Citi and First Data Refuse Gun Transactions

This is disturbing:

Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp. are refusing to process any credit card transactions between federally licensed firearms retailers, distributors and manufacturers -- a move which will severely limit available inventory of firearms and ammunition to military, law enforcement and law-abiding Americans.

The first company to be affected by this decision appears to be firearms distributor CDNN Sports Inc.

"We were contacted recently by First Data/Citi Merchant Services by a June Rivera-Mantilla stating that we were terminated and funds were being seized for selling firearms in a non-face-to-face transaction," said Charlie Crawford, president of CDNN Sports Inc. "Although perfectly legal, we were also informed that no transactions would be processed in the future, even for non-firearms. I find this very frightening."

To voice your concern to Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp., please contact June Rivera-Mantilla at 631-683-7734 or her supervisor Robert Tenenbaum at 631-683-6570.

My prediction is that it won't be long before the outrage over this causes Citi to see the light, but the quicker this gets nipped in the bud, the better. Of course, I acknowledge that private companies are free to refuse any customers as they see fit: it's their business, after all. But then so am I free to refuse to do business with them.

My main credit card is from Citi, if this policy isn't reversed soon, I will definitely be looking for another one. I hope this can be handled quickly by the market before the government gets involved. That would not help anyone and could get very ugly.

(Via: Hot Air)