Just seen this on Facebook

[Ron]

Hey everyone reading, horrible news this afternoon in regards to the vaping community as a whole. I was not able to make a purchase with a local shop online with my Visa check card so I called the bank to find out what was going on as I have sufficient funds in my account. After some digging, the teller on the phone let me know at least three other customers of Bank of Oklahoma reported similar issues and they were only dinging an error with vape shops, at least in Oklahoma. They checked with another bank officer and they've received an email from their corporate office stating that new legislation has been passed as of 1/1/2014 that prohibits the online sale of anything vaping related and that cards attempting to buy things from those sites will receive an error message and funds will not be transferred. When I asked whether this was in regards to Oklahoma or national, they couldn't say but they've only seen it within our state since they are only based in our state however it would effect every Oklahoman's credit card no matter who the issuing company is. This is terrible and we need to get this around so we can find out what the heck is happening. Thank you.

[Gary Horder]

I know the answer to this one, move banks immediately and in so doing make the bank aware exactly what you think of their polocies

[Fockskey]

Tough stance in the USA, trouble is you have state and federal laws. At least in the UK legislation on things like e-cigs has to go through many stages to become law.

[Raffles]

IF that's true... then Big-Gvt, The Banks, Big-T, and Big-P are even more corrupt than we thought even possible. I can't think that could happen here without the relevant transparency. But, and I know we are only one niche market in the global state of the economy, but if they think they can continually manipulate their subjects / customers for their own greed, then I think they've got a wake up call coming!

[djs]

Grim.

Best to leave it there.

[poochops]

Shocking, big brother is well and truly determined to control us all one way or another. I dread to think what a place the world will be when technology has had another twenty years to develop and the minds of the powers that be have thought of all of the devious ways of harnessing and using it.

[toots]

Jeeze, that is BAD, I cannot believe the vendetta attitude that is going on towards the vaping community as a whole

This just reeks of dictatorship Unbelievable, bl**dy unbelievable, WTF next ???

[Blownupdolly]

Hmmmm, not so sure of the validity of this. I know nothing about American banking, BUT, if this is the case, do they also stop online payments to other businesses they deem unfit? Like hard porn etc? Strange if you ask me.

[GunJack]

if true, pure evil

[ionian]

They did something similar to online poker about 5 years ago - they couldn't outlaw it but they could stop American citizens making payments to online betting sites via the wire act. Practically killed the us based sites. I can't see how this falls under the same legislation, but it was certainly an effective method for destroying the industry.

[newdawn]

They definitely banned online poker in America for everyone, US resident or not - full stop. I was over visiting relatives last year and pulled up a couple of my usual poker sites to play a bit one night. The first site wouldn't even let me play because it caught the US ip address and insta blocked me. Got to play on another site for the night, but the following morning I received an email from them saying they had to block my account until I returned to the UK. The second crowd know me personally because I've been to their live poker club loads of times and they knew I meant no harm. They said only for that, they'd have closed my account down permanently for playing while in America because they get HUGE hassle over things like that. Supposedly the ban is going to be lifted eventually and that's why the poker sites are cooperating. They want to be let into the loop without hassle when the ban lifts, but the sites who don't cooperate now will continue to be banned. Such a mess.

[Blownupdolly]

Jan 3, 2014 23:19:31 GMT newdawn said:

They definitely banned online poker in America for everyone, US resident or not - full stop. I was over visiting relatives last year and pulled up a couple of my usual poker sites to play a bit one night. The first site wouldn't even let me play because it caught the US ip address and insta blocked me. Got to play on another site for the night, but the following morning I received an email from them saying they had to block my account until I returned to the UK. The second crowd know me personally because I've been to their live poker club loads of times and they knew I meant no harm. They said only for that, they'd have closed my account down permanently for playing while in America because they get HUGE hassle over things like that. Supposedly the ban is going to be lifted eventually and that's why the poker sites are cooperating. They want to be let into the loop without hassle when the ban lifts, but the sites who don't cooperate now will continue to be banned. Such a mess.

American logic is the most baffling thing at times. They have what's probably the biggest gambling city in the world Las Vegas. 24hr non stop gambling yet you can't do it at home? ... Nutters

[newdawn]

Aye it's a mess, but it's all down to the govn't wanting their share of the money pool. As it is now professional poker players can claim losses and hide wins on their tax return and there's nothing the US govn't can do about it. They're not happy about that and until they can figure out a way to 'regulate' it - ie keep their noses stuck in the accounts of the online sites and their players, it'll stay banned. The pro players have been picking up and moving out of America so they can get back to playing online because for most, that's where the bread and butter is.

[toots]

Oh yeah, talking about that, we used to go onto some bingo sites and play a few games on a Sunday afternoon, light bit of entertainment, just a bit of fun, didn't spend much. Then one Sunday we couldn't get into any bingo site we were registered with, or sign up to any new ones.

We were getting a message up saying our country wouldn't allow us to play bingo. Checked it out and found Spain had banned it and the ISP blocked all online bingo sites, soooo annoying.

Apparently now we still cannot get into any non-Spanish bingo sites but could if we wanted to go onto the 'all new' Spanish bingo sites. Looks like they didn't want our money going out of Spain.

So, if a government wants to stop you doing something online, like playing bingo or poker or whatever they can stop you. Probably the same goes for that online banking problem in America where he can't pay for any vaping gear online. I think it is just awful the way they can rule your life in that way. Hope it doesn't happen over here as I order everything online from the UK. I don't buy any vaping gear over here at all.

[boyofford]

Proper shocked by this, proper over bearing big brother stuff!
And for of control what... Vaping?! FFS!!
...something that can save lives and release people worldwide from the cocktail of poisons that can be bought, readily available in the form of a cig, killing so many people world wide and only benefiting big companies and to protect tax.

Disgusting.