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Don't Use Stripe

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Don't Use Stripe

#111

Post by docflabby »

traceroute66 wrote: post #99
docflabby wrote: post #65

Most small business I've found don't accept credit/debit cards for large transactions and instead want direct (cash) bank transfers because they fear the money going missing or getting a chargeback. This has its only issues as its slow and not very customer friendly. If only there was some kind of virtual cash that could be sent from one party to another almost instantly without an intermediary

> want direct (cash) bank transfers ... This has its only issues as its slow and not very customer friendly. Actually, there are issues that raise red flags when a business only accepts bank transfers: (a) It raises a GIGANTIC red flag as to why a business was unable to get a merchant account with a card processor. Pretty much any business can get a merchant account with a bit of paperwork (generally not much more pa…

In the UK at least try and get building work done or buy a new car with a credit card and see how far you get...

Credit cards work great for small transactions for both consumers and businesses, but risks get high for the business (espcially small businesses) for larger transactions.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#112

Post by 411111111111111 »

noduerme wrote: post #110
smca wrote: post #96

(I work at Stripe) As jmillikin points out below, this particular complaint has been repeatedly posted about Stripe on both Reddit and HN, with slight modifications to the claimed business. Publicly represented facts are not always reliable. As a rule, we won’t comment on specific user cases for privacy reasons. However, as a trend, we’ve seen an uptick in HN posts requesting we release funds held. We review every ca…

It's not just this complaint or similar ones, though. What recourse does a merchant have if you freeze funds and don't provide a reason or don't immediately put them in touch with a human? Stripe generally appears to misrepresent itself as a payment gateway when in fact it takes on merchants and bundles their payments as its own. Then you apparently sever connection with any merchant that might raise a flag with the…

I'm not affiliated with stripe nor have I've ever used their services for payments. I did work for another payment providers before however.

> It's not just this complaint or similar ones, though. What recourse does a merchant have if you freeze funds and don't provide a reason or don't immediately put them in touch with a human?

The reason seems to have been provided, which is fraud suspicion. Stripe can't be expected to unfreeze the suspect money until this suspicion is cleared, which might take anything from hours to months, depending on the case. What kind of recourse do you think the payment providers can provide in this scenario?

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#113

Post by omgomgomgomg »

matrix_overload wrote: post #33

Not defending Stripe here, but DO NOT HAVE A SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE! Have 2-3 payment processors hooked to a common abstraction layer, split transactions between them. If one fails, switch to others while you try to sort it out. Unfortunately, "computer says no" has become the harsh reality when dealing with any kind of corporate entities, so you need to be ready. It sucks, but that's the world we live in.

We have 3 credit card processors and every freaking rule is always in their favor.

They have a downtime for visa, lasting 3 weeks? Nothing you can do, the gateway still charge you one quid per failed TX.

The worst was a single chargeback collapsed a MID and the processor refuses or claims they will not honor the settlement.Something like 20k usd for a months business.

All due to them miscoding and the chargeback exposing their miscoding practices.

Is there any recourse for this?

Any fintech news outlet where they can be named and shamed?

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#114

Post by omgomgomgomg »

yellow_lead wrote: post #42
matrix_overload wrote: post #33

Not defending Stripe here, but DO NOT HAVE A SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE! Have 2-3 payment processors hooked to a common abstraction layer, split transactions between them. If one fails, switch to others while you try to sort it out. Unfortunately, "computer says no" has become the harsh reality when dealing with any kind of corporate entities, so you need to be ready. It sucks, but that's the world we live in.

It's expensive to build 2-3 integrations for every service you rely on though. And losing 1/3 of your money can still be detrimental to your business.

Yes indeed, every integration costs:

- kyc onboarding, getting and processing the docs and forms never goes smooth, can take 2 to 10 business days.

- integrating the gateway, 3k setup fee on average, plus dev cost for mapping the servers, doing the front end and the tests

- sometimes, due to being labeled a high risk sector industry, only trusted visa traffic, or an allocation thereof

And indeed, losing 30 percent would be the end, we operate with a 4 to 12 percent net margin, thanks goodness credit card payments are only 10 percent or so.

I am a total crypto sceptic, and the crypto psps are immature, but they are causing the least hassle.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#116

Post by omgomgomgomg »

notimetorelax wrote: post #94
mndgs wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. It is an electronic money institution, which is far from a bank, it can only keep customer funds and process payments.

I don’t know the difference, but it does say that on the tin: https://www.paypal.com/lu/webapps/mpp/about > PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A. is a credit institution (or bank) authorised and supervised by Luxembourg’s financial regulator, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (or CSSF). CSSF’s registered office: 283, route d’Arlon, L-1150 Luxembourg.

That is a very selective and borderline illegal description they are using. A bank is a credit institution, but now every ci is a bank.

Paypal and revolut are 100% not banks, they are financial institutions or emis, They can manage your money but not lend out anything and they have to hold the assets at 3rd party banks.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#117

Post by omgomgomgomg »

markus92 wrote: post #88
alephu5 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU are working on something like this, it's like USDC but backed and exchanged by the European Central Bank. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...

Irrelevant but EU has SEPA Instant Payments which basically resolves GPs issues with bank transfers.

Unfortunatelly, this is not really true.

You bear all the risk as the merchant, the customers can simply reverse a transaction, repeatedly, without providing a reason, for up to couple months.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#118

Post by pas »

411111111111111 wrote: post #112
noduerme wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just this complaint or similar ones, though. What recourse does a merchant have if you freeze funds and don't provide a reason or don't immediately put them in touch with a human? Stripe generally appears to misrepresent itself as a payment gateway when in fact it takes on merchants and bundles their payments as its own. Then you apparently sever connection with any merchant that might raise a flag with the…

I'm not affiliated with stripe nor have I've ever used their services for payments. I did work for another payment providers before however. > It's not just this complaint or similar ones, though. What recourse does a merchant have if you freeze funds and don't provide a reason or don't immediately put them in touch with a human? The reason seems to have been provided, which is fraud suspicion. Stripe can't be expect…

why does it take months though?

in these situations the payment provider absolutely has the upper hand, and they abuse it in the name of safety. the same way Amazon treats their merchants like shit, because there is an endless queue of fools to try to "start a business"

it's the same security theater that is done at airports. there are always suspicious things. false positive rate be damned.

if there's a suspicion, that the card used may have been "stolen" then freeze it, call the end user. it takes a few days at most, right? banks do this all the time, usually these are cleared in minutes.

if the bank cannot reach the user, ask the merchant to ask the user to call the bank.

these are clear and trivial steps to do. yet instead there's "investigation" by the useless middleman.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#119

Post by omgomgomgomg »

noduerme wrote: post #108
quelltext wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious to learn how you came to your stance and it seems to be entirely fueled by these fake reports and complaints. I mean, I'm pretty sure they are giving some people unintentionally a bad time once in a while but I don't have evidence that they are "scummy". And really we shouldn't just swallow whatever people write here. Like the current submission seems to be turning out to be fake (see other comments).

This submission does strike me as highly questionable (especially with the reddit references and the "challenge" to HN, as I pointed out). Which is exactly why HN shouldn't be the everyman's savior in resolving contractual issues with tech firms. But my bias against Stripe is not based on internet gripes. I've guided clients through and written custom APIs to connect with at least half a dozen payment processors sinc…

Stripe ceo is active here and kinda gets carte blanche often, not sure why exactly this is, probably many people here invested in it one way or another.

I have no dog in this one, but stripe certainly should not get away scott free.

Even with the most shitty PSPs and processors, I get answers to my emails within hours, within minutes on Skype and phone calls whenever I want, and thats still slow for my taste.

Locking funds without costomer service or account managers? Wth?

I have psps smaller and bigger than stripe and none of them would dare to not habe 247 support.

At least my psps tell me to the face they will not pay out. Makes me sleep that little bit better.

Whatever the law or reason, there has to be a minimal correspondence.

Lets not give anyone the benefit of the doubt when there is more than one story like this.

I am from the finance sector and I guarantee that what is happening here is neither right nor professional, assuming the op story is truthful.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#120

Post by ldarby »

smca wrote: post #96

(I work at Stripe) As jmillikin points out below, this particular complaint has been repeatedly posted about Stripe on both Reddit and HN, with slight modifications to the claimed business. Publicly represented facts are not always reliable. As a rule, we won’t comment on specific user cases for privacy reasons. However, as a trend, we’ve seen an uptick in HN posts requesting we release funds held. We review every ca…

Given this story from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34021944 it's easy to believe these stories about companies having awful support departments that can only be contacted via social media side-channels.

Can you post anything public to confirm Stripe's department isn't like that?

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