Recently My Smoking Shop has stopped shipping to the US. When I contacted them, they said that it is permanent, and the reason is restrictions from Visa and Mastercard, and that no UK Tobacconist can ship to the US. Tim, Roderick, or anyone else, can you shed some more light on this?

Yes Visa and Mastercard in America have suddenly taken responsibility for running the tobacco business out of town. This has been happening little by little and the way they are doing things now they are saying because of fraud they can’t approve international purchases. They have also taken specific actions on tobacco orders. The vendors can fill you in on more details. There was some discussion recently in alt.smokers.pipes and I know someone who had a similar problem with a foreign order.

Well that’s a load of BS. What now, we have to mail an IMO? Ugh.

We need to start growing our own leaf is what we need to do.

I hope this doesn’t affect the US shops and distros, or I’ll be stuck with Garrett only.

I think it does or will eventually, but Tom or Dave will have to fill us in.

This whole visa/mastercard thing better apply to ALL products that Americans purchase online from the UK and not just tobacco or else I am gonna really be pissed! What about Discover or American Express? Do any of these companies accept these? What about Paypal?? So this whole issue must affect snus purchases as well?? Before I get my panties further up in a bunch I will wait to hear from some of the UK stores here…

hell yeah this pisses me off. What douches. I hope they all suffer the same pain this makes for me.

I just placed orders with Northerner and Toque tonight, both went through with no problems. I hope this is not true.

Anyone remember the hiccup that Mars went through a while back? I think this is the same thing, not really Visa, but the processors of the CC info.

My smoking shop sent me an e-mail saying they can’t ship tobacco to Brazil. what the hell is going on ?

I too placed a Toque order and it went through fine. Got my confirmation emails as well.

sigh of releif

If this is true Pay-Pal might be the way to go

Pay-Pal don’t do any tobacco related transactions!!!

Moneybookers ain’t an option either. We might as well set up our own bank.

But they had that quality Ingsoc Victory Vodka and ciggs.

Racing pigeons???

How DARE the CC companies try to dictate what their customers can buy! This is an outrage!

It’s number 23,239 in a series of outrages…

Hi All, Not a problem for Snuff Store, but this and has been bubbling for a while. Fortunately Snuff Store has an understanding, if a little strict processor - there’s only a few UK based processing companies left that we can use, it’s all very ‘big brother’ with processing companies telling us what’s best for our health! PayPal is not an option Snifs, they banned tobacco sales on their processor ages ago, long before the others got on their high horse about it. I think a couple of stores fell foul of this when it happened, had their accounts frozen and a real fight to get money back - it may have pushed a few ‘under’. Ta-Ta TimSnuff Store

Dave - the only trouble wwith that I have found is them putting a limit of 1 non-US transaction per 30 days. I had to call and yell at them to make them take it off.

This is terrible news. I was planning a big order from My Smoking Shop. I went ahead and made the online order anyway just in case but it doesn’t sound good. I did put in a Toque order tho and got e-mail confirmation right away. One would think that with the CC companies reeling from the recession they’d be eager to allow as much business as possible. Hopefully this will get cleared up soon.

Yes, because of the card processors, NickKick. Visa and MC are telling the vendors what they can receive payment for and what they can’t.

I would guess, as I stated before, that these companies could accept an IMO(International Money Order), and take orders like that. It would suck a bit, but it’d be better than nothing. Though from what others have said, it’s not affecting all shops, and my main concern is it doesn’t affect the US distros like MrSnuff and Nicotinerush, etc., as I usually always buy from a US distro.

Sadly, I received the e-mail back from Simon at My Smoking Shop today. No more U.S. orders. What a terrible shame. Looks like Toque is still in the game for now. Any other UK vendors still able to sell. How about Rajek’s? Did they get hit by this too?

I can see two sides of this. First the Credit card companies feel they don’t want to be attached to the purveying of tobacco products. But do they still let one buy porn off the internet? and pay for prostitution? I don’t know this. I don’t want to come over as a goody goody, but I’m not in the market for the last two, so I don’t know. Having said this, I do feel, as with bank notes and coins, that you should be able to buy what you want.

What about alcohol? The bottom line is this is your money, and a legal item you wish to buy with it. It’s simply an infringement on your rights as a private citizen. Is it the actual credit cards? Or an inbetween? As other shops said they are fine. And Spyro, you could ask them if they’d accept an IMO, or US cash even. Sure the mail time, is a drag. I have done both with non snuff pruchases overseas, and it was OK.

Someone ought to sue them for restaint of trade. I mean some BIG company with a lot of money.

Going back a few threads… It’s not a new problem, nor is it a specific UK / European problem, nor has it effected all sites - as Roderick said, he’s fine. Snuff Store hasn’t a problem with accepting international orders - although our processor is a little strict. I think the problem was first encountered in the US, it’s now making it’s way round the globe. Hence why some US sites who’ve had their processing facility removed use Canadian companies to process orders. Or manually process the card through a terminal after the order has been made on site - which is a big ‘no-no’ as far as security of card details / terms of use of terminal is concerned, but perhaps a different story. In the UK, as long as we use a processing company instead of a bank, we seem to be fine. The problem this causes is there’s another ‘slice of pie’ being taken by the processing company… But that’s better than not being able to accept any card orders! International Bank Transfers are another option. I don’t think any store would have a problem accepting these, so why not ask the store in question if this is a viable alternative? I certainly don’t have a problem with accepting this method of payment and a number of Snuff Store’s international customers use this option - if you want Snuff Store’s Swift Bic details, then drop me a line. International Money Orders - do you mean like Western Union? There’s very few locations for these in the UK and they had a bad reputation for money laundering a few years ago… But I’m not sure about the viabilty of accepting payment using this method as I’ve never been asked, I could enquire if it was the preferred route of a customer and there was an office local enough to make the journey to pick up worthwhile. Strangely there’s now a few ‘new’ online payment methods available - such as paying at a outlet like a petrol station, like what people do with pre-paid gas and electric meters and getting a code to enter on the online store, although I think these are still localised to the ‘host’ country. If enough people wanted this method, then I’d look into that too. Ta-Ta TimSnuff Store

Its a mockery of capitalism and free trade. Since this isn’t coming directly from a government agency but rather businesses then its simply a matter of flexing our consumer muscles. Unfortunately, I think some merchants, including Simon, have probably just thrown in the towel for now out of frustration and maybe to initiate an uproar. I actually try to spread my purchases around between shops to help keep the snuff business healthy but some varieties are only available via overseas purchases. (Kudos to NicotineRush, Mr. Snuff, and others for doing their best to make our US selections as optimum as possible.)

IMO is just like an MO, it’s not a check, but you take an amount of money and get an IMO for it, and it’s a piece of paper, like a check, but it’s not from a bank account, it’s like actual money(the amount on it, that you already paid for). And then that is mailed. And then, what about personal checks? I know they have to be held to clear. But I guess that’s an option too, even for non-US stores? I don’t know. There is another pay format, ebay users used to use it alot… I have/had an account, but haven’t used it in years… I can’t even remember the name of it now, but it was popular a while back, as an alternative. But could’t one also just email the shop with one’s CC info? I am not having these problems with my purchasing, just wondering what options would be available if I did.

Regarding a back up plan incase big brother shuts us completely down- let me ask this: Why couldn’t a smoke shop sell gift cards (kind of like Amazon or Ebay), use your credit card to purchase a gift card for that store, then use the gift card to purchase the product? The card could be an e-card (like Amazon) or it could be credited to your account. I would love to get Tim’s take on this

Thanks Dave, One more thing: a smart purveyor will put the gift card option at the end of the checkout procedure (after shipping and totals are all included) with a big notice “international orders please use the gift card option”. Then you buy your card for the amount of the total, await the email confirmation and gift card code, return to the store checkout, enter the code in the “apply gift card” box, and you’re done.

This sucks. My Smoking Shop had a lot of the harder to find stuff. Now the only place to order such things as the Poschl Schmalzler’s and Swedish Match snuffs is from Rajek’s.

Have you asked them what other methods they can accept? An email with the info? A phone call with the info? Postal mail delivery of payment?

Nope. It says that they cannot SHIP anything to the US. So no matter how you pay, they still can’t SHIP it.

That’s crazy.

It sure is confusing. It makes it sound like it’s not the CC company, but maybe MSS just doesn’t want to deal with shipments to the US anymore.

Yes, that’s what I was thinking too.

If it was the CC then they would have to sell everything by mail order, like Mars did for a while.

Right, so this isn’t even about CC’s or payment, it’s about a shop that doesn’t want US business.

I don’t know if they don’t want US business… It just doesn’t add up, is all I’m saying.

Sorry to go on and on about this, but it is odd, did you ask them why?

Quote from Leman’s initial post:“Recently My Smoking Shop has stopped shipping to the US. When I contacted them, they said that it is permanent, and the reason is restrictions from Visa and Mastercard, and that no UK Tobacconist can ship to the US.”

Well, I get the impression they just don’t want to ship to the US and made that up as an excuse, as we have had 2 UK sellers tell us that is not true. And that’s their choice, we have US sellers that don’t ship out of the country as well.

With Snuff Store getting in Chapman, Paul Gotard, Three Musketeers and more Sammy G, maybe they will start to stock some of the more obscure stuff soon. I’m also hoping that Nicotine Rush will be able to expand it’s inventory as well.

Hi Guys, I think there’ll always be ‘a way’… If the worse comes to the worse in the UK, I have three other processing companies that have said they’ll be happy to have our account, but fingers crossed - it only seems to be a problem with the main banks so far and not a problem with the processing companies. Of course collectively we’re all trying to increase our inventory and offerings, but we also hit a brick wall with some of the manufacturers having restricted availabilty of their snuffs in certain countries. This is often down to trade mark problems, or just down to perceived sales volume not being ‘worth their while’ printing warning labels in English. In the UK we can’t officially get Silverstone as it’s a trade mark of the Grand Prix racing track for example. So, some of the ‘harder to find snuffs’ are difficult to get hold of because of this - point in question is Packards Club. This was discontinued in the UK last Summer, even though it’s an old UK brand / blend originally… It actually was a good seller and in my opinion was pulled ‘too early’. Internet stores such as Snuff Store had only just got going, the smoking in enclosed premises legislation was only just kicking in in the UK and the result of that; what with people looking for a viable alternative to having to smoke cigarettes outside in the cold winter months hadn’t fully been realised. I think if it was left to run for a few more months they wouldn’t have pulled it. We’re now treated much differently by all the UK manufacturers thankfully, but as with anything in life; as a new business back then, you have to show that you ‘mean business’. Cheers TimSnuff Store

I have a system for ordering snuffs, and MSS was my Sam Gawith shop, they have the biggest selection of SG that I have found. Snuff Store is getting a large SG selection, so I’ll just get it there from now on. I really do prefer doing business with Tim, than with MSS, so this isn’t all bad.

Just confirmed today by Jamie at snuff.me.uk, they are still shipping to the US. Before we jump to conclusions about MSS we should probably hear from Simon there and find out the details. He may have a specific reason for dropping US shipments that we aren’t aware of. I personally want to see all of the snuff purveyors flourish and profit. Although, we do enjoy the benefits of a very cheap and novel product due highly to its socially covert image. I’d like to see snuff reclaim its rightful position in society and become popular again but that could lead to the end of its modest pricing. Perhaps we can take a history lesson and use the symantics game. Instead of calling it tobacco snuff, we can refer to it as herbal nose powder or some such nonsense.