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TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

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Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#171

Post by icebergonfire »

vemv wrote: post #11

If it was, say, a $30000 charge I could give Stripe the benefit of doubt, but $3300 is a pretty ordinary amount for any retailer. Could be e.g. a laptop sale, or three phones? When I see Stripe's apology here it will not be enough for me - not at least without a detailed blog post / postmortem. Until/if that moment happens, I'll regard Stripe as an untrustworthy entity and will recommend doing the same to do anyone I…

Without taking away from your point, deep in the Reddit comments the OP states Stripe put a hold on the account after billing the sale of a literal company truck through Stripe and not via selling their normal store merchandise.

https://reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/wa1zob/_/ihyq7tl...

As usual, there’s always an undisclosed fact that changes the narrative and explains the ban. Whether this should trigger Stripe’s scorched earth mechanisms is another matter.

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#172

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

rahkiin wrote: post #51
ericpauley wrote: post #43

>You cannot call Stripe. They do not have a phone number. Not sure whether this person was specifically locked out or something, but I've had consistently good experience with Stripe's phone support. As they note email (and chat) are a joke, but phone reps are highly knowledgeable and have quickly resolved my issues.

According to the reddit thread, when your account is locked, the ‘Chat’ and ‘Give me a call’ options get grayed out.

But is that, you know, true? The HN front page gives a stunning amount of credulity to unverified stories from random people on social media.

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#173

Post by Aspos »

Ayesh wrote: post #32
leoff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I see Stripe's apology here it will not be enough for me I'm actually just starting a business using Stripe for handling payments, and this makes me very concerned. Is there an alternative service one could use? Is there a way not to give these shady companies power to steal all my money?

In a different HN thread that has no or positive reaction to Stripe, you'd be seeing many praises for Stripe. For local businesses, perhaps your local bank has a better solution? They will be cheaper (if they use networks other than Visa/Master), and often has zero fees when you withdraw money to a bank account. Here in my country, for a business that only caters to local customers, I pay about 2% for payments with n…

Don't know what country you are from but guess your acquiring bank gets orders of magnitude less fraud than Stripe does so your bank can afford to take your calls. It boils down to wildly skewed regulatory environment in the US.

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#174

Post by zxcvbn4038 »

If I remember correctly this is actually normal for CC processing, because the transaction is so much higher then usual, they are holding aside the money in case it gets charged back. Not like PayPal where they silently ban the account and money disappears forever, could understand it being pain if your a small business.

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#176

Post by whatisweb3 »

negamax wrote: post #37
whatisweb3 wrote: post #13

Hopefully making enough noise on HN and social media will help your case move quickly. That appears to be the only way to get a response these days. Maybe one day non-custodial and permissionless payment rails will prevent this situation, for those services that choose to use it. Shame that HN is so polarized about blockchain that they refuse to entertain the idea.

But what about the people who don't have social clout? I think for every person like this, there are 100s if not thousands who's money and accounts get locked away.

That’s my point. A system where your funds are locked unless your complaint goes viral is a terrible system.

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#177

Post by patio11 »

(I work for Stripe, and since many of my colleagues are currently sleeping, taking the liberty of saying this on their behalf.)

We are looking into things.

As someone who ran businesses for a long time myself, it would be very alarming to me if customers felt they were being ignored while repeatedly talking to people who work for us. If that ever happens, please bring in literally anyone at Stripe, inclusive of other Patrick. Our email addresses are often available through a quick search of HN; mine is (predictably) patio11@stripe.com if you need it.

We don't comment publicly on individual customers. This is an important part of customer privacy and we're serious about it.

Sometimes situations which result in external complaints are the result of a process failure, and in those cases we try to fix the instant case and improve processes in the future.

Sometimes they are the result of a process operating correctly but coming to a result which someone did not enjoy. The record available to the process is often more detailed than the record available to the public Internet, and may include extremely relevant context.

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#178

Post by vilfredoparet0 »

A quote from Patrick Collison from one of the last "HN support threads":

"We actually have an ongoing project to reduce the occurrence of these mistaken rejections by 90% by the end of this year. I think we'll succeed at it. (They're already down 50% since earlier this year.)"

At this point it is obvious that he/his PR staff are lying.

The only question is: What are some good Stripe alternatives?

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#179

Post by FpUser »

Maybe bunch of small claim court cases could straighten them out? If Stripe did something like that to me I would certainly pursue this. My own experience is - I have a web store that sells my software products (we use both PayPal and Stripe) for many years. Size of transaction ranges from $10 up to $7000 (as far as I remember) So far there were no any significand holds / delays.
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