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Don't Use Stripe

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Don't Use Stripe

#121

Post by clnq »

quelltext wrote: post #93
jmillikin wrote: post #87

mainly talking about coding in PERL. It's a little sus. This line stood out to me because I've seen it before. There's someone (or a group of someones) who repeatedly posts this same rant about Stripe on both Reddit and HN, slightly modifying the claimed business. For example, one iteration was a cell phone store in Denver that had their funds held after using their Stripe account to sell a used vehicle: Four months…

That is indeed weird. Maybe someone asked ChatGPT to write a Stripe rant here to troll HN.

For fun, I've asked OpenGPT-3 and ChatGPT to write a few rants like this. They both tend to produce much shorter, much more abstract rants without fixating on details (like lack of customer support) excessively.

For example: > I can't believe XXXXX is holding my payments for at least 120 days for KYC checks. I'm a merchant whose money is frozen and I can't access it. This is totally unacceptable and they shouldn't be allowed to get away with this. How am I supposed to run my business when I can't access my funds? If they don't change their policy soon, I'm going to have to find another payment processor. XXXXX is taking advantage of merchants and needs to be held accountable. #XXXXXSucks #PaymentProcessorAbuse

GPT-3 in particular likes to put stop sequences (things you would expect at the end of text, like hashtags) after their rants, and no matter how much I try to remove them, it will put more and still produce a short rant.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#122

Post by 411111111111111 »

pas wrote: post #118
411111111111111 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, t…

the duration was heavily dependent on outside factors for the payment provider I've worked for.

Usually, the police had been notified if it was a very long time, which the customer can't be told as they could be involved in the crime. It really depends on the case so there is very little value our discussion here can provide.

Also, Banks have kept accounts frozen for months too if their holders are suspected of fraud.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#123

Post by berniedurfee »

dotancohen wrote: post #81
vacillator wrote: post #77

Not sure if it's by the same person, but this looks suspiciously similar to this post on Reddit from 5 months ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/wa230m/tifu_by_using_... .

Almost a perfect match. Nice find. Googling some of the phrases leads to tens of other near-similar posts. Is this some anti-Stripe targetting?

If so, it’s amazingly effective considering the discourse that follows. Frightening times indeed…

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#124

Post by smca »

ldarby wrote: post #120
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?

You don't need to backchannel your requests to reach a human at Stripe. If you reach out over chat, email, or by requesting a callback, you reach a human 100% of the time.

When you introduce elements of risk (fraudulent actors who might try to game our processes) or situations outside of the control of Stripe (high rate of chargebacks from your customers) it can change things. Those situations typically end up on HN or on Twitter. We respect that users can/will try all available channels to have a decision reversed and so we respond to or read every complaint.

This isn't just marketing speak. If you have a Stripe account, you can navigate to support.stripe.com/contact right now and speak to someone. Chat is near instantaneous (which has been an almighty task by the teams involved), email takes a little longer, and, if you request a call it takes three minutes (as of this moment in time). If you're a developer, we also staff a Discord channel for more technical questions.

It's an incredibly complex system to provide support at scale to all Stripe users 365 24x7. We support millions of businesses and all types of integrations.

As someone who ran a business on Stripe before I joined Stripe, I would feel much more comfortable trying to get through to someone here than at other larger orgs.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#126

Post by gnopgnip »

pas wrote: post #118
411111111111111 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, t…

Does it take months when there is no fraud?

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#127

Post by noduerme »

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…

The issue as I understand it with Stripe is that Stripe takes on the chargeback and fraud risk on behalf of the merchant, but as a result will seize funds preemptively to any flag that might potentially be raised by their partner banks. In other words they are incentivized to look for fraud where there is none.

Then they send an automated email saying they suspect fraud, without details.

The recourse they should provide is a way for the merchant to clear their name of a specific accusation, by both providing details of the transaction(s) in doubt and allowing the merchant to show whatever documentation is necessary. But they don't want to go through that because again, there is no actual fraud call in some of these cases from a bank, they're just automatically flagged as a potential risk for Stripe. So they just put the merchant on endless hold and steal their money.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#128

Post by Fatnino »

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…

> I did work for another payment provider

Username checks out.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#129

Post by pas »

411111111111111 wrote: post #122
pas wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, t…

the duration was heavily dependent on outside factors for the payment provider I've worked for. Usually, the police had been notified if it was a very long time, which the customer can't be told as they could be involved in the crime. It really depends on the case so there is very little value our discussion here can provide. Also, Banks have kept accounts frozen for months too if their holders are suspected of fraud…

The customer can be involved. At this point why not just shoot everyone? The payment processor can be involved too! The police are on in it, obviously.

I mean, we're almost beyond the civil asset forfeiture guilty-until-proven-innocent level.

It's plain and simple corporate bullying. Because they can. Yes, I know it's a hard problem. Yes, if it were easy there were endless cheap knockoff payment processors. Yes, criminals are constantly outsmarting the good guys. Yes, I know it's in the ToS, etc. Yes, I know we don't live in a just world.

These still not make it right. It's yet again a fucking tax on the small shops.

Re: Don't Use Stripe

#130

Post by scrollaway »

6510 wrote: post #60
qqtt wrote: post #7

You can find similar stories about literally all online payment processors, including Paypal, Stripe, & all the "legacy" ones too (like First Data). Is it possible this isn't some nefarious conspiracy to steal money, but rather a reality of dealing with payments online given the regulatory environment it operates in? Also this is the biggest season for sales and tech companies in general are dealing with navigating a…

Not sure what you mean with "You can find"? I'm not the one making the claims? > reality of dealing with payments online given the regulatory environment it operates in? In my book not having a phone number and not attempting to answer and resolve the issue isn't "dealing with it". That would be not dealing with something. I was curious and looked at some. 2C2P 02-026-3000 Adyen - no phone Alipay +65 68307260 Amazon…

Most of those are sales numbers not support.
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