I have watched over the past week or so hearing that Alias training has closed shop. While I am aware of who they are as a group, I have had no experience with them professionally or personally. At least not that I am aware of. But that is not the reason why I am posting this story. If you want inside scoop on Alias, I can’t help you on that. But….
The rumor that is being tossed about from some inside of Alias Training isn’t that they mismanaged their company, but that Paypal froze their funds. Is that true or not? Smoke and mirrors? I am not in a position to know. Alias could have spent all their money on hookers and blow for all I care.
But I do know quite a bit about Paypal and how they operate. Yes, I am aware they are anti-gun. As a “gun guy” I am fully aware of the “discreet Paypal OK” description in the For Sale section of your favorite gun forums.
When we started this business, a t-shirt business mind you, we accepted Paypal. One, I pretty much had to since they were the only game in town at the time. And two, we sell t-shirts. Our customer demographic age could swing from 13 to 113. Young kids use Paypal. Or put this way: How old do you have to be to get a credit card? See where this is going? We had to take Paypal to sell t-shirts to kids.
No big deal. We are doing our thing. Not bothering anyone. Taking Paypal. And then Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield got murdered.
For our new readers who may not know the story, we did the original Chris Kyle – Chad Littlefield memorial shirt. It was never supposed to be anything big. You see, this was before, “Chris Kyle American Sniper”. Very few people outside the military and shooting community even knew who he was. Yes, that is the truth. Many of you couldn’t have picked Chris Kyle out of a line-up.
So we structured the shirt with that in mind. All the profits would go to the families. And we would have “done something” to make a difference. However small.
It wasn’t until…as I recall…maybe…that Monday that we realized that thousands and thousands of people had logged in and placed orders for Chris Kyle T-shirts. Through Paypal.
And then Paypal froze our accounts.
Gulp. How do we fill these orders with no money?
The rest of the story is…we survived. It just about broke us, but we survived. The Alias thing has me looking back. Knowing what that feels like; in some weird way, I hope Alias didn’t get jammed up by Paypal. In some weird way, I kinda hope all that money was spent on double-dance-donkey-night in Tijuana.
Fucking Paypal.
Marky
www.tacticaltshirts.com
www.john1911.com
“Shooting Guns & Having Fun”
Areas of focus: Defense and National Security, Modern Light Weapons, Small Arms, Weapons Training.
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