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Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

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Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#671

Post by naasking »

vkou wrote: post #492
naasking wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certain banking regulations make those transactions "high risk".

Some of them are due to government regulations like 'don't launder money' and 'don't process money for illegal activities'. Which are, like, basic operations of society 101 level stuff. Others (adult services) are not due to government regulations, they are there simply there because banks don't want to deal with chargebacks.

> Some of them are due to government regulations like 'don't launder money' and 'don't process money for illegal activities'. Which are, like, basic operations of society 101 level stuff.

No, that's wrong. Firstly, as others have pointed out, society long predates any such notions.

Secondly, determining what is illegal activity, and putting a stop to it, is ostensibly the job of law enforcement and the courts, not the bank.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#672

Post by tootie »

laundermaf wrote: post #608
tootie wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company uses Stripe among others. We do on the order of 8 figures of transactions over all our payment channels. Not a whale by Stripe's standards, but not nothing either. We also have enterprise agreements in writing and signed contracts with all of them. It wasn't necessarily an underwriting process as far as I know, more of an enterprise software licensing agreement. But either way, they are obligated to provid…

While you can enforce the contract later, does it save you from the algorithm and "I don't have that information"?

Honestly, idk. It at least gives you grounds to seek redress via legal channels in the case that you do lose business. I'd hope that the threat of legal consequences makes them be a little more deliberate in their actions.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#673

Post by canadiantim »

cx42net wrote: post #634
canadiantim wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just starting to use Lago (getlago.com) for this. I'm not affiliated with them, but it solves the need for me for an open-source payment-processor-agnostic billing system that can easily swap between processors while maintaining a single source of truth.

But what happens if getlago.com bans you? Haven't you just moved the single-point-of-failure at a different place?

It's open source, so I can just set up my own instance. I just have to be careful to make sure that process is as easy as possible. You never know what provider may ban you so yeah that's definitely a concern, but that's why I build on only open source.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#674

Post by from »

wpietri wrote: post #357
systemvoltage wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firearms, explosives and dangerous materials > Guns, gunpowders, ammunitions, weapons, fireworks and other explosives. Peptides, research chemicals, and other toxic, flammable and radioactive materials Why does the payment processor get to dictate whether I can run a defense ordnance company or run a scientific chemical supplies store? Some of this stuff needs to be challenged in the court or regulated so that paym…

Why do you believe that private companies shouldn't have freedom of association? Or put differently, why should the government be able to force Stripe to do business with people who Stripe thinks would not be good for their business?

In a world of free association Stripe would probably be more willing to do business with "high risk" companies because they could charge them substantially higher fees. The government directly and indirectly tries to discourage business with these kinds of companies which is why companies like porn websites, fireworks wholesalers and check cashers have a hard time getting bank accounts these days.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#675

Post by from »

senko wrote: post #56

This is bad. There are more and more Stripe horror stories like this, and from an outsider perspective it looks awfully like PayPal behaved back in the day (probably still does but I'd never touch it again as a merchant). I have positive experiences with using Stripe in my last startup and we're currently building Stripe integration on another, which will process about 50% of our revenue (the other payment method bei…

It could be called the fintech compliance cycle. They start out with a single compliance officer (who is equipped with not much more than the OFAC list) and no identification requirements other than name and email. Then they get lots of customers due to how easy they are to use and how they don't arbitrarily steal your stuff like Paypal. Eventually they get a letter from some government agency telling them to implement "best practices" because one of their customers did something bad. Then in order to make the government happy they go and buy fancy screening software and hire a bunch of compliance monkeys who go around causing trouble like that described in the OP. At this point they are just a smaller version of Paypal and have very little reason to exist.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#676

Post by notch656a »

catapart wrote: post #664
notch656a wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm paranoid and privileged, that's why a single point of failure doesn't result in me going bankrupt. Can I cry into some $100 bills? You can dish out the hate and I can keep on keepin on enjoying my lavish privilege of having backup plans. The only thing better than boosting my ego is boosting my bank account as I draw pictures of Scrooge McDuck while my soul nourishes on the insults of HN'ers (hopefully I inc…

No hate here, brother. Only love. And perception. Your sarcasm is a fine enough shield, and you hold it well! I hope that it protects you until you can be honest with yourself. In the mean time, I'm happy to take your admission as a win, even if you'd like it to be insincere. Thanks for admitting your a privileged paranoid; that's the first step! I'm sorry you felt insulted by my assumptions about you. I honestly ass…

I apologize, you see I am a simple hillbilly from backwater America. I would speak this same way to my best friends, and I'm not joking. Making everything delicate like I'm speaking to an 8 year old child is not really my thing, if I think someone dun fucked up I'm going to say so. Perhaps certain more refined segments of America conider this anger, and you can self console yourself of your moral superiority.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#677

Post by from »

soared wrote: post #601
pas wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a shadow government but it also makes sense.

It’s not a shadow government if the laws and policy are public. You can read all of the laws.

> It’s not a shadow government if the laws and policy are public. You can read all of the laws.

This is not really true. The BSA says banks have to maintain an "adequate AML program" and policies to "reasonably know your customers identities" or whatever. These policies are deliberately vague. Then based on these deliberately vague rules, banks have to make a compliance program that usually goes above and beyond the minimum that is required (in order to avoid being fined). These compliance programs that specify what kinds of behavior and transactions to consider risky are never made public.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#678

Post by hinkley »

brightball wrote: post #455
hinkley wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SLAs only entitle you to a refund, not compensation for lost income. If you’re not making at least four times as much off a service as you pay for it, you really need to think about why you use that service. Power can go out. Promises from the power company don’t fix that. Only backup power does.

Point here was that you’d hypothetically be able to get all of your data to setup an alternative if you had to, rather than just being shut down and waiting for them to fix it.

Once you trust your vendors absolutely, your company becomes their company, because they can do whatever they want with it.

What always confuses me about this is that it seems like many owners trust their vendors over their own employees and I don't even know where to start unpacking that sentence.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#679

Post by theptip »

elliekelly wrote: post #352
theptip wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which bit of the BSA? edit: As I re-read the thread I see that I am thinking more of onboarding KYC, as opposed to this case which would be ongoing-activity investigation. So that would explain the difference in expectations here. Still interested in learning more about the regs for ongoing investigations if you have time to share!

The bit at 31 USC § 5318(g)(2)(A) under the title “Notification prohibited.” FinCEN has also promulgated confidentiality rules thereunder. I don’t have a pincite for that but I believe it’s tucked amongst their record keeping rules.

Thanks!

For anyone following along, text at https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-and-regulations/ba... > https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2020-title31/pdf/....

This is for SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports). (At least, that's the one I've encountered before, there may be other forms too).

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#680

Post by psteinweber »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #245

According to previous posts* this company sells something related to cannibis. I'd love to know why certain categories are always flagged or silently banned. Cannibis, sex toys, porn, crypto, etc. Payment processors seem to always give these categories the worst service and whenever a company is nuked like this, it's usually one of these categories. Why is that? It almost feels like there's some secret government org…

There’s a really good Podcast from FT on the payment issues with porn. It’s more complicated than the chargeback rates. If you want to go down that rabbit hole: https://www.ft.com/content/762e4648-06d7-4abd-8d1e-ccefb74b3... The podcast is quite a nice history wrap-up on online payments. Episode 8 addresses the current situation with credit card companies most detailed.
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