An obscure pro-Cuba government solidarity group based in the United Kingdom, Rock Around the Blockade, has declared victory over U.S. online processor PayPal after fighting off attempts to block its website payment account.

In May, PayPal mindful of the harsh penalties the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control was imposing on firms that had unlicensed business dealings with Cuba initially advised RATB (www.ratb.uk.org) that “PayPal can’t benefit a sanctioned country or anyone in it.”

PayPal attributed its decision to RATB’s political activities, which includes soliciting donations online, as well as conducting online sales of pro-revolutionary T-shirts, books and buttons.

After showing PayPal that its merchandise was not actually manufactured in Cuba, nor did its proceeds benefit any Cuban companies, Paypal lifted the block on its account.

The same can’t be said for British retailers that actually sell goods from Cuba.

One month before PayPal’s action against RATB, it also closed the account of family-run York Coffee Emporium, which sold 200-gram bags of Serrano Superior Cuban coffee beans online for £4.50, plus shipping.

The Independent newspaper reported on the ordeal of York Coffee owners Laurence and Philippa Beardmore in fighting PayPal over the fact that the United States is the only country that maintains a trade embargo against Cuba.

“They [PayPal] were very particularly heavy-handed,” Philippa Beardmore told The Independent. “We arrived at work on Monday morning, and they had totally shut us down. They told us ‘this is a warning’.”

With orders lost due to the PayPal snafu, York Coffee switched over to the U.K.-based online payment processor Sage Pay to take future orders of Cuban coffee which was and still is sold strictly to British customers.

“It’s incredible that we in the U.K. don’t have an embargo, but we’re being dictated to by an American company that’s supposed to be servicing the world,” Laurence Beard-more told the The Press newspaper in York.

The Beardmore family’s sabre rattling with PayPal has compelled an increasing number of British online retailers to switch over to Sage Pay, in order to avoid any interruption in business.

Companies concerned enough about this problem range from Cuban cigar vendors to independent travel agents that sell Cuban resort packages.

One entity astute enough to avoid any issues with PayPal was London-based Cigar retailer C.Gars Ltd. (www.cgarsltd.co.uk), which uses Sage Pay to process orders of smokes ranging from sampler sets of various Cuban smokes (£60.99) to a box of 25 Cohiba Robustos cigars (£499).

“We don’t accept PayPal for any Cuban goods,” said Mitchell Orchant, C.Gars’ managing director. “We respect their rules and regulations and therefore have no issues with them whatsoever, nor do we expect to.” 

Sage Pay isn’t the only U.K.-based online payments processor gaining Cuba related business. London-based CubaCasa Ltd. conducts online reservations of casas particulares for foreign tourists looking for cheap accommodations in Havana and other Cuban cities. Sage Pay competitor  Moneybookers (www.moneybookers.com) processes online transactions for CubaCasa. 

“I am not sure about other companies, but suspect that we all use non-PayPal online payment systems, as the problems you mention are relatively common knowledge amongst those that are in some way involved with Cuba,” said Matthew Sellar, founder of CubaCasa. “We opted for MoneyBookers, which is soon to become Skrill, as it is a British-owned, globally used and a reputable online payment provider.”

Sellar added: “Firms that are slightly larger tend to get an incorporated payment portal, provided by their bank.”