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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

#341

Putting my dang hat on. Related: Tell HN: Stripe brought my business to a dead stop - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21030633 - September 2019 Tell HN: Stripe shut down my 4-year business with no explanation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28085706 - August 2021 Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28522784 - September 2021 Stripe…

If you process more than say $10,000 per year, you should have multiple payment providers. It's doubtful that Stripe is worse than other payment processors, they just process more payments than most other. Payment processors universally suck, partly because they live in fear of VISA and MasterCard. They tend to overreact or have automated systems that will falsely flag account. Most have okay support, but resolving i…

10k? That's a tiny amount to have to get a second payment processor. Additionally if you are dealing with physical cards you probably also need a second set of card readers?

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

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

And will you say the opposite when the opposite is true? Other comments mention facts about how the OP tried to do something outside of normal and the response is expected for "abnormal" behavior on an account.

Anger against companies is one thing... but will you defend them when it turns out the company is in the right or is this only a one sided comment?

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

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't know what relevance it might have, but it shows the OP participates in risky ventures in a sector with a lot of fraud. There could certainly be some part of the story that is important that OP chose to leave out because it makes him look bad.

> We don't know what relevance it might have Seriously? It has absolutely no bearing on the transaction in question. Hashcat? OpenDNS? A question about Elon? I mean I know HN hates cryptocurrency with a fiery passion... But that has no influence whatsoever on this specific transaction for which OP claims to have all the documentation for (it wasn't a cryptocurrency transaction, so why would interest in BTC be relevan…

I'm sure the alternative would go over well too. "This guy used a throwaway account to report a problem! Seems a little suspicious. What are they trying to hide?"

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

#344
post #215

This "rant" is in general, and not related to OPs case I would strongly recommend to not rely on stripe, their service level has become a joke. I get it, they have a nice API, their system is technically nice in many ways, and they are (or atleast were ~5 years ago) way easier to deal with for developers than the "old" players on the market. but they are kinda like google, their support is pretty much non existent wh…

Which “old ones” are you referring to more specifically?

i do not want to name specific names, but in my neighborhood theres a couple of big online payment processors that until somewhat "recently" were the ones that 99.9% of online shops used. I imagine it be roughly similar in other places, though perhaps more the bigger the country

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

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think this negativity is uncalled for. They said that they do their best, sometimes there are mistakes on their end that they try to fix, and sometimes the person complaining is lying or leaving out details that would explain the situation. If you've ever dealt with people, you would know that they often "forget" things or downplay things that would make them look bad.

When so much money is at stake, the negativity is called for. Stripe is not neutral here. They have leverage and power over their merchants in these situations.

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

#346

Stripe responded to a Twitter post about it, Reddit helped retweeting it. https://twitter.com/GenosAtHonda/status/1552588035077726208

https://twitter.com/stripe/status/1552613789706567680

I'll wait with bated breath.

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

#347
post #9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their dev support on discord This is also a red flag

Stripe is developer centric. Discord has a lot of developers in their community. I don't really like Discord, but i must admit it is a smart choice.

>it is a smart choice

For the customer?

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

#348

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_...

Most 2nd hand car sales in the US are sold "As-is", so the buyer has very little recurse after the fact. The consensus is when it comes to 2nd hand vehicle sales is buyer beware and you should be taking the vehicle to be checked over by another garage before finalising the purchase.

Last car I purchased (granted a) it was brand new b) I'm in the UK) I purchased the car using my debit card (I kept the recept for ages until it faded cause it was novel to me to have such a large card transaction on a small thermal printed receipt :-P)

So I'm just wondering why a 2nd hand vehicle sale would be a huge liability thats all.

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

#349

(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…

> Sometimes they are the result of a process operating correctly but coming to a result which someone did not enjoy

So much to unpack here but this is extremely patronizing ("we're not wrong, you just didn't like what we did). "process operating correctly" refers to holding a merchant's money with no reason communicated, and no way for them to get in touch with the company?

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

#350

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_...

A paper-titled transaction seems like it should have one of the lowest chargeback risks. A copy of the purchase and sale specifying "as-is", plus signed title should be pretty clear cut evidence against a chargeback. It's also not terribly surprising that someone who develops familiarity with one tool will then apply that tool to new situations. The main problem here is the ever-growing financial censorship regime /…

Why should Stripe take on the cost of investigating / handling a potential chargeback, even though it might be likely to be resolved in the business (and Stripe's) favor?

When it comes to chargebacks it's not just customer experience (reputation damage due to fraud) and liquidity risks that Stripes or other payment providers are protecting themselves against - but also the actual support cost of handling each chargeback too.

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