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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

#301

Post by peanuty1 »

metacritic12 wrote: post #111
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…

What's the OP/your alternative? Oh Paypal? Look up the horror stories there. Or directly work with a legacy provider like FirstData? They will also freeze your account and won't even accept you if you just have just $3k of sales. Isn't it interesting that credit card processors really like to give crappy customer support and enjoy freezing accounts? Is it because they just attract misanthropic people? If only a carin…

> What's the OP/your alternative?

Square is one. https://developer.squareup.com/reference/square/payments-api

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

#302

Post by upupandup »

dsissitka wrote: post #220
dsissitka wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google cache: https://imgur.com/a/m0EybDN

Pasted below: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business. I used Stripe for about a year to run a small cell phone store in Denver, CO area. In the case of my business, I never had an issue processing my small payments for cell phones, ranging from a couple hundred dollars up to $1000. All of a sudden, we run a charge for $3300 because our primary processor in my business was down, and we had a…

At first glance thought this was a case of a zealous flagging system but upon careful re-reading, I realize this doesn't seem to be an isolated case meaning this guy isn't the only one that had this happen.

Which makes me question just how credible Stripe's market valuation is. It's far likely that as we exit the era of cheap capital and expensive debt, the dominoes have begun to fall and companies are doing everything they can to horde cash. Especially when margins are razor thin.

I could be wrong but this is NOT a good sign. Any other payment processor that pulls this will immediately be sued, so why are they risking this knowing that TOS isnt the law?

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

#303

Post by TomGullen »

TekMol wrote: post #231
Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Consumers like the idea of chargeback and other legal protections. Crypto advocates say that you can add middle organisations to offer this, but then we've gone full circle and really there is no advantage.

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

#304

Post by anonymousab »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #172
rahkiin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Stripe folks have confirmed that they will only allow certain support channels when certain situations come up (I'd imagine certain types of assumed fraud would merit async channels only, etc.).

It's just a crazy coincidence that they also won't tell you the underlying truths to the situation that would let you understand why they aren't letting you call them. Surely they are reasonable and not just standard corpo tech negligent customer support. Surely.

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

#305

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

toss1 wrote: post #238
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have run a small business, and I am somewhat familiar with payments infrastructure. From my perspective, it is the room that is ignorant. Have you ever had a customer fail to pay an invoice on time? Have you ever not been reimbursed for expenses in a timely manner? Have you ever been charged the wrong amount? Had a supplier go bankrupt?

If 3k cash flow made or break my small business, then I would've been toast within months of starting. If it's a real business, then 3k breaking the bank means you're over leveraged.

I'm not saying what Stripe is doing is okay. Nobody but Stripe and the OP have enough context to make a fair judgement. It certainly sucks, especially if OP did nothing wrong. If OP feels this is truly unjust, then that's what small claims court is for. But calling it theft when your payment processor withholds funds is an exaggeration. Is it theft if I pay my bills late?

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

#306

Post by gnfargbl »

cdmoyer wrote: post #271

The OP later clarified that it wasn't a normal transaction. They sold a "cheap company van" using their stripe business account. That seems like a huge liability, since a used car seems extremely likely to cause a chargeback. I don't think dealerships would accept a credit card payment (other than deposit) for this reason. https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/wa1zob/dont_...

When these stories come up, I would like to hear enough context that enables me to understand whether or not Stripe is behaving reasonably. I understand Stripe takes customer privacy seriously, but even so it would be great to get the missing information in a suitably anonymous form.

In this case, my judgment (as a small business that uses Stripe for similar-sized SaaS payments) is that they acted completely reasonably.

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

#307

Post by ziddoap »

austenallred wrote: post #297
ziddoap wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what does any of that have to do with Elon, Doge, Hashcat, OpenDNS, BTC, or hacking a phone? How could any of those reddit posts be relevant?

Those do seem irrelevant to me. The cannabis one caught my eye though.

If parent only posted the cannabis one, with the framing that you did (cannabis can be troublesome in some areas, federal regulations, etc.), I wouldn't have made my original comment.

Instead they went on a smear campaign, in some righteous attempt to label OP as deserving of not being able to reach support because they have posted about gambling/cryptocurrency/etc. Gross.

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

#308

Post by whatisweb3 »

noasaservice wrote: post #44
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.

This is a *legal* issue,and not a shitcoin-solving issue.

Poor technical and legal frameworks for digital payment processors is how we have gotten to this point. Strict AML, KYC, copyright protection, and anti-adult requirements forces payment processors to err on the side of caution and deploy mass automated systems to flag and lock accounts that trigger the slightest internal alarm bells, even if this leads to some false positives and destroys a few small businesses along the way.

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

#309

Post by upupandup »

thiscatis wrote: post #279
powerhour wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You called it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32263429

Unbelievable right, going through someone’s reddit history to try to defend a corporation and do some victim blaming.

There are also apologists for coinbase. I wonder if these are paid "internet agencies" that realize that brand management is increasingly done through social media.

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

#310

Post by anonymousab »

joshmanders wrote: post #180
iuiz wrote: post #95

Quoted post unavailable.

You know Stripe didn't go through this guys socials to find all these threads and THAT is why they locked him down, right? Stop victim blaming and throat goating Stripe, it's disgusting.

They might have some automated system that does it. With the amount of money going around and the ease of deploying such a technology (single digit false positives don't really matter to the modern megacorp) I'd somewhat expect it to be standard right now.

The really gross but unsurprising part is their sheer unwillingness to talk about this instance and actually work with the customer to clear things up.

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