Reprinted without permission from:
http://www.newsplanet.com/article.html?1997/07/30/4

NewsPlanet Staff
Wednesday, July 30, 1997 / 01:55 PM


SUMMARY: Try to use your credit card for gay and lesbian material, and
you'll find out that sometimes "It Cheats to Discover."

Novus Services, the unit of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Discover & Co. which
handles the popular (48 million issued) Discover Card, turns out to have
had a policy of disqualifying merchants who are "sellers of 'adult'
products or services" -- including gay and lesbian material -- for over a
decade, a spokesperson told "Florida Today" a week ago. The policy came to
light in late June when the Badpuppy gay website was disqualified, and even
then its actual notice of termination cited only "security concerns or
irregular card transactions." Only on a follow-up call was the exclusionary
policy actually stated. Apparently Badpuppy was one of those companies of
which Discover's director of media relations Beth Metzler said, "If we
inadvertently sign on a company, and we later find out the nature of their
material, we will close [their accounts]."

Yet "Wired News" reports that a number of obviously so-called "adult"
online services prominently display the Discover card logo: Playboy.com,
PornoPictures.com, Newd.com, and the renowned Good Vibrations sex shop.
Badpuppy's legal counsel is researching the basis for a possible
discrimination lawsuit. Information about a boycott of Discover is
available at http://www.discoversux.com/.

American Express, MasterCard and VISA have confirmed that they do not have
such policies. One financial industry worker called it "stupid" business to
rule out a substantial market share in this time of heavy competition for
the consumer credit dollar.

Novus is currently in the process of expanding its Net-based banking
service under the Discover brand name.

--
Deb \\ indigo@mindspring.com \\ http://www.mindspring.com/~indigo
_________________________________________________________________
     "You know every time I move/ I make a woman's movement"
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