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TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

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Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#11
If it was, say, a $30000 charge I could give Stripe the benefit of doubt, but $3300 is a pretty ordinary amount for any retailer. Could be e.g. a laptop sale, or three phones?

When I see Stripe's apology here it will not be enough for me - not at least without a detailed blog post / postmortem.

Until/if that moment happens, I'll regard Stripe as an untrustworthy entity and will recommend doing the same to do anyone I do business with.

Zero tolerance for Google-style algo-decisions and stonewalling.

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#12

Count to three for someone from Stripe appearing here, apologizing and fixing the issue.

Well, fixing this specific case does not equal to fixing the issue in general.

The morale of the story is that you should not behave like Google if you aren't as big as Google...

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#13
Hopefully making enough noise on HN and social media will help your case move quickly. That appears to be the only way to get a response these days.

Maybe one day non-custodial and permissionless payment rails will prevent this situation, for those services that choose to use it. Shame that HN is so polarized about blockchain that they refuse to entertain the idea.

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#14

> More disconcerting, it seems that anyone who posts about this issue on reddit gets downvoted and teamed up against by established Reddit accounts, that I have to imagine are owned by Stripe. These account have some established reddit history on them, mainly talking about coding in PERL. It's a little sus. I too am a little suspicious of anyone who codes in PERL

[deleted]

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#15
post #10

> More disconcerting, it seems that anyone who posts about this issue on reddit gets downvoted and teamed up against by established Reddit accounts, that I have to imagine are owned by Stripe. These account have some established reddit history on them, mainly talking about coding in PERL. It's a little sus. I too am a little suspicious of anyone who codes in PERL

Try doing RegEx with Bash's native engine before you start judging us :(

We’re judging you for the regexes ;)

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#16
As Stripe keeps growing this seems to be a more recurring problem, as it seems to be with most companies that eventually get too big to care about the little guy.

Which leads to my question: is there a smaller alternative similar to the Stripe of five years ago which might appreciate our business more?

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#17
Stripe is going the way of PayPal it seems. Many people learned this lesson the hard way with PayPal now they will learn it with Stripe I guess. You have no real recourse when these companies decide to steal your money and their incentives are very much to do so as they get to hang onto it for extended periods.

I don't think it's a coincidence that this happened as we go into economic downturn and layoffs. Too bad they're not a public company, if they were I would be shorting their stock right now.

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#18
post #11

If it was, say, a $30000 charge I could give Stripe the benefit of doubt, but $3300 is a pretty ordinary amount for any retailer. Could be e.g. a laptop sale, or three phones? When I see Stripe's apology here it will not be enough for me - not at least without a detailed blog post / postmortem. Until/if that moment happens, I'll regard Stripe as an untrustworthy entity and will recommend doing the same to do anyone I…

i will be keeping all of this in mind the next time im making payment processing decisions for small businesses.

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#19

As Stripe keeps growing this seems to be a more recurring problem, as it seems to be with most companies that eventually get too big to care about the little guy. Which leads to my question: is there a smaller alternative similar to the Stripe of five years ago which might appreciate our business more?

And hopefully stays small. And does processing for any country, not just 3 states in the US :/

Re: TIFU by using Stripe as a payment processor for my small business

#20
post #11

If it was, say, a $30000 charge I could give Stripe the benefit of doubt, but $3300 is a pretty ordinary amount for any retailer. Could be e.g. a laptop sale, or three phones? When I see Stripe's apology here it will not be enough for me - not at least without a detailed blog post / postmortem. Until/if that moment happens, I'll regard Stripe as an untrustworthy entity and will recommend doing the same to do anyone I…

> When I see Stripe's apology here it will not be enough for me

I'm actually just starting a business using Stripe for handling payments, and this makes me very concerned.

Is there an alternative service one could use? Is there a way not to give these shady companies power to steal all my money?

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