Does the local drug dealer take Visa? Well the one online does.
Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover; payment for that Harry Potter DVD from Amazon.com or tickets to a Redskins game from StubHub and many more legal products and services. But lucky you: The reach of “plastic” can also be used to purchase counterfeit and illegal products. Yep.
Notably, credit cards can be used to purchase online “prescription” drugs without so much as a phone call to a doctor. No exam, no consultation, no discussion of risk factors, heck no need for a prescription. Just type in a credit card number and you are good to go. Try it now: Google “online drugs no prescription” and you’ll find dozens of ways to purchase Percocet, Klonipin, Zoloft, Hydrocodone, Vicodin and just about any other prescription drug imaginable.
This should be no surprise to anyone with an email account. Online pharmacies seem to be the biggest “spammers” on the Internet. Their ads seem to defy the best of spy filters. Are these drugs real? Are they safe? Too strong, watered down? Who knows, most people just click delete, but too many people take the risk and buy their medication online. Sometimes their motives are pure: convenience, they cannot afford a doctor, and without insurance the drugs they need are too expensive. But in the main this is a dangerous, illegal endeavor that should be stopped. There is a reason prescription drugs are restricted and can only be legally purchased with a doctor’s prescription and dispensed by a licensed pharmacy.
Sure law enforcement can go after the “pharmacies” directly but what are they: a warehouse or an apartment somewhere in the world with a few people filling bottles. They can be found and shut down. But the next day they will just have a new location.
What about the banks that allow them to have merchant accounts so they can accept all those credit card payments. Easy access to money; a cheap and reputable partner to the most illegal of enterprises. Does the local drug dealer take Visa? Well the one online does. That’s right, they turn a blind eye to the source of the money. And who is harmed? Sure the users of the drugs risk their health and lives buying illegally online. But what about community pharmacists? These largely family-owned businesses with a reputation for honesty are under assault by not only the big chains, but also these online gangsters. And the merchant banks are complicit in that effort.
Without the legitimacy accorded the words and symbols saying “we accept Visa and Mastercard,” these online drug dealers might just suffer a mortal wound. And we’d take a small but important step in the right direction and give the community pharmacist a fighting chance at survival.
Too often we ignore the banks’ role in transgressions such as this. During the ongoing wave of Ponzi scheme prosecution, banks have largely been let off the hook for their similar role in aiding and abetting the defrauding of investors. The same cannot be true of the banks that facilitate the operation of websites such as Pillsgate – and the time to hold them accountable has come.