your "main business", given that Pistol Pay, LLC is registered in Florida as a foreign (Delaware) limited liability company whose sole members are Shawn C. Snyder and Chapman Ducote? I don't see any ties to Merchant Services LTD at all, other than the fact that Mr. Ducote is listed as a member of both LLCs. Are you being completely honest, Mr. Goodstadt?