Gearpay

[cpty1]

Anyone hear of, or use a company called GearPay? Apparently they're a new PayPal type service that is pro-gun, pro-sportsman, and pro-American, at least according to their website. I've just started an account with them and will give them a try. I would love to be able to find an alternative to PayPal. The GearPay interface is very PayPal like. Here's the link to their site:

GearPay

Edited May 2, 2006 by cpty1

[EricW]

I'm going to give it a whirl and see what happens. I'm also in the process of getting a credit card machine, but really prefer having ALL credit card transaction going through a third party. I've not had a single instance of credit card fraud, which is why I've stuck with to using the evil empire for so long. But the sooner I can dump the jerks, the better.

Thanks!

[geezer-lock]

Is there any way to vet these folks? Who regulates this sort of traffic? There is no "insured " amount available and I can't find a physical address anywhere.

Their agreement contains this disclaimer:

15. Buyer Beware GearPay LLC and GearPay.com assumes no responsibility for any purchases made through the GearPay LLC and GearPay.com system. At any time you purchase a product or service, GearPay LLC and GearPay.com directs all liability onto the vendor who contracted GearPay LLC and GearPay.com to resell their product or service. These purchases are done at your own risk. GearPay LLC and GearPay.com does not issue refunds if the product, service, or membership program turns out not to be what you thought it was or if the vendor does not hold up to their promises. Thoroughly investigate any third party before making the decision to purchase. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Contact the third party who contracted our reseller services to resolve any disputes. GearPay LLC and GearPay.com is only the reseller service provider and assumes no responsibilities other than outlined in this user agreement.

Anybody that wants my bank account number needs to have some presence somewhere.

I will give it a pass until I can fill in the blanks.

David C

[raz-0]

their domain infor at least..

http://whois.domaintools.com/gearpay.com

[j2fast]

their domain infor at least..

http://whois.domaintools.com/gearpay.com

Although under registrant it says "Private" so it's probably not their real address. I use a service for my family website that acts as a pass through so all you see on a whois search is their info not my physical home address. I assume this is what they have done also???

[EricW]

I looked into it. What I saw was:

- Obscure ownership

- No phone # to call

- Doesn't take credit cards

- No international transactions

- Everyone has to sign up to process a transaction

The last three nixed it for me. Too bad.

[GearPayLLC]

Hello, I am the Administrator at GearPay.com and this thread was brought to my attention by a Member here so I thought I would register and post a Statement written by the Owner and his partner.

The following should answer your questions and address your concerns:

Quote:

So...WHO ownes GearPay LLC ?

The CEO and owner of GearPay LLC is James Waldrop of Anderson County Tennessee. I have known James for over 25 years, he is easily the finest human being I have ever met and rabidly progun! He is a highly accomplished Engineer, respected in his field and held in high regard by all who know him.

The basic GearPay idea was mine, I originally bought the domain name and got the ball rolling. I brought James into the picture because he had deeper pockets than myself; he purchased the idea and domain name from me last year.

The third party administrator for GearPay LLC is the same firm that did the processing for PayPal prior to PayPal becoming their own gateway provider and becoming so antigun in words and actions. There are tens of thousands of dollars in reserve to not only protect its members, but also GearPay LLC.

All money is held by SunTrust National Bank, they and the third party administrator have all necessary State and Federal licenses to transfer funds, something they do for GearPay, by contract.

Some folks are making note of what is perceived as being an attempt to hide ownership, we simply noticed that over 20% of the IPs coming to GearPay were the same jerks that want to deny the ownership of weapons, de fang the military and close hunting lands to sportsmen. Why expose James to them prior to getting started, you know these groups are totally ticked about GearPay!

The attempted mass sign ups of these same groups prior to GearPay opening to the public showed us that only a withdrawal method of account verification would spare GearPay from being sucked dry by mass fraudulent sign ups by these same groups. Just imagine if GearPay spent on average $1.00 confirming accounts via deposits into said accounts and 40 blue million antigunners signed up in mass that we could not initially deny service to?

A lot of time and effort has gone into GearPay and it is in fact totally legit. This is a project aimed at giving progun groups, progun vendors and end users a new option.

GearPay is also very concerned with the rising tide of Credit Card fraud and it's effects, including identity theft. Plus, one of GearPay's predecessors reportedly screwed the market up, as far as, a PayPal clone being able to take or even get credit card gateway services. These 2 reasons are why GearPay does not accept credit and debit cards at this time.

The GearPay site is SSL secured and encrypted, every aspect of the site, it's software and mission statement is for the protection of GearPay customers and our 2nd Amendment Rights. If anyone takes issue with GearPay not being as big or fancy as PayPal then simply keep using them. Go ahead and hide your transaction topics with secretive slang "here's my order for some Tupperware" cloak and dagger crapola, as if you were a common criminal....or give GearPay a try.

I hope that this clears up any questions current and potential GearPay users have. I for one am very pleased we have this opportunity now, because my account was banned from PayPal reportedly for simply owning ***EDITED*** .

***End Quote*****

Written by Brian Webb - Owner of (EDITED to:) Another firearms forum.

****************

Thank you and please feel free to email me at:

administrator@gearpay.com

with any questions.

Shawn - GearPay.com Administrator

Edited May 5, 2006 by GearPayLLC

[EricW]

GearPay,

First off, welcome. Secondly, please re-read and consider editing some of your post. It might be the wrong way to start off here.

Eric

[Nemo]

Thanx for the info GearPay and welcome to the Enosverse!

Although I understand your post is a copy-paste from another webplace and I'm sure WarRifles Forums keep you busy, during your next visit to the Enosverse, please take some time to read the rules and tone your messages according to them.

Wish you success in your GearPay endeavor!

Edited May 5, 2006 by Nemo

[GearPayLLC]

Thank you for the heads up on editing my post.

I hope this clears the air and we can muster some support from some of you.

Please email me with any questions.

[Kevin J]

Has gearpay completed a PCI compliance audit? Being a security geek myself, I'd be very interested in knowing. But I'm really glad there is interest in creating an alternative. Competition is healthy.

[geezer-lock]

GearPay has added a considerable amount of information to their index page under the link: Click here for GearPay.com company information.

David C

[geezer-lock]

Has gearpay completed a PCI compliance audit? Being a security geek myself, I'd be very interested in knowing. But I'm really glad there is interest in creating an alternative. Competition is healthy.

Since they are not using credit cards they have no incentive to become PCI compliant. They could use the Trust-e audit for the same amount of effort but would have to commit to dispute resolution.

David C

Edited May 15, 2006 by geezer-lock

[mpolans]

It'd be nice if they had a money-market account option earning 4.62% interest eith no minimum balance as paypal currently does.

Edited May 16, 2006 by mpolans

[Rob Boudrie]

It looks to me like Gear Pay provides a valuable service if:

(1) You do not need the protections afforded by credit card transactions

(2) You are willing to trust a company with direct debit access to your checking account, based on the assertion from a net posting that the founder is trustworthy. Once you admit that you agreed to a debit from your checking account, it is not always easy to disupte that a specific withdrawl was unauthorized (it depends on your bank), and there is no right to "chargeback" for non-delivery of promised goods or services.

(3) You accept that you have no recourse to the collecter of funds (except through very expensive legal action) if the promised goods and services are not delivered .

Non-acceptance of credit cards is not only a mechanism to protect against fraud, but also protects against the concept of "chargeback", as it is not clear a vendor can deny this right to credit card holders simply by asserting that it does not exist. The fact that they are "looking into" accepting debit cards (which do not carry "chargeback" rights) is also interesting.

I don't have any reason to doubt the honesty of GearPay, but it looks like they are the equivalent of mailing a postal money order - money goes out with absolutely no protections or recourse in the event of non-performance.

Am I missing something?

[geezer-lock]

Am I missing something?

GearPay LLC is apparently not registered with the state of Tennessee so there is no "registered agent", in most states the agent must have a physical address, NOT a PO box.

David C

Edited May 16, 2006 by geezer-lock

[GearPayLLC]

Am I missing something?

GearPay LLC is apparently not registered with the state of Tennessee so there is no "registered agent", in most states the agent must have a physical address, NOT a PO box.

David C

We are registered as a business with the State of Tennessee.

We are currently awaiting our hard copy of the business license and it will then be posted on the website.

We are a small company and due to possible attacks by Anti-Gun groups, we choose to use a PO Box as a mailing address for public information.

If you check our website, you will see a growing list of firearms related companies who have been using us and endorse us.

Company Info

We are also working hard to provide Debit Card services with forced PIN usage to protect our members instead of attempting to provide Credit Cards due to the amount of fraud involved.

As for a Money Market like the "Other Site", I wish we were large enough to offer such, but we are not yet at the $20 Million dollar a month transfer rate that they are and cannot afford it.

We do however offer a Pro-American, Pro-Gun, Pro-Military alternative to a Company that would stomp out your 2nd Amendment rights if given the chance, and a Company that has locked up the funds and cancelled the accounts of small Pro-Gun businesses across the US including my own personal account.

Hence Greg's (Owner) desire to start GearPay.com to provide an alternative for those of us who wish to use it.

I hope this helps explain some of these issues and I am sorry for the delay in posting due to a very hectic schedule.

Shawn

[George]

As a consumer, I would not use a service that did not offer the protections against seller fraud that using PayPal, or a credit card (that will allow chargebacks) will.

I use PayPal and have a bank account tied to them, but they don't have the ability to withdraw from my bank account under any circumstances unless I specifically initiate the transfer. Gearpay evidentally has the ability to withdraw right from the account at their discretion. I would like to know exactly what checks and balances are in place before I would consider using this service.

Rob and I are both from Missouri as far as this type of thing goes. Anti this, pro that means nothing to me compared to reliability and security.

[Rob Boudrie]

I would appreciate if it GearPay could answer this directly:

Does GearPay provide the same level of protection that a consumer engaged in a direct credit card transaction would receive regarding chargebacks for non-performance on the part of the vendor?

The way I read the info, the answer appears to be no. Is this correct?

I use PayPal and have a bank account tied to them, but they don't have the ability to withdraw from my bank account under any circumstances unless I specifically initiate the transfer.

I disagree. PayPay may have a policy of not removing money directly without an initiated transfer, however, they certainly have that ability once they have your account and ACH routing numbers. If PayPal were to use this ability without permission, the money would be transferred and you would have to argue the "authorization" issue with your bank, or get PayPal to put it back.

[geezer-lock]

A business license is only a small part of what is needed here. Tennessee and some 30 other states require a money transmitter license. In Tennessee you would need to comply with Title 45 Chapter 7, Tennessee Code Annotated, in order to be able to engage in the business of money transmission.

Even if all you are doing is swapping bits around it is still classified as moving money across jurisdictions. Much of what folks are concerned with here is transparency. Endorsements are OK if you are selling diet pills but when you are dealing with other people’s money the standards are somewhat higher.

David C

[Bmar]

On 5/22/2006 at 1:07 PM, Rob Boudrie said:

To anyone who believes PayPal is a secure payment option that protects or insured your purchase unfortunately PayPal will do everything it possibly can to not refund a penny to you and they will do so even if you provide them with emails from the seller admitting there was an error in your order .. in my case I ordered a phone at Christmas time for my child and turns out it was a fraud store but at the bottom of there page was the we accept PayPal and that is exactly what made me make my purchase thinking I’d be protected . The seller provided a tracking number and sent something with that tracking number to a random place in my zip code while I emailed back and forth with him he was Tryin by to convince me not to not doing a PayPal report he told me in an email which I gave to Paul that his employees sent it to the wrong address and he’d ship another immediately well of course he did not and within days his site was down and no more communications.. I learned through this time he originated in China and the feedback in his marketplace business page were full of people he had done the exact same thing to . All this evidence and PayPal says well we have to take the sellers side because he provided a tracking # .. I to say the least was not happy so please beware PayPal is not there to protect our transactions there only there to pinch them a portion and that’s it PayPal is fraudulent scum of this earth parasites