The slogan of the retailer Archie McPhee, “We are rare”, applies to the products they sell, such as sweet canes of macaroni and cheese or their famous horse-head mask.
But in recent weeks, they have encountered a technical problem: PayPal’s payment processor has blocked sales of its late-themed products, such as the bright glass Christmas decoration above, in the form of one of the microscopic organisms also known as “bear water”.
The challenge arose just after Archie McPhee sent an email selling the late ornament. Customers who tried to purchase it with PayPal encountered an error message that read: “This transaction cannot be made because it violates PayPal’s terms of use. “
– Archie McPhee (@ArchieMcPhee) September 11, 2020
“We have no idea why PayPal would say late Christmas decoration or late stress violates your visitor agreement,” said David Wahl, Archie McPhee’s “Awesome Director. “”Our most productive theory is that they’re jealous because the late ones are so cute. “and virtually indestructible. If it’s not jealousy, why would PayPal hate the late ones so much?»
A PayPal representative blamed the U. S. government’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions. U. S. , which implies access for a commercially sourced company called “Tardigrade Limited” located in the country of Cyprus. According to PayPal, the word “late” triggered a manual review procedure because its formula made us think that bills “could potentially violate U. S. sanctions laws. “
“We’ve had mysterious challenges with PayPal for months, but you may not be commented on,” Wahl said. “When we introduced our late decoration at the same time as our new sweet ketchup sticks, other people ordered big Christmases and got stuck much more often. Last weekend, a visitor told us that PayPal had told him that he was breaking his usage contract on our site and that by using his order, however, we could hint at the challenge to the late. “
– Archie McPhee (@ArchieMcPhee) September 11, 2020
To fix this problem, Archie McPhee replaced each and every example of “tardigrade” with “water bear” on the Christmas decoration page, adding the URL and even the tags not showing up for search engines, but they lamented on their Twitter account that “this is a terrible solution. “
The tardigrade fiasco even caught the attention of well-known legal expert Ken White, also known as “Popehat,” who poked fun at PayPal’s not-so-high-tech keyword-matching security algorithm.
According to PayPal, transactions that triggered the security review have since been processed, however, they have not specified whether or not they will make adjustments to their formula for long-term disruptions for late fans.
The full PayPal is below.
As a U. S. company, PayPal will have to comply with U. S. government OFAC sanctions. But it’s not the first time Payments that may violate US sanctions legislation are likely to be in the process of being made by the US sanctions law. But it’s not the first time They may be reviewed rather than automatically denied. Our purpose is to provide transparent payment reports and we never intend to prevent valid business transactions. If, after the review, there is nothing in the payment that implies that it possibly violates the law, the payment will be processed. We realize that any delay in making or receiving a payment can be frustrating and we appreciate the patience of our consumers as we try to meet our compliance obligations.
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