Visa denies blocking VPN users

No word from Mastercard.

Visa Europe has denied blocking payments to Swedish virtual private network provider iPREDator.

News emerged last week claiming Visa and rival card issuer Mastercard had barred payments via European payments provider Payson to the Pirate Bay promoted VPN service.

Visa Europe told SC it was not involved in the payment block.

“Visa Europe has not been involved in this matter in any way, and has not made any such stipulations to Payson or to any other organisation.”

An email reportedly sent from Payson to customers published and translated by TorrentFreak stated the company "has restrictions against anonymisation (including VPN services)".

"As a result Payson can unfortunately no longer give your customers the option to finance payments via their cards (VISA or MasterCard)."

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde said Payson had not returned phone calls.

Payson has still not returned phone calls or emails regarding the Visa/MC blocking of @IPredatorVPN. They refuse to talk about the issue.
— Peter Sunde (@brokep) July 4, 2013

TorrentFreak said Payson confirmed in a telephone interview it was complying with an "urgent requirement from Visa and Mastercard to stop accepting payments for VPN services".

Mastercard had not returned calls by the time of publication.

The news comes as Mastercard reversed its blockade of payments to whistleblower site Wikileaks.