Customers can no longer pay for the use of the VPN service Ipredator with Mastercard or Visa. The credit card companies have passed these guidelines on to external online payment service providers.
Payson does not allow payments for VPN services by credit card on instructions from Mastercard and Visa. Payson customers can no longer pay with Mastercard or Visa credit cards for the VPN service Ipredator. At Torrentfreak’s request, Payson confirmed that it was following policies that came directly from the credit card companies. Ipredator founder and Pirate Bay co-initiator Peter Sunde believes this will prevent users from covering their digital tracks to prevent espionage by intelligence agencies. VPN services are also popular in countries where the Internet is censored, such as Iran.
The Statement from Payson
Torrentfreak quotes from Payson’s original email to his customers: „Payson has restrictions on anonymization services, including VPN.“ Therefore, „unfortunately, customers can no longer charge for such services using credit cards such as Visa or Mastercard“. However, payments could still be made via bank accounts.
VPN services locked out
- At Torrentfreak’s request, online payment service provider Payson said it was implementing a credit card company policy.
- Payson was „urgently“ instructed not to accept payments for VPN services via credit cards anymore.
- In addition to Ipredator, the other services Anonine, Mullvad, VPNTunnel and PrivatVPN also use the payment service provider Payson.
Legal steps possible
There is no reason for credit card companies to prevent payments for a completely legal service, Sunde said. While other payment methods such as Bitcoins or direct debits are still possible, he is considering legal action against Visa and Mastercard and quotes Wikileaks‘ successful lawsuit against the credit card companies.
Torrentfreak is not yet aware of any other online payment service providers that have imposed similar restrictions to those imposed by Payson.