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Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

justuseapp.com

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Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#81
post #17

I really feel for the author. We had once decided to participate in Stripe's Identity Verification beta. After submitting the form to request participation, Stripe's system locked our account pending verification. We were fortunate in that we had a backup payment gateway integration "just in case", because otherwise we would have been completely unable to accept any payments at all for a full week. That week was stil…

>We were fortunate in that we had a backup payment gateway integration "just in case" This seems like the key point here. I'm not a software guy or even a payments guy, I'm a network infrastructure engineer. For anything that we want more than 99% uptime, we put in two of everything, sometimes more. Two separate service providers, ideally coming down different physical paths where practical.

Great practice, specifically determining how much redundancy you need, and making sure it is available. The theme also goes with your acct name quite nicely!

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#82
I can easily see this happen and I'm sure its affecting many others too and you just don't hear about it.

A couple of years ago I was unable to make some online purchases with my debt card.

It was always vendor specific and there didn't seem to be any logic to it. I talked to my bank, and they talked to MasterCard, and I would speak with vendors technical support or billing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

This was happening for over a year and I got by with using a credit card as needed (which I don't like to use in general).

Anyway, the common denominator was all these vendors used Stripe for payments. I email Stripe and eventually someone noted that my card number had been flagged by some algorithm in the past and had been blacklisted. For background, to my current knowledge, I've never had an issue with identity-theft, had others fraudulent charge my account, or done anything out of the ordinary.

That fact that this happens, and you have no notification or no clear recourse is frustrating. To be clear, I do not think this is specific to Stripe - I think all large services are vulnerable to this.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#83

Offtopic but I'm amazed you can legally hand out free (virtual) credit cards like these without anything close to a banking license. The sales pitch, to pay for services anonymously, would make it trivial to use this service for money laundering. I hope the website is lying about how private those transactions really are. I'm also a little sketched out by the fact the business resides in Wyoming while the person writ…

I'm not entirely sure how you would launder money through this service. From what i can tell no money is actually passed through it. It just generates a temporary credit card which is never billed. It is just used to bypass the "please enter your credit card for this free trial" prompts.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#84
post #68

As someone with a pre-launch SaaS who just signed up for Stripe, reading this has me shook up a little bit. I'm Stripe-integrated for payments, and poised to go through Stripe Atlas soon, or at least I was.. Now I have no idea what to do. I know that OP's story isn't spotless, but what if it's my thing that gets in this situation too? I wish I could say I'm joking but I don't need this right now, I'm ~90 days out fro…

Like another commenter said, think about your payment processor like another thing which needs redundancy. Have another one prepared - braintree or whatever.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#85
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On a more serious note; How much further is society going to allow this kind of thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman > The typical duties of an ombudsman are to investigate complaints and attempt to resolve them, usually through recommendations (binding or not) or mediation. Ombudsmen sometimes also aim to identify systemic issues leading to poor service or breaches of people's rights. At the national lev…

I don't want to sound too cynical but I don't know of an ombudsman which has binding authority. Here in the Netherlands all ombudsman I know are non-binding. I personally know of 2 dealings with an Ombudsman in the Netherlands. One involved me personally and another one of a good friend. In both cases the ombudsman advised in our favor. In both cases the reaction on the advice was: "Thanks for the advice, ombudsman,…

Ive had an experience with an Ombudsman in the UK. I was stuck in a loop with a major broadband provider in the UK who were giving me the run around. I contacted the ombudsman and within 14 days of my first email the company resolved the issue, (after 4 months of back and forth before that). Despite being non binding, the moment they were involved my problem was resolved.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#86

Offtopic but I'm amazed you can legally hand out free (virtual) credit cards like these without anything close to a banking license. The sales pitch, to pay for services anonymously, would make it trivial to use this service for money laundering. I hope the website is lying about how private those transactions really are. I'm also a little sketched out by the fact the business resides in Wyoming while the person writ…

I'm not entirely sure how you would launder money through this service. From what i can tell no money is actually passed through it. It just generates a temporary credit card which is never billed. It is just used to bypass the "please enter your credit card for this free trial" prompts.

I'm talking specifically about this type of card: https://justuseapp.com/privacy-card

That looks like it definitely allows transactions.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#87
post #68

As someone with a pre-launch SaaS who just signed up for Stripe, reading this has me shook up a little bit. I'm Stripe-integrated for payments, and poised to go through Stripe Atlas soon, or at least I was.. Now I have no idea what to do. I know that OP's story isn't spotless, but what if it's my thing that gets in this situation too? I wish I could say I'm joking but I don't need this right now, I'm ~90 days out fro…

Comment from tyingq: > I have a hunch their main concern is this kind of marketing on your site: „Access the American market Our credit card comes with a U.S. billing address, so you can unlock features restricted to the U.S or Western markets especially if you don't live there." https://justuseapp.com/free-trial-card

I saw this, and even though my thing is nowhere near what OP is doing, the amount of what-ifs going through my mind right now is causing undue concern. My SaaS is a podcast host, what if someone I'm hosting says something "wrong" in their show description and Stripe's algo doesn't like it?

Edit: There's a lot on my mind right now, editing to stop for a moment and say thank you, your comment is somewhat reassuring which is what I think your intention was.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#88
1. I find the title misleading

2. Stripe did not say "someone asked for a dispute"

3. Stripe banned your app for not being low-risk. And why not? They have the right to decide for themselves

To me, Stripe is showing an outstanding support overall. You can even ping anyone on Twitter or send an email, and they respond.

I really don't understand why so many HN users are so freaked out.

And yeah, it's not a great case of support by Stripe right here. But guess what, thy don't care about you anymore, so they'll dedicate their time to existing/potential clients.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#89

Offtopic but I'm amazed you can legally hand out free (virtual) credit cards like these without anything close to a banking license. The sales pitch, to pay for services anonymously, would make it trivial to use this service for money laundering. I hope the website is lying about how private those transactions really are. I'm also a little sketched out by the fact the business resides in Wyoming while the person writ…

Hey, the blog post says we incorporated in the U.S from abroad. We did that with FirstBase.io.

Concerning the cards, we do KYC before the cards are issued and we submit same to Stripe. In extreme cases, we ask for users Govt-issued IDs. Our service might be anonymous to the outside facing world but our users are not anonymous to us and Stripe.

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