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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

#231

Post by TekMol »

Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #222
TekMol wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

What percentage of people who walk into a business or go online to complete a transaction are able to send their payment via the lightning network compared to the percentage of people who walk in to do a transaction via Visa/Mastercard/Etc? The issue is Card payments and the networks they use. Doesn't matter if lightning settles transactions instantly if the customer wants to pay with Visa and Visa allows funds claw…

At the moment, pretty much nobody is able to send payments via the lightning network.

My question is about "what if".

Would there be downsides?

If the upsides outweigh the downsides, LN could slowly find its way into retail. Maybe by starting with some special use cases where speed, low fees, privacy or immutability are especially important.

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

#232

Post by civilized »

rtlfe wrote: post #230
patio11 wrote: post #177

(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…

> Our email addresses are often available through a quick search of HN Your customer service strategy is really "go to a small internet forum that only some startup nerds know about and find my email address"?

Makes you wonder who the audience for the original comment really is.

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

#233

Post by joshstrange »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #155
orangepanda wrote: post #5

> You can only email. If you email, you get robots. Their dev support on discord is S-tier, but every now and then some issue has to be moved to email support; where it dies. It always takes months for something to be resolved, if at all. My only consolation is that every other provider is just as terrible.

I have always been able to get a service rep on live chat within 5 minutes... which is literally a "Live Chat" button on their contact page not even hidden. Note this is different than the Discord dev chat which is for technical questions. Once I get live chat it may take a day or two to resolve but if it takes longer I just hop on live chat again and pester them until it's escalated.

> I have always been able to get a service rep on live chat within 5 minutes

That's neat and all but try to get them to actually fix anything. They will 100% move you to email once you explain your issue (assuming it's not "I can't find my password" or equally basic) and then you will be in limbo. I hope you enjoy no one responding to your ticket for days/weeks at a time even after you provide them with all the info they ask for.

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

#234

Post by anonymoushn »

sofixa wrote: post #211
anonymoushn wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, I can't google things. https://solana.com/news/solanas-energy-use-report-march-2022

First, that's a random chain nobody cares about that recently had a massive controversy of them trying to steal a user's fake internet "money". Second, i don't trust their numbers - how could they possibly know what type of electricity is used by their validators? Third - even if we assume those numbers are true, I don't see a comparison with Stripe's per transaction CO2 emissions.

> recently had a massive controversy of them trying to steal a user's fake internet "money".

This is like saying that Ethereum stole from AnubisDAO contributors.

> Second, i don't trust their numbers - how could they possibly know what type of electricity is used by their validators?

I think most of the validators are hosted at Equinix through a deal negotiated by the Solana Foundation, but not all of them.

> Third - even if we assume those numbers are true, I don't see a comparison with Stripe's per transaction CO2 emissions.

If you can find any published numbers on this from Stripe (or any other Ruby shop) that would be great.

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

#235

Post by boringg »

civilized wrote: post #193
patio11 wrote: post #177

(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…

Corporate process improvement is not an excuse for treating people badly. An individual human who treats people badly is not allowed to say "well I deal with a lot of people and I need algorithms and sometimes my algorithms don't work so I'm doing my best to improve them". Corporations should not get a pass because they need cheap processes that "scale" to maintain their profit margins. This is the perpetual moral ha…

Disagree but a morally commendable position.

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

#236

Post by civilized »

patio11 wrote: post #212
baggachipz wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if the company had some way, any way at all, to reach an actual human being, this wouldn't be a constantly repeated problem on HN and elsewhere.

As I have observed in other contexts ( https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1463749947858165761 ), many people who say "Ugh, I cannot reach a real human" have in fact spoken to several humans, repeatedly and at length, and are imprecisely stating their desire to speak to a person who would agree with their view of the facts and swiftly enact the resolution that they prefer. We offer (human-powered, somewhat obviously?)…

> imprecisely stating their desire to speak to a person who would agree with their view of the facts and swiftly enact the resolution that they prefer.

Wow, one reply in and we're already seeing open contempt for this type of troublesome customer. What nerve, expecting a payment processor to promptly process payments and make funds accessible to the account holder.

This reply is going to look monumentally bad if the customer ends up being right about how they were treated.

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

#237

Post by joshstrange »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #101
nfreising wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Stripe holding money is the problem here. The problem to me seems that there is no support to be reached at Stripe to dispute their decision or get a human to answer. I agree that OP's business doesn't seem that healthy if $3000 are such a big problem, however that doesn't make Stripe's non-existing support any better.

I've dealt with Stripe support and it's been... fine? Good even? I can only assume that if they've gone radio silent there's a reason. I'm not convinced Stripe is acting in bad faith, as shitty as this is. (Unlike, say, PayPal, who is notorious for shit like this). At least one instance I'm aware of has to do with anti-money laundering regulations, where it can be disallowed to communicate regarding a pending investi…

I'd be very interested to know what your issue was that they helped with. I'm 0 for 3 (potentially 1 is fixed now, 1 fixed itself, and the last I gave up on). Unless your issue is trivial you will be thrown in limbo and go days/weeks without a reply.

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

#238

Post by toss1 »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #115
moralestapia wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this, really? Is this meant to defend Stripe? What a weird way of looking at things.

A single instance of holding 3k doesn't seem like (or shouldn't be) a significant amount for a small business.

Clearly stated by someone who has never run a legitimate small business.

As someone who has run them for decades, it can be a SERIOUS issue at the wrong time. Sure, there are good times where it'll hardly be noticed, and can be dealt with in due course.

However, there are OFTEN other times when $3K failing to show up when expected can create real problems. Cash Flow is key.

To even suggest that it is OK for a company to arbitrarily cutoff funds, merely because it might be resolved sometime next year and "shouldn't be a problem" is massively ignorant and ethically bankrupt.

For your own sake, and for others on HN, read the room. Stop posting such 'hot takes' that only broadcast your bad assumptions based on massive ignorance of the topic and distract from the actual discussion (or if you're just trolling for responses, pls take it elsewhere).

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

#239

Post by politician »

TekMol wrote: post #185
patio11 wrote: post #177

(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…

Quoted post unavailable.

Payments over FedNow are required to settle within 8 seconds of the receiving FI being notified of the transaction. Launching next year, FedNow is positioned to replace ACH and wires and do most of the things that folks want lightning network / L2 / Zelle / Ripple and other RTP solutions to do, but for the entire USD-denominated market.

FedNow also replaces ACH debit origination and its Good Funds Period with a Request to Pay architecture that IMO is far safer and has fewer edge cases and lacks the hilarious infinite loop in ACH debit exception handling.

So, yeah, good question, sorry you're being downvoted.

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

#240

Post by Spooky23 »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #72
lma21 wrote: post #33

Yet another story of Stripe holding big sums (yes 3k can be huge for small businesses) with no proper support structure. Consumers must rely on social networks to get some form of reaction.A $74 billion company has no proper support structure. Just wow.

I'm sympathetic that 3k can be huge for small businesses, but if you can't tolerate a loss of 3k, isn't your business practically doomed?

Stripe actively markets to the smallest of businesses.

My church uses Stripe for various fundraising events. It would cause a serious cash flow issue if our payments for the bbq chicken fundraiser were held up for 3 months. We don’t have $3k to pay the chicken guy.

A key feature of Stripe is daily deposits. To me it’s understandable that they will flag transactions to address risk. But there has to be a process to adjudicate quickly.

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