Confederate flag sellers: Wall Street banks stealing profits from surge in flag sales

Confederate flag sellers find an unexpected new enemy

Wall Street bankers are stealing the profits from the surge in sales of the Confederate flag

Nate Thayer

June 29, 2015

For the previous five days, Alabama Confederate flag dealer Ron Hammon has been a very, very happy man–that is until today when he says Wall Street big bankers stole all his profits.

In a new twist to the Confederate flag kerfuffle, it seems the nemesis is not either the pro or anti Confederate flag set–it is Wall Street bankers.

The profits from the surge in sales of the Confederate flag have been frozen, flag dealers say, their money windfall from the surge in Confederate flag sales confiscated, threatening to ruin the newly booming business of at least some small entrepreneurs throughout the U.S.

"Wells Fargo Bank has put a six month hold on every last dollar-$124,000-that I have received in Confederate flag orders since last Tuesday," said Ron Hammon, owner of proudrebel.com, in an interview Monday evening. "They have stolen all the money."

It seems that the dormant war between the North and the South may have a common enemy: Wall Street big bankers.
Hammon has seen a 5000% jump in business, all for Confederate flag sales, since last Tuesday.

But today things went from excellent to an unmitigated potential financial nightmare.

Hammon and his Proud Rebel business sells items of Southern American heritage. To be clear Hammon is not a backwoods racist. His website features at the top of the page pictures of the Confederate flag next to those of the U.S. flags as well as the Israeli flag. "The images above are displayed to keep supremacists away from Rebel merchandise!." he wrote. "There were Jewish, Catholic, Indian, and Black Confederates, PROUD REBELS, every one!" Hammon added that those who object should "stay away. Don't want you ruining the message."
Ron Hammon is not happy with the U.S. banking system. "They found another way to screw us! The California merchant bank, Leaders Merchant Solutions, underwritten by San Francisco, California Wells Fargo Merchant Services, froze EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR y'all have spent here since the boom started on Tuesday, June 23! They decided to SIT ON YOUR MONEY FOR AT LEAST SIX MONTHS and cancel processing for Proud Shopper!" said Hammon on his proudrebel.com website.

"Until a new merchant account is in place, online orders are halted," Hammon informed his customers.
Hammon has had a topsy-turvy week.
"It has been the best week ever-more sales in a week than I have had all year. I hired new workers," said Hammon. "Sales went up ten times last Wednesday since Tuesday night. And it isn't letting up. I have more than a 1000 new orders every day. But now I have 5000 orders I am unable to fill."

"I have the option of refunding Leaders Merchant Bank for all my thousands of orders-and still have to pay the processing fees of 30 to 40 cents per order-or wait six months before the banks will release the money to me," said Hammon. " I am a small business. I can't fill $124,000 in orders placed so far without getting paid."
One option, Hammon, whose site uses the slogan "Be PROUD you're a REBEL", said customers "can use the mail order form and bypass the bastards."
But the big bankers, in Hammon's mind, are more of a threat than General William Tecumseh Sherman and his Union army. It is "a sad, sad situation for you loyal Rebels to have YOUR money tied up by these bankers on a technicality!" he wrote.

He suggested "ask(ing) your bank to ask Visa, Mastercard, and Discover (or, ask them yourself) what the hell is going on! You want the product. You paid for it. Proud Shopper wants to get it to you! How can they do this?!"
This is how to works: If you have a business that takes credit card orders in the U.S., you have to have a merchant bank account to process business. Visa, Mastercard, and other credit cards take payments and hand it off to a merchant bank. A small businessman has to open a merchant account to process orders.
"The banks decided I was in a high risk category because of the sudden jump in credit card orders. They are not used to dealing with a 5000% increase in orders over a couple of days. I have never had any problem before. I have never had an order challenged. I have never had to have a reserve before with the banks."
"Visa and Mastercard has to hand it off to a merchant bank. My account is with Leaders Merchant Bank. They go through Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo put a hold on all my orders. They have all the money from sales orders-$124,000-and today they told me they won't give it to me for at least six months," said Hammon.

Wells Fargo has long been on the list of predatory bankers. The independent Center for Public Integrity, in an investigation of Wells Fargo in Louisiana, concluded in 2012 that "Wells Fargo's conduct is clandestine. Wells Fargo simply stopped communicating…At that point in time, fees and costs were assessed against his account and satisfied with post petition payments intended for other debt without notice. Only through litigation was this practice discovered. Wells Fargo admitted to the same practices for all other loans in bankruptcy or default. As a result, it is unlikely that most debtors will be able to discern problems with their accounts without extensive discovery…."

The judge added "But perhaps more disturbing is Wells Fargo's refusal to voluntarily correct its errors. It prefers to rely on the ignorance of borrowers or their inability to fund a challenge to its demands, rather than voluntarily relinquish gains obtained through improper accounting methods. Wells Fargo's conduct was a breach of its contractual obligations to its borrowers. More importantly, when exposed, it revealed its true corporate character by denying any obligation to correct its past transgressions and mounting a legal assault ensure it never had to. Society requires that those in business conduct themselves with honestly and fair dealing. Thus, there is a strong societal interest in deterring such future conduct through the imposition of punitive relief…."

One commentator concluded "The word "predatory" is not adequate to describe Wells' conduct. The bank is not simply willing to steal from consumers, via blatant, institutionalized violations of its own agreements on mortgages and later on bankruptcy plans. It has absolutely no respect for the law, whether it be contracts or court procedures. It's a band of marauders that our society treats as legitimate because the perpetrators wear suits and can afford to hire lobbyists. And the Federal government and state attorneys general are certain to have emboldened Wells and its brethren by rewarding them rather than treating them like the criminals they are."

One online customer had similar complaints to prouderebel.com. "We do Internet Retail Business & Wells Fargo guys promised the moon, so switched to using it. After 45 days of using it, they have suddenly withhold $50K (which happens to be 50% of our revenue)for a reason that charge backs would be coming(0.2% of our orders get charge back). They say we doing good business because of Mothers Day is bad & they suspect the sudden surge in orders & just withhold without informing us.
When i call, all they say is that they cannot do anything about it. In fact, they took away even the balance in our bank account. They have royally screwed our cash flows. I am running around, right now to fix it.
Please don't go for their service. They are bad for small business."
"A merchant bank can hold funds anticipating charge backs"-or disputed charges-"but I have never had a disputed charge in all my years in business. But now my accounts have been terminated and I am designated 'high risk'", said Proud Rebel proprietor Hammon.

Messages left with both Well Fargo Merchant Bank Services and Leaders Merchant Bank, both headquartered in California, were not returned.

FROM BOON TO GLOOM

It seems that the dormant war between the North and the South may have a common enemy: Wall Street big bankers.
And whether the businessman refunds the money already placed by his customers or not, "I have to still pay 30 to 40 cents per order in fees whether the order is filled or not-times 5000."
But Hammon has not given up.
On Saturday, Hammon heard of a local retailer who still had flags for sale. "Their prices were pretty good. I shut the store down and went and slept in their parking lot until they opened and then bought out their entire stock. I could have sold ten times that number."

"20,000 new flags are expected to arrive in California tomorrow from a Pakistani manufacturer," he said. "I told them 'I will take everything you have.'"
"The surge in flag orders is like 9/11 all over again," he said.
"The sudden shut down of the great big players is a big strain on the whole industry" he said, referring to the three biggest flag manufacturers in the U.S. halting production and sales of Confederate flags last Tuesday shortly after South Carolina governor Nikki Haley announced she would remove the flag from state house grounds.
"Now, we get most of our stuff from China. I use to do Taiwan. They were higher quality. And I used to use Pakistan. There is also some from Myanmar and Vietnam, but most is from China."
Hammon is pretty clear on who is behind his threatened "dreams which has turned into a nightmare."
It is "San Francisco people that weren't even known to be in the pipeline. Long live Dixie!" ■

Originally published on nate-thayer.com (Jun 2015). Recovered via the Wayback Machine.