PayPal Acceptiable Use policy

Cut off from Paypal because

[bwnbwn]

Our site sells supplements, vitamins etc. On the 8th of this month we were cut off from using Paypal because we are in violation of Paypals Acceptable Use Policy. I have called and was informed the reason was we sold supplements, vitamins. There isn't anything on our site you can't go to a local Wal-Mart or Gym and buy. Nothing. I told them I did a search on EBay pulled up 10,000 supplements selling on Ebay. I can see now this is going to be a big classaction as EBay is trying to keep websites from competing with eBay stores. It's ok to sell on eBay but not on the web. The rep at EBay told me to turn every web site I knew about that sold supplements and they would as well be banned as well.
Has anyone in different areas of ecommerce experienced this?

[FalseDawn]

Baloney.
They don't allow sale of controlled substances such as prescription drugs and narcotics etc

Nowhere in their TOS does it mention vitamins and minerals.
http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/ua-outside

You need to determine exactly why your account was terminated.

[edited by: lorax at 1:44 pm (utc) on Feb. 14, 2006]
[edit reason] delinked [/edit]

[pp_rb]

The Acceptable Use Policy does have a section on Prescription Drugs, and it includes some restrictions around dietary supplements:

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/use/index_frame-outside&ed=prescript_drugs

You may not use PayPal in the sale of any dietary supplements banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration FDA) or on the FDA’s Alerts list. The FDA’s Alerts list and additional information regarding dietary supplements regulated by the FDA can be found at [cfsan.fda.gov...]

Additionally, PayPal prohibits the sale of a product sold as a dietary supplement and promoted on its label or in its labeling as a treatment, prevention, or cure for a specific disease or condition, as such sales are considered unapproved, and thus illegal, by the FDA.

[edited by: lorax at 1:45 pm (utc) on Feb. 14, 2006]
[edit reason] delinked [/edit]

[bwnbwn]

Trust me I did and I do not get an answer as to the product all I get is we sell vitamins and supplements and to remove all paypal from the website. I am in the process of contacting a lawyer see if he can get an answer if not I will begin recommending all ebay stores that sell supplements to get them stop accepting paypal due to the violation of policy, if not then I feel sure I will have good grounds for a lawsuit. I really feel it is someone offended by my site I woun't give specifics but that is my gut feeling and they are using this as an excuse. I will not quit trust me on this. I accept credit cards have a mechant account so paypal is a very small portion of our sales it isn't about the sales it's the principle of the matter. Tell me what is the problem is all I want to find out.

[HRoth]

"Additionally, PayPal prohibits the sale of a product sold as a dietary supplement and promoted on its label or in its labeling as a treatment, prevention, or cure for a specific disease or condition, as such sales are considered unapproved, and thus illegal, by the FDA."

Paypal needs to update their info, because in fact you CAN sell things that are not approved by the FDA for the treatment of specific diseases, and it is not illegal. Witness cold treatments like Cold-Eze. Their information is old and out of date. It USED to be the case that you could only mention the treatment of symptoms and not diseases on bottles of supplements, but that has changed. Supplement manufacturers won precisely on this issue several years ago. Paypal needs to read the newspapers.

However, my experience has been that some companies are really wary of supplements, and not only will they not deal with you if you sell supplements, but they won't deal with you if you sell things next door to supplements, like bulk herbs, which are in no way regulated.

I don't see how you can sue Paypal, though. Can't they just arbitrarily decide to do business with someone or not? I don't think that's against the law if it's outside of discrimination.

[bwnbwn]

Update on paypal as from some emails we went to them they have without sending an email lifted the restrictions on our account. I think they foud out it was opening a can of worms not needing opening as we found some very big hitters selling the product we were banned for. I found it out as well, they finally came clean after some emails, well I assume after we sent them the emails they decided it was something not worth getting into since the product in question can be bought anywere. Nothing claimed to be a cure all just a description an supplement facts. As I stated I wasn't going to give in or up till I got to the bottom of it. Wew lost some orders but I think now Paypal might want to do a little more homework before they go to banning accounts without really knowing what they are doing in the first place. I still feel it was our site someone at paypal didn't like and they got a littlew heat from our emails and had to back off. Just a gut feeling but I am usually right.