I have no trouble seeing why a payment processor would want to avoid doing business with dietary supplement companies.

No issues buying Marlboro reds with the credit card of course.

Cigarette purchasers aren’t filing chargebacks when their partner checks the billing history, claiming their card got stolen.

Are dietary supplement purchasers doing so?

Extremely, infamously, yes.

Have you ever returned a pack of cigarettes? They basically do what you expect them to do.

I figured the reason was not wanting to support something harmful to the customer like a fake diet pill. Call me naive for letting that assumption of even a glimmer of empathy affect my guestimation. I should have known it was pure greed all the way down and due to something like this instead.

I would take pure greed over a company imposing its morals on me.

Like I said above, they are banning foods, not companies. Foods that do exactly what the vendors claim they do. Foods that are regulated by he FDA as foods. Foods that are listed in the Codex Alimentarius.

I mean I wouldn't do business with them, I think the supplements industry is infrastructure for grifters, quacks, and pyramid schemes to fleece the desperate, but what's the problem for Visa? Is it a brand safety thing? My presumption would be that payment processors are amoral and have no problem processing payments for Consolidated Baby Kickers if it were legal to do so, is that a misconception?

"Not as advertised" chargebacks. That industry is also full of subscription scams (e.g. someone thinks they're ordering a supplement for $5.99, but they're actually getting signed up for $39.99/month...).

Also the products don't work!

I don't think the credit card networks would care about that if it weren't for the risk of chargebacks. Credit card networks have no problem with processing payments for churches!

Right, no, I'm just saying: that drives a lot of chargebacks.

> That industry is also full of subscription scams

Visa / MC are the ones who enable subscription scams and benefit from them. They implemented "convinience" option of "updating" your credit card data with replacement card. So even if you cancel and replace card charges continue to pass.

They also totally able to see all the places where your card been tokenised, but they dont push banks to expose this to you.

In Canada at least, you can opt out of having your new card number shared when you replace a card.

I get the well-founded distrust of dietary supplement companies (the OG snake oil salesmen), but they've started banning kava, a completely legal food.

So... not dietary supplement companies, but a particular food that is completely legal and regulated as a food by the FDA.

You have a business selling food? Are you a bar? A restaurant? Well if you start selling this particular food we don't like, you will be debanked.

It has nothing to do with legality.

That's the point. In a world in which citizens are finding it harder and harder to engage in commerce without the use of these payment processors, we need to make it harder for them to deny service without just cause.

You argued that it was due to the prevalence of chargebacks but they already have a fair solution for that (banning vendors or simply requiring vendors to secure their accounts with collateral to manage that risk).

There are or have been rules about which colours a dildo can have.

It definitely sounds like Christian morals being forced on us.