Prohibited Business List

Use of PayCEC's services for any transactions, agreements, or sales of goods or services connected directly or indirectly to nations or people that PayCEC has deemed high risks, such as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk Regions, or to people or entities that PayCEC has deemed high risks, such as those people or entities that have been added to a restricted person or party list of the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union. Furthermore, it is not permitted to use PayCEC's products and services to export, re-export, sell, or provide accounting, trust, business formation, or management consulting services to anybody in the Russian Federation.

Prohibited Businesses

The following acts are prohibited when using the services of PayCEC:

Illegal products and services:

• Drugs that are illegal, chemicals that seem like illicit drugs, and tools for creating or consuming drugs.
• Providing false testimonials or identification.
• Equipment for tampering with communications, such as jammers.
• Any company or organization that a. engages in, encourages, promotes, or celebrates unlawful violence or physical harm to people or property, or b. engages in, encourages, promotes, or celebrates unlawful violence toward any group based on race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or any other immutable characteristic, is prohibited from doing business.
• Any additional goods or services that are illegal in the countries where your company is located or that are intended for those countries.

Services and goods that violate intellectual property rights:

• Sales or distribution of any licensed products, including music, movies, software, and other media, without the necessary permission.
• Counterfeit products; unauthorized imports or exports.
• Unlicensed sale of goods or services with designer or brand names.
• Any additional goods or services that directly violate or assist in violating a third party's trademark, patent, copyright, trade secrets, intellectual rights, or privacy rights.

Unfair, exploitative, or misleading goods and services:

• Pyramid schemes.
• ‘'Get rich quick' schemes include: investment opportunities or other services that promise high rewards to deceive consumers; schemes that claim to offer high rewards for very little effort or up front work; sites that promise fast and easy money; businesses that make ludicrous claims, use false testimonials, use high-pressure upselling, and/or use fake testimonials; and (with or without a written contract) offering unrealistic incentives/rewards as an inducement to put in a lot of effort or spend money.
• No value-added services, such as the sale or resale of a good or service without a benefit to the buyer and the resale of products or services provided by the government without permission or additional value.
• Sales of an online engagement or traffic.
• Telemarketing and negative response marketing.
• Consulting, lending, credit restoration, and counseling services for predatory mortgages.
• No-down payment or low-downpayment predatory investment options Online technical help, websites that publish or charge users to erase their mugshots, essay mills, chain letters, and door-to-door sales.
• Any more companies that PayCEC deems to be exploitative, dishonest, or unjust to customers.

Content and services for adults:

• Pornography and other material intended for older audiences (such as works of fiction, pictures, and other media) that include nudity or overt sexual actions.
• Prostitution, escorts, pay-per-view, sexual massages, and adult live chat features are among the adult services available.
• Stores with adult video.
• Topless bars, gentleman's clubs, and strip clubs.
• Some legal services.
• Law firms raising money for uses other than the payment of legal service fees.
• Bankruptcy lawyers.
• Posting bail.
• Explosives, weapons, and potentially dangerous materials.
• Weapons, firearms, ammunition, pyrotechnics, and other explosives.
• Research chemicals, peptides, and other hazardous, flammable, and radioactive substances.

Gambling:

• Gambling, online gambling, sweepstakes and contests, and fantasy sports leagues that provide monetary or material prizes are all examples of games of chance.
• Making sports predictions or odds in exchange for money or other prizes.
• Lotteries.
• Monetary auctions.

Marijuana:

• Marijuana products.
• Dispensaries for cannabis and related companies.
• Products with any CBD/THC content.

Misuse of PayCEC products:

• Use of PayCEC products with false, distorted, inaccurate, or misleading information regarding your name, corporate entity, line of business, and any other information PayCEC may seek (you must inform us immediately of any changes to your personal and business information).
• Use of PayCEC products to conduct transactions on behalf of a different, unnamed merchant or for goods or services that were not mentioned in the business's PayCEC account application.
• Primarily used as a virtual terminal by PayCEC (e.g., submitting card transactions by manually inputting card information)
• Processing in which there is neither a genuine sale of an item or service nor an acceptance of a contribution; Test your cards.
• Avoiding chargeback monitoring programs on the card network.
• Unless otherwise approved by the card network standards, cross-border acquiring where the merchant's business location is located outside the jurisdiction of the acquiring PayCEC company.
• Revealing cardholder data to a different merchant for payment in order to cross-sell goods or services.
• Use of PayCEC intellectual property without PayCEC's prior written consent; use of the PayCEC name or logo, including the use of PayCEC trade or service marks inconsistent with the PayCEC Marks Usage Agreement, or in any other way that could be considered harmful to PayCEC or the PayCEC brand; any action that might be taken to give the impression that PayCEC has made an untrue endorsement or affiliation.

The business categories provided are illustrative but not all-inclusive.

Additional Jurisdiction-Specific Prohibitions

Restricted Businesses

Without first receiving our explicit consent, you are not permitted to utilize PayCEC's services for any of the aforementioned purposes. Restricted Business categories may be enforced by financial partners' needs, card network policies, compliance requirements, or legal and regulatory restrictions. If your company comes under one of the prohibited categories, kindly get in touch with us. We are prepared to assist.

Regulated industries such as:

Financial products and services:

• Investment and brokerage services.
• Lending services.
• Buy Now Pay Later services.
• Crowdfunding.
• Debt collection agencies.
• Insurance services including medical benefit packages.
• Money transmitters, currency exchange services, and other money services businesses.
• Neobanks / challenger banks.
• Other financial institutions.

Government services:

• Government grants.
• Embassy, foreign consulate, or other foreign governments.

Pharmaceuticals, medical devices and telemedicine:

• Online pharmacies.
• Prescription-only products including card-not-present pharmaceuticals.
• Prescription-only and regulated medical devices.
• Telemedicine and telehealth services.

Tobacco:

• Tobacco products including e-cigarettes and e-liquid.

Others:

• Credit card and identity theft protection services.
• Other age restricted goods or services.

Businesses that may pose elevated financial risk such as:

Travel:

• Travel reservation services and clubs.
• Airlines and cruises.
• Timeshare services.

Non-fiat currency and stored value:

• Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), virtual currencies, cryptocurrencies, and mining services (for crypto and NFT supportability and availability by region, please see this support doc).
• Sim cards, phone services, and prepaid phone cards.
• Sale of in-game cash or game objects, unless the merchant is the owner of the virtual world, Maintenance, acceptance, and issuance of stored value or credits by anyone other than the vendor.

Business models that could be especially vulnerable to manipulation by bad factors include:

Multi-level advertising

• Businesses where sellers can earn money from both selling products and recruiting new vendors.
• Programs for network marketing and referral marketing.
• Forwarding and shipping agents.

Shipping

• Maritime agents.
• Forwarding agents.
• Drop-shipping.

Others

Charity Contests and Raffles with a clear fundraising objective.

The list of business categories is representative but not all-inclusive.

Learn more about PayCEC's policies on prohibited businesses and the reasons why some firms aren't permitted to use PayCEC's services by reading this page .

The above list is not exhaustive and may be subject to regular changes.