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Pistol Pay

For many years now, PayPal has been the de facto standard way to exchange money on the interwebs. Most ecommerce software comes pre-baked with PayPal integration, and just about every website supports it. Ours does (not that we’re happy about it). There’s a problem though – if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that you believe in the right to keep and bear arms. Because of that, PayPal hates you and doesn’t want your business.

PistolPay was created with the intent to solve this problem, and several others along the way. In order to find out more, I contacted Ira and the good folks over at PistolPay and asked them a few questions. Here’s what they had to say (PistolPay responses in blue text).

What makes PistolPay.com different for the buyer?

The buyer can initiate the transaction and if in 48 hours they decide they do not want it, they arrange to ship it back, no more waiting for their money order/check to clear. No more having to sneak around using PayPal.

What makes PistolPay.com different for the seller?

The seller can also initiate the transaction and each user gets an email for each step of the process. Once we have our Premium FFL network in place, the gun will be verified at the time of pick up and logged in our system. This will give the seller more peace of mind knowing that the gun arrived and the buyer cannot make any negative claims (wrong item, box of rocks, etc).

Also if the buyer does not log back into PistolPay within the 48 hours, we release the funds to the seller. The system requires both users to work well together before, during and after the sale. Communication is the key to success in any sale, and PistolPay provides tools to make this communication easy.

Why not use GunBroker?

We are not saying not to use GunBroker, use us along side with them. If you are not a brick and mortar store and do not take credit cards, we allow you to get paid without the use of money orders, checks or the anti-gun PayPal.

Are you guys the affiliated in any way with GunPal?

Absolutely not! We are based in Miami, FL and are three friends who are shooters like our users who saw a need for this type of product. Unlike GunPal, PistolPay has the full support of Merchant services Ltd (recently listed as #18 on Forbes list top 500 growing business) and a few major banks. We are also registered as a corporation here in Florida and Delaware.

Our system is also quite different then the model of GunPal. We understand many people were ripped off by GunPal, and know it will take time to build trust. But we will be here for the long haul and we do our best to make our customers happy. Even taking calls late at night, right Brandon?

What new features are coming?

Where do i start? Well the current system is version 1, which we launched in beta form to get a feel for our customer base as well as to test our security provisions, which we feel are second to none in the industry. With this release we concentrated more on the engine of the system rather than the look, which will be improved in our next version.

Version 2 is in development already and will include a kill switch, which will allow users who know each other well to release the funds almost instantly, a section for selling parts that do not need to go to a FFL, a section to sell cars, boats, etc.

What I am most excited about is our Marketplace which will roll out at the same time as version 2.0 and will allow users of the major auction sites as well as stores with a limited web audience make more profit from their online sales. That’s all I can say at the moment.

My Experience With PistolPay

As luck would have it, just this week I was able to try out PistolPay firsthand to buy a handgun online. I was messing around on Facebook earlier this week, when I saw a custom Smith & Wesson M&P listed on Business End Customs’ Facebook page. Knowing the excellent work Lou does (and the awesome price), I sent him an email and told him I wanted it.

Business End Customs is located in Massachusetts, and I’m in Texas, so how to pay them? This was the perfect opportunity to test out the beta version of PistolPay. It just so happened that Lou was also a beta tester, and he initiated the sale to me. I created an account (which by the way, was really cool…they use a verification system to verify who you are) and quickly paid the invoice Lou initiated.

When you pay for something using PistolPay, the payment goes into an escrow account managed by PistolPay. Then, once the package arrives (in this case a handgun) to its destination (in this case my FFL), you login and release the funds to the seller. Simple.

I would by lying if I said there weren’t minor bugs in the system, like a typo or two and emails that were sent more than once. But overall, even in its current beta version, I think PistolPay is awesome, and I’ll be using it again in the future to be sure. Register for a free account today.

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2 Responses to Pistol Pay

  1. TK August 17, 2012 at 9:36 am #

    Man this is awesome, I HATE paypal with a burning passion. Sure they have good capabilities but they get hacked like once a week. Pistolpay security is better I hope?

    • Brandon August 17, 2012 at 9:45 am #

      Their security seems to be very good from what I can tell. The run each new user through a verification system that asks you a set of personally tailored questions to validate that you are who you say you are. On top of that, they are using industry standards like SSL encryption. Having said that, only through penetration testing can you truly know for sure.