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Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#141

Post by sbdncuvh »

gfodor wrote: post #75
aynyc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If gmail/outlook/yahoo bans you or mark you as spam, you are not gonna get much done.

Yes the maximally centralized form of a protocol like email is the one we have now where a few large actors can collude to cut you off from large swaths of the network. However, that’s different than a singular actor, but more importantly, nothing is stopping a counterforce from coming in and correcting that regime. It’s possible we may see email revert to a less centralized form over time as various people choose to…

This is unlikely the spam problem is too hard to solve at the small scale for you to ever be relevant.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#142

Post by linuxftw »

ddevault wrote: post #69

I also noticed the suspiciously absent description of OP's business model. That said, though Stripe has never wronged my business, our dependence on them is such a large liability that it obviously has to be treated as such in our business planning. Our integration with Stripe is kept light and somewhat abstract, and we're able to replace it without putting a ton of work into overhauling our billing system. Naturally…

My first thought is this is a paycam business of some kind, or something very similar.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#143

Post by 3pt14159 »

55555 wrote: post #66
edwinwee wrote: post #31

I work at Stripe. Could you email me at edwin@stripe.com and I can dig into this?

You’re a nice guy to try and solve OP’s problem. But OP’s problem isn’t really the problem. The problem is that OP’s problem is reposted here weekly by someone new and they have to pray that you or someone else use backchannels to solve their hellish issue. There’s a meta-problem. Can you just dig into that problem instead? Then you won’t have to dig into these sub-problems once a week.

What we really need is some sort of default arbitrator for cases like this. Support gives no answers because "reasons" too frequently for too many business critical applications and the courts are too slow to fix the problem and building in redundancy too costly to compete for most integrations.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#144

Post by trollied »

orionint wrote: post #121

Used to work for a “high risk” payment processor, we inherited tons of accounts that were terminated by Stripe, Square, and PayPal. Here’s one small bit of inside info that may help the newer businesses out there: Most real payment processors (e.g. banks, merchant services companies) “underwrite” a company BEFORE allowing them to process. Underwriting means they look over the business model, financials, etc and make…

Great post, thank you. Makes sense. Have applied for stripe myself, and was amazed there weren’t more hoops to jump through. I guess they eat the risk until a threshold, as you say.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#145

Post by jandrese »

gfodor wrote: post #23

This is why we need a decentralized Internet payment system, like email. This was a non-controversial opinion not long ago.

A payment system like that would run face first into Know Your Customer (KYC) laws and bet shut down.

This isn't a hard problem for technical reasons, it's all political. It's about preventing money laundering and trying to fight crime via financial instruments. But it also means any payment system that doesn't implement these restrictions will almost instantly be overrun by criminals because they are highly motivated to find ways of moving money.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#146

Post by thaumaturgy »

It looks like there's a common flaw in modern abuse detection systems: they have no long-term memory.

Stripe's abuse detection should be factoring in the age and long-term activity of the account, and support staff should be able to provide additional information to customers with established histories. Some of Stripe's policies make sense when dealing with new accounts, but a recurring factor in these complaints is that the account isn't new.

(Google's spam detection is broken in a similar way.)

I've been a low-volume Stripe customer for years. Posts like this are really increasing the urgency for me to come up with a new card processor, because I'd rather take an additional percentage haircut to get access to a dispute resolution process that recognizes me as an established customer.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#147

Post by didgetmaster »

multiplegeorges wrote: post #104
didgetmaster wrote: post #86

Welcome to the cloud! This is the kind of thing that happens when everyone follows the siren song of cloud computing. I certainly understand the draw of these offerings (access, easy configuration, scalability, low initial cost, etc.) but you are handing control of all your processes and data to a centralized entity who can jerk you around any time they want and doesn't have to account when they make a mistake. The p…

Is there a self-hosted payment gateway that just works? I hear you about cloud dependencies, but this isn't one of those cases.

I wasn't suggesting that there are decentralized options for every cloud dependency that is viable today. I am just saying that it is issues like this one which will drive innovation toward solutions that do not require you to put your fate in the hands of some central authority.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#148

Post by stevievee »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #129
stevievee wrote: post #71

[Insert name] from Stripe here... [Insert apology] [Insert vague explanation] [Insert promise to investigate and resolve]

He beat you by about 5 minutes! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32854831

Who says it will only be Edwin?

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#149

Post by awinter-py »

orionint wrote: post #121

Used to work for a “high risk” payment processor, we inherited tons of accounts that were terminated by Stripe, Square, and PayPal. Here’s one small bit of inside info that may help the newer businesses out there: Most real payment processors (e.g. banks, merchant services companies) “underwrite” a company BEFORE allowing them to process. Underwriting means they look over the business model, financials, etc and make…

seriously you should write this as a blog

(or if you are trying to be pseud, let me interview you and I'll write it)

if this is SOP it's important information

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#150

Post by toss1 »

Ancalagon wrote: post #110
teraflop wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any rational person could see the issue with Stripe not approving of that business. I think of myself as a fairly rational person, and I don't see the issue. Would you mind spelling out whatever you're trying to imply?

I think they're saying Stripe thinks those businesses are scams, illegal, or otherwise in gray areas that Stripe would rather not support. There's probably some automated decision-making happening on the backend so there are edge cases where good business are getting shut down on accident.

If that is the case, that is fine.

Then Stripe can FORKING SAY SO UP FRONT.

And those businesses can grumble but go elsewhere

Implying that you are happy to take on responsibility for infrastructure of someone's business, then unilaterally and without notice or opportunity to cure any issue, is pretty much tantamount to theft. Stripe in this case appears to be accepting money, then failing to provide service, and in this case is even holding onto money paid to their customers. This causes a lot more damage to others than it does to Stripe.

I don't like externalizing problems to other parties as a business model.

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