Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stripe issues

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 87 posts

Re: Stripe issues

#71

Post by tpxl »

tptacek wrote: post #69
tpxl wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Why does Stripe process payments when you're small, then fuck you over when you get more traffic? Why can't they detect this upfront, assuming there's no misrepresentation on the retailers part?

Presumably because underwriting happens in stages; further, the universe you're stating a preference for is one in which it's much more difficult to get a payment processor at all, because the fact of some businesses being "shadier" than others doesn't change. Underwriting is what happens when a business works in part by putting up some of its own money to smooth things over for its customers. Payments is an underwri…

> the universe you're stating a preference for is one in which it's much more difficult to get a payment processor at all

Isn't this the world we live in? A bank will ask you these questions when you open an account with them, why can't Stripe? Because growth?

Edit: Also, much harder? Filling out a questionnaire a human looks at, then takes a cursory glance of where you're registered, what you're registered for and what your website looks like? That doesn't sound like much work for the upsides.

This smells like the classic "There's nothing we could do, dude!", when a company can't be bothered to do due diligence, then dumps all the externalities of that on someone else. Stripe could do this, they just don't, as it makes more money, ruining (possibly legitimate/legal) businesses in the process.

Re: Stripe issues

#72

Post by tptacek »

tpxl wrote: post #71
tptacek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably because underwriting happens in stages; further, the universe you're stating a preference for is one in which it's much more difficult to get a payment processor at all, because the fact of some businesses being "shadier" than others doesn't change. Underwriting is what happens when a business works in part by putting up some of its own money to smooth things over for its customers. Payments is an underwri…

> the universe you're stating a preference for is one in which it's much more difficult to get a payment processor at all Isn't this the world we live in? A bank will ask you these questions when you open an account with them, why can't Stripe? Because growth? Edit: Also, much harder? Filling out a questionnaire a human looks at, then takes a cursory glance of where you're registered, what you're registered for and w…

A bank isn't going to do anything with your business that you just set up that wants to accept credit cards over the Internet for things. I'm not sure what we're even talking about at this point.

There's a good comment upthread about alternatives to Stripe, of which there are many. The good ones distinguish themselves by being the kinds of places where businesses like StoreCycle can't get an account in the first place.

In summary: the words "possibly legitimate" in your comment are doing most of the work of this entire thread.

Re: Stripe issues

#73

Post by twelve40 »

gsich wrote: post #22
PetahNZ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you tracking declined payments, and using the fraud/risk metrics? Doing ZIP checks and 3D secure?

Isn't that why I use Stripe? They handle the payment details.

Stripe doesn't know you or what kind of customers you will bring. So you're still on the hook to monitor fraud among your customer base, and they give you a few options to do that, like the zip code check. If your fraud/dispute/chargeback rates are low, you remove those checks to have less friction at the checkout.

Re: Stripe issues

#74

Post by zxcvbn4038 »

Like anything else you need to diversify your risk. Have multiple payment processors running so that an outage at one, regardless of reason, doesn’t take you down entirely. These days there is really no barrier to doing this.

Reversing all of your charges is pretty extreme, I suspect there is some detail being omitted.

A polite - and brief - letter to the CEO can work wonders. I had a problem with my Goldman Sachs once where they locked my account, their security people blew me off for three weeks, I sent an email to David Solomon and an hour later the issue was resolved. David Solomon probably never saw my email but it got routed to someone who could help.

If you e-mail the CEO of US Bank it gets routed to a review committee, they investigate and respond in ten days.

Again the key is to be polite and brief. If your in full Karen mode or sending three pages of text then you will get passed over. Include enough information so the issue can be routed to the right person, please help, thank you.

Re: Stripe issues

#75

Post by tpxl »

tptacek wrote: post #72
tpxl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the universe you're stating a preference for is one in which it's much more difficult to get a payment processor at all Isn't this the world we live in? A bank will ask you these questions when you open an account with them, why can't Stripe? Because growth? Edit: Also, much harder? Filling out a questionnaire a human looks at, then takes a cursory glance of where you're registered, what you're registered for and w…

A bank isn't going to do anything with your business that you just set up that wants to accept credit cards over the Internet for things. I'm not sure what we're even talking about at this point. There's a good comment upthread about alternatives to Stripe, of which there are many. The good ones distinguish themselves by being the kinds of places where businesses like StoreCycle can't get an account in the first plac…

Bottom line: Why didn't stripe detect this business wasn't "legitimate" sooner?

Re: Stripe issues

#76

Post by twelve40 »

leashless wrote: post #30

If you ever wonder what the blockchain people were on about, this is what they were trying to prevent . Payments that stay paid, under all circumstances, with nobody intermediating.

... except when those payments that stay paid were fraud or theft, then we have a problem

Re: Stripe issues

#77

Post by tptacek »

tpxl wrote: post #75
tptacek wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bank isn't going to do anything with your business that you just set up that wants to accept credit cards over the Internet for things. I'm not sure what we're even talking about at this point. There's a good comment upthread about alternatives to Stripe, of which there are many. The good ones distinguish themselves by being the kinds of places where businesses like StoreCycle can't get an account in the first plac…

Bottom line: Why didn't stripe detect this business wasn't "legitimate" sooner?

The timeline on this post is days.

Re: Stripe issues

#79

Post by ring1 »

ShrimpHawk wrote: post #61

Original post: Stripe crushed my startup at the first whiff of success This is just a general rant, but I wish it could be more than that. A little over a week ago, my startup saw our first and sudden uptick in user activity. After a few hard months of work building our platform, we were relieved to see customer feedback and turn our first profit. It was through a marketing campaign that had finally reached its targe…

In the same exact boat as ya right now :/ wish the best for you.

Re: Stripe issues

#80

Post by tpxl »

tptacek wrote: post #77
tpxl wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bottom line: Why didn't stripe detect this business wasn't "legitimate" sooner?

The timeline on this post is days .

The timeline during which Stripe could have detected this is _months_.
Post reply on HN