Pseudo Pharmaceuticals
During this quest of researching of why we are so sick as a society and yet suppose to have such a great nation of medical systems. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad to have a doctor who can sew us up when we are injured. They are amazing and it is mind boggling what they really can do with the human body. When it comes to pre-active health, however, it us up to us. We must be more mindful of how we treat our body, after all, it is our temple, it gives us life.
During my doTERRA journey, I have had fun making soaps and lotions that are chemical free, and have loved using my products. We have fun making things at classes and providing great solutions for everyone’s homes to become toxic free.
I have been asked to sell my products at little shows, and other stores over the years and in April of 2019, I was asked to join a quick Women’s Professional Network “POP-UP” Party and show off my line of products! I did not have much, some bath salts and some lotions. I set up my website to accept credit card payments over the past year, with a monthly fee of $19 being paid every month.
When I was ready to finally use the service, I tested it and it was working, But, when I was at the event, it stopped working. Using Shopify.com service was suppose to be easy! It worked when I tested it. When I got to work the next day, I had an email from Shopify telling me they where was shutting me down because I was selling pseudo pharmaceuticals. What? My Lotion is “pseudo pharmaceuticals”? Of course, they were willing to take my monthly payments, but when I went to use the service, nope, not willing to work. Here is the email below. I wanted to share this with you all because it is important to understand how massive of an issue this is. Who backs these decisions up and why?
I guess it is kinda humbling to be considered as a threat to the Big Pharma with my 12 -6oz. bottles of lotion and 6- 12 oz containers of bath salts.
Here is the letter that they sent me;
_________________________________________________________________________
On Apr 04, 2019 13:49 EDT, Wade wrote:
Hi there,
Wade here from the Shopify Risk Operations team.
After a standard review your Shopify Payments account has been identified for selling a product we can’t support on Shopify Payments as it violates the **[Shopify Payments Terms of Service](https://www.shopify.com/legal)**. We are unable to accept payments for pseudo pharmaceuticals (meaning any product that makes a health claim including things like supplements, vitamins, skin brighteners and whiteners, teeth whitening, skin peels and lightening products and products that contain hyaluronic acid, retinol, glycolic acid, kojic acid, vitamin C serums and hydroxy acids) as outlined in Section B.5 of the Shopify Payments Terms of Service that you can view at https://www.shopify.com/legal by simply clicking on the link for your region.
While you are not able to continue using Shopify Payments you might want to think about using an alternative gateway such as Emerchant Brokers. You can reach them via **[this signup link](http://emerchantbroker.com/shopify/nutraceuticals/)**.
Should you prefer, you could also use Authorize.net in conjunction with a merchant services account from National Discount Merchant Services to see if they are able to help you to continue to process payments for your business- you can reach them via phone at 310-359-9091 or by clicking the following link: http://reseller.authorize.net/application/?resellerId=19781.
Alternatively, you can also reach out to any of the integrated payment gateways available to Shopify merchants and **[listed here](https://www.shopify.ca/payment-gateways)**. If you would like to see how to change payment gateways on the account you can view a step by step guide **[at this link](https://help.shopify.com/manual/payments/third-party-providers#change-your-credit-card-payment-provider)**.
Your Shopify Payments account will remain active for the next 48hrs but after that you will need another payment gateway to process payments. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and will pay out any current balance to your bank account.
If you have any additional questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reply directly to this email. I will be your best point of contact moving forward as our Guru Support Team cannot directly assist with this matter.
Best,
Wade
______________________________________________________
then again their response to my unwelcome “Outburst” of upset, 🙂
Aidan D (Shopify)
Apr 13, 2018 14:37 EDT
Hi there Becky!
Thank you for reaching out to follow up on this. My name is Aidan and I’m replying on behalf of Wade.
First off I’m really sorry that this decision came as a surprise. We run reviews on shops at various stages to make sure that they comply with our payment terms of service, which is why this wasn’t brought up sooner.
It won’t be possible to refund past charges, but if you do feel that it’s in your business’ best interest to find a different platform you can close the account to prevent further charges. The alternative to that would be to select a third party payment gateway such as emerchant brokers that will support the products that you are selling.
As for your second question this is not a decision that has been reached by any agreement with pharmaceutical companies, but is instead in keeping with the policies of our banking partners who do not support the sale of products with health claims. This is why the decision cannot be reversed, as once it is passed on from our banking partners it is final.
Again I’m sorry for the inconvenience and that it wasn’t communicated sooner. If you need a hand changing to a different payment gateway, or else would rather close your account, please don’t hesitate to reply back for help doing either.
Cheers,
Aidan
Shopify Guru