Prohibited and Restricted Businesses

This page provides information on the types of businesses, products, and industries that are unable or limited to use Straddle’s services.

High Risk Jurisdictions and Persons

Use of Straddle’s services for any dealings, engagement, or sale of goods or services either directly or indirectly with the following are prohibited:

• High-risk jurisdictions: Persons located in, resident in, or a citizen of or products or services originating from jurisdictions that Straddle has determined for various reasons, including legal, contractual, and commercial reasons, to be prohibited, including, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions.
• High-risk persons: Persons Straddle has determined for various reasons, including legal, contractual, and commercial reasons, to be prohibited, such as those individuals or entities named to a restricted person or party list of, or otherwise restricted by, the US, United Kingdom, European Union, or United Nations, including the sanctions maintained by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control or the Denied Persons List or Entity List maintained by the US Department of Commerce.

Additionally, it’s prohibited to use Straddle’s products and services to directly or indirectly:

• Prohibited services: Export, reexport, sell, or supply accounting, trust and corporate formation, management consulting services, architecture services or engineering services to any person located in Russia.
• Prohibited goods: Deal in any goods prohibited by law for export to or import from Russia (for example, luxury goods).

Prohibited Businesses

You must not use Straddle’s services for any illegal activities or for the businesses or product types listed below. The types of businesses listed here are representative of prohibited categories, but this is not an exhaustive list.

Illegal products and services

• Equipment and items intended to be used for making or using drugs
• Fake references or ID-providing services
• Telecommunications manipulation equipment including jamming devices
• Businesses that engage in, encourage, promote or celebrate unlawful violence or physical harm to persons or property
• Businesses that engage in, encourage, promote or celebrate unlawful violence toward any group based on race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or any other immutable characteristic
• Any other products or services that are in violation of law in the jurisdictions where your business is located or targeted to

Adult content and services

• Adult services, including prostitution, escorts, pay-per-view, sexual massages, fetish services, mail-order brides, and adult live chat features
• Adult video stores
• Gentleman's clubs, topless bars, and strip clubs
• All online dating services
• Pornography and other mature audience content (including literature, imagery and other media) depicting nudity or explicit sexual acts
• Any artificial-intelligence-generated content that meets the above criteria

Content creation

• Transactions that provide compensation to creators without an underlying piece of digital content associated. Examples include subscriptions to free, public content or a tip button on a profile page

Debt relief companies

• Debt settlement, debt negotiation, and debt consolidation

Government services

• Offering products and services by or on behalf of embassies and consulates
• Offering government services without authorization or value add
• Offering government services with misleading claims
• Disbursement of government economic support, such as grants

Identity services

• Identity theft protection services including monitoring and recovery

Products and services that infringe on intellectual property rights

• Sales or distribution of music, movies, software, or any other licensed materials without appropriate authorization
• Counterfeit goods
• Illegally imported or exported products
• Unauthorized sale of brand name or designer products or services
• Any other products or services that directly infringe or facilitate infringement upon the trademark, patent, copyright, trade secrets, proprietary or privacy rights of any third party

The following legal services:

• Bankruptcy attorneys
• Bail bonds
• Law firms collecting funds for purposes other than legal service fee payment

Credit monitoring and repair:

• Credit monitoring, credit repair and counseling services

Nutraceuticals and pseudo pharmaceuticals

• Pseudo pharmaceuticals or nutraceuticals focused on significant weight loss or sexual performance
• Pseudo pharmaceuticals or nutraceuticals making unsupportable or harmful claims

Non-fiat currency

• Cryptocurrency mining and staking
• Initial coin offerings (ICOs)
• Secondary NFT sales

Travel

• Commercial airlines and cruises

Tobacco

• Tobacco products including e-cigarettes, cigars, and e-liquid
• Herbal cigarettes
• Production equipment specifically marketed for the production of tobacco products

Unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices (acts or practices that contravene rules, laws, regulation or guidance prescribed by the Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or other local consumer regulatory bodies)

• Pyramid schemes
• Multi-level marketing services offering commission or recruitment-based sales
• “Get rich quick” schemes, including: investment opportunities or other services that promise high rewards to mislead consumers; schemes that claim to offer high rewards for very little effort or up front work; and sites that promise fast and easy money
• Businesses that make outrageous claims, use deceptive testimonials, use high-pressure upselling, or use fake testimonials; (with or without a written contract)
• Businesses offering unrealistic incentives or rewards as an inducement to purchase products or services
• No value added services including the sale or resale of a service without added benefit to the buyer and resale of government offerings without authorization or added value
• Sales of online traffic or engagement
• Negative option marketing, negative option membership clubs, and reduced price trials with unclear or hidden pricing
• Telemarketing
• Predatory mortgage consulting
• Predatory investment opportunities with no or low money down
• Suspicious remote technical support
• Door-to-door sales
• Document falsification services
• Any other businesses that Straddle considers unfair, deceptive, or predatory towards consumers

Explosives and dangerous materials

• Pepper spray and stun guns
• Swords and katanas, unless they are meant as replicas or for the practice of martial arts
• Machetes
• Disguised knives and knives with opening mechanisms designed for quick deployment of a blade
• Pesticides requiring application by a certified professional
• Research chemicals
• Toxic, flammable, combustible or radioactive materials
• Unmailable goods, per the United States Postal Service

Restricted Businesses

You must not use Straddle’s services for the following activities, unless you have received prior written approval from Straddle after undergoing enhanced Due Diligence. If you think your business falls into one of the restricted categories, please contact us. Due to payment network rules, requirements of financial partners, and our own compliance and legal obligations, if your business falls into one of the categories below, Straddle might not be able to grant approval for your business to use our products.

The types of businesses listed are representative, but not exhaustive.

Content creation

Content creation related transactions

• Content-related tips and gifts
• Purchases of access to exclusive content or digital goods

Regulated industries

Cannabidiol (CBD)

• CBD products containing only negligible amounts of THC, per local limits

Marijuana

• Cannabis products
• Cannabis dispensaries and related businesses
• CBD products with THC levels that are greater than the applicable local jurisdiction’s legal limit, including CBD edibles
• Hydroponic equipment and other cultivation or production equipment marketed for growing marijuana
• Courses and information on cultivating marijuana

Financial products and services

• Debt collection agencies
• ATMs
• Money transmitters, remittances, currency exchange services, and other money service businesses
• Peer to peer money transmission
• Escrow services
• Neobanks or challenger banks
• Check cashing
• Payable-through accounts
• Selling bearer shares
• Other financial services

Pharmaceuticals, medical devices and telemedicine

• Online pharmacies, including SaaS platforms
• Card-not-present prescription-only products and pharmaceuticals
• Prescription-only and regulated medical devices
• Prescription delivery services
• Telemedicine and telehealth services

Non-fiat currency and stored value

• Cryptocurrency (for example, bitcoin, ripple, ethereum, dogecoin, cardano, and so on) exchanges and wallets.
• First-party non-fungible tokens (NFTs) minting and sales, including marketplaces and SaaS Platforms. Prepaid phone cards, sim cards, and phone services
• Sale of stored value or credits maintained, accepted and issued by anyone other than the seller
• Sale of in-game currency or game items, unless the business is the operator of the virtual world
• Preloaded payment cards, gift cards, virtual credits or other products and services in which a monetary value is stored within the item (digital or physical)

Others

• Age restricted goods or services such as alcoholic beverages
• Payment facilitation and aggregation (including receiving settlement proceeds for goods or services that you did not provide, on behalf of one or multiple third-party sellers)

Businesses that might pose elevated financial risk

Travel

• Travel reservation services and clubs
• Charter and private airlines
• Timeshare services

Businesses that are prone to abuse by fraudulent actors

Multi-level marketing

• A business strategy where companies earn revenue and participants earn commissions from retail product sales network marketing, and referral marketing programs

Shipping

• Drop shipping

Others

• Soliciting donations or fund contributions
• Charity sweepstakes and raffles for the explicit purpose of fundraising