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Tell HN: I Hugely Regret Using Stripe Atlas

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Re: Tell HN: I Hugely Regret Using Stripe Atlas

#81

Post by hosh »

whatshisface wrote: post #75
adriand wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You should be more careful about victim blaming. I think you should be more careful with how you use the phrase "victim blaming", which is commonly used in cases of injustice towards victims of sexual assault in particular. You haven't been victimized, you've been inconvenienced and/or had a poor customer experience.

> You haven't been victimized, you've been inconvenienced and/or had a poor customer experience. That sentence only makes sense if you redefine the word victimized to mean a special, set-apart form of extra bad victimization.

Businesses generally make decisions on economic interest aligning with incentive structure. It is not personal.

Victims are specifically targetted, or some sort of personal boundary is violated. It can get very personal.

We might sometimes talk about someone being a victim of an impersonal force. For example, someome being injured as a result of a tsunami. However, excessively attaching to the narrative of being a victim can prevent someone from continuing their grieving process and moving on with their life.

That is not to say it cannot happen in the business world ... but I doubt that is the case here.

Re: Tell HN: I Hugely Regret Using Stripe Atlas

#83

Post by hosh »

ensignavenger wrote: post #79
vertex-four wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, your customers have never agreed to be charged by this new company you’re setting up - it’s an entirely separate legal entity from yourself. There’s no way to start charging them from a separate legal entity without their consent, so a bulk import is probably not what you are permitted to do.

Businesses get acquired all the time- in this case, the new entity has acquired the assets and customers of the old entity. Thus the contract you have with the customer has been transferred to the new entity.

In this case, the new entity is a limited liability company and the old entity is a sole proprietorshio with no liability protection. Part of the protection comes from acting as if the limited liability entity is a legal “person”. Failure to do so can be used by creditors to “pierce the veil”.

There is usually some sort of document transferring the assets of the sole proprietorship into the C-corp or LLC in return for shares for membership interest, as part of the capitalization.

Perhaps talk to a CPA or a lawyer about all of this ...

Re: Tell HN: I Hugely Regret Using Stripe Atlas

#84

Post by ianamartin »

alexpetralia wrote: post #42
markonen wrote: post #39

1) It makes perfect sense that a new account is created and that transactions pre-incorporation are not automatically imported. Your new company is required to have accurate books; you can't pretend that transactions executed before the company existed (ie. by you personally?) were actually executed by the company you've later incorporated. 2) SVB seems to be nobody's favorite bank, but it's quite clear to me that th…

I would recommend: Harvard Business Services + BofI bank for anyone looking for a Stripe alternative. I've had no issues so far and it's much cheaper ($150 for registered agent, free online banking).

I started using Bank of the Internet (now Axos) for my personal stuff after Simple got shitty. I've been extremely pleased with them. If I were starting a business today, I would absolutely go to them first.

Re: Tell HN: I Hugely Regret Using Stripe Atlas

#85

Post by coleca »

spectre256 wrote: post #12

Fellow Stripe Atlas company founder here. SVB is a bit annoying, but really $25/month is probably not worth your time to worry about unless the company is VERY small. Even in our situation, where we are a 2-person consulting company that isn't taking any outside investment, and have to run pretty lean (since we only get to eat and have a house every month if we do enough business to cover it), it's not worth our time…

I looked at using Stripe Atlas to start up a consulting company and they told me not to bother because that would fall into the category of "computer services" which they consider a high risk business and they aren't interested in dealing with it. How were you able to get them to accept you?

Re: Tell HN: I Hugely Regret Using Stripe Atlas

#86

Post by corebit »

hosh wrote: post #80
ikinone wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Actually in some countries it's entirely possible to attribute past actions to a new company. It sounded a bit odd to me at first, but when you think about it... why not? If a company is able to take on responsibility for something, it seems reasonable.

It is a difference when it comes to limiting the liability. The transactions undertaken outside of the incorporation (in the US at least) means that debt could be attributed to you personally. Your personal assets can be used to pay off the creditors ... whether you want that or not. However, if they are undertaken by the company, then creditors can get the assets that are put into the company, but not your personal…

What you say is true, but corporations are always formed by people who are usually called "promoters". Legal liability for transactions/contracts undertaken by these promoters for the future corporation can be transferred to the corporation after it is formed with a novation agreement between the promoter and corporation (without consent of the contract partners).

So there's a very clear road to what the OP wants, where transactions before corp formation belong to corp and only to corp, but yes, if that road isn't taken then liability could lie with him.

Of course it all depends on state law, because in the US, corporations are creatures of the state.

Re: Tell HN: I Hugely Regret Using Stripe Atlas

#87

Post by whatshisface »

hosh wrote: post #81
whatshisface wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You haven't been victimized, you've been inconvenienced and/or had a poor customer experience. That sentence only makes sense if you redefine the word victimized to mean a special, set-apart form of extra bad victimization.

Businesses generally make decisions on economic interest aligning with incentive structure. It is not personal. Victims are specifically targetted, or some sort of personal boundary is violated. It can get very personal. We might sometimes talk about someone being a victim of an impersonal force. For example, someome being injured as a result of a tsunami. However, excessively attaching to the narrative of being a vi…

>However, excessively attaching to the narrative of being a victim [...]

There is no particular indication that the OP was calling forth the grand "victim narrative," or comparing themselves to sexual assault survivors in any way.

>Victims are specifically targetted, or some sort of personal boundary is violated. It can get very personal.

That's a mischaracterization of the word, focusing on a subset of the cases where it applies. I think a good argument against that mischaracterization might be:

>We might sometimes talk about someone being a victim of an impersonal force. For example, someome being injured as a result of a tsunami.

Re: Tell HN: I Hugely Regret Using Stripe Atlas

#88

Post by SkyPuncher »

ensignavenger wrote: post #79
vertex-four wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, your customers have never agreed to be charged by this new company you’re setting up - it’s an entirely separate legal entity from yourself. There’s no way to start charging them from a separate legal entity without their consent, so a bulk import is probably not what you are permitted to do.

Businesses get acquired all the time- in this case, the new entity has acquired the assets and customers of the old entity. Thus the contract you have with the customer has been transferred to the new entity.

An acquisition does not mean that the original entity no longer exists. It simply means ownership of that entity has changed.

The original entity can live as a subsidiary of the new owner without having to actually change any of the contractual stuff.

Re: Tell HN: I Hugely Regret Using Stripe Atlas

#89

Post by SkyPuncher »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #44

My biggest problem with Stripe is that roughly 50% of transactions are declined! This is a huge business problem. Not uncommon either for Stripe users. I suspect (without proof) that if you are a big trusted entity, Stripe and the whole financial system probably greases the wheels a bit to improve your success rate...

> My biggest problem with Stripe is that roughly 50% of transactions are declined!

Are you guys actually collecting all of the relevant information for an account, like billing info?

We've only had a single failed payment in the past year and it was an issue at the card's bank rather than Stripe.

Re: Tell HN: I Hugely Regret Using Stripe Atlas

#90

Post by chmarr »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #44

My biggest problem with Stripe is that roughly 50% of transactions are declined! This is a huge business problem. Not uncommon either for Stripe users. I suspect (without proof) that if you are a big trusted entity, Stripe and the whole financial system probably greases the wheels a bit to improve your success rate...

Are you running a store that sells stuff that could be easily resold, or action on your sales pages could be easily automated? If you're getting a lot of declines (and they're not due to tech issues) sounds like you're being used to use, or at least "test" stolen CC numbers.

A lot chargebacks would mean you're selling porn ;)

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