Investigations into GC's PCs continue

GC’s PCs (www.gcspcs.co.uk), the online store set up by 16-year-old student Gary Cooper, may have had its payment facilities suspended by Barclays Merchant Services.

Computeractive was aware that investigations by Barclays, which approved the company’s merchant account, and Protx, the company that acts as its secure payment gateway, were underway. These investigations were launched as a result of allegations by customers that unauthorised charges had been taken from their debit and credit cards and that goods had not been delivered.

Today Computeractive logged onto the site to check if the merchant account was still active. We ticked the box that asked if we wanted to pay either by credit card or Paypal, but in the event we were not given a choice. Instead of being directed to Protx’s website, where we could input card details into its secure servers, we ended up on the Paypal login page.

Neither Barclays nor Protx would confirm that the account was suspended but reiterated that they were investigating.

As he is not 18, this merchant account was set up by one or both of Gary Cooper's parents, David and Carol Cooper. But the company said that this was their only involvement.

In a statement, the company said: "The involvement of the parents within the company is to act as director for banking reasons. Gary's parents have no active role in the company."

Gary Cooper is also not old enough to have a Paypal account; the one on the site is registered to davidcooperat34.yahoo.co.uk.

We contacted Paypal and GC's PCs about this change, because the company had previously used a Paypal account that had been closed down. When we asked GC's PCs about the closure of this account, we received an email saying that this was due to "suspicious activity".

"The Paypal account was opened in the current owner's name at the time and w as closed down, just as said, for 'suspicious activity' following December and Christmas increases in sales. This was nothing to do with Gary's age as he was not on the Paypal account and did not have access to it."

We have emailed Gary Cooper and the company asking it to explain why the only way to make a payment is now through Paypal. So far they have not responded to our request.