Update: Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation [resolved] • Hacker News Board

Re: Update: Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation [resolved]

#111

Post by cj » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:29 PM UTC

bread90 wrote: post #106

cj wrote: post #78

This reminds me of an issue my sister is having with Etsy. She runs an Etsy store with $1-2 million in annual sales, and her store keeps getting taken down by Etsy's automated copyright infringement system -- which keeps getting triggered by someone submitting fraudulent copyright claims and then immediately asking her to pay $5k/month in exchange for the person to stop submitting the infringement claims (in other wo…

What does she sell on her store?

Laser cut wooden signs. She has a big warehouse in florida with commercial grade laser cutting machines (they started on a Glowforge!)

The products are all custom, e.g. your family's last name laser cut onto wood.

Re: Update: Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation [resolved]

#112

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

james_pm wrote: post #97

cjbgkagh wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someday it’ll be cheaper to suppress negative views on social media than to address them. Until then I’ll enjoy the good times that come with being able to shame big companies in public.

Twitter Blue Plus - boosts your @ messages sent to verified companies to shame them more effectively.

[deleted]

Re: Update: Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation [resolved]

#113

Post by nucleardog » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #43

Lots of posts here along the lines of "it's not good when you need to resort to social media shaming to get customer support", but I'll take the contrarian view, or at least explain why this dynamic exists. The past 20 years has seen an explosion in Internet services, but a fundamental (often unspoken) quality of these services is that they must keep individualized customer support costs very low in order to be profi…

> I wish there were a better alternative, but I really am at a loss to think what that could be.

Figure out what it costs to have whoever is looking at the HN issues look at them and just charge that much for a executive VIP support request.

Like, if I’ve got $400k locked up and CS stuck in a loop I’d happily drop $200 to have someone that actually has the power to talk to people and get the ball rolling on fixing stuff look at my request.

I hate the idea that if or when I fall into one of those cracks that I may not have curated a large enough social media presence to actually have it resolved. I’d love if I could just, y’know, pay for services instead.

Being willing to put some money down on it should help filter only for people that are serious and expect a ROI from the support ticket (e.g., people knowing they're committing fraud likely won't) and even if it doesn't it directly funds the support so if people want to pay you to waste your time and tell them no... well, no real loss.

Re: Update: Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation [resolved]

#114

Post by cryptoegorophy » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

That’s what you get for hating on PayPal, with them you get a dedicated manager once you reach a certain volume and you can resolve any question without any issues or delays.

Re: Update: Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation [resolved]

#115

Post by MerelyMortal » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

cj wrote: post #78

This reminds me of an issue my sister is having with Etsy. She runs an Etsy store with $1-2 million in annual sales, and her store keeps getting taken down by Etsy's automated copyright infringement system -- which keeps getting triggered by someone submitting fraudulent copyright claims and then immediately asking her to pay $5k/month in exchange for the person to stop submitting the infringement claims (in other wo…

It might be too late now, IDK, but perhaps she could lie and tell the attempted extorer that she already pays another extorter and can't afford to pay two extorters at once, and if they keep taking down their store, she'll tell the extorter that she can no longer pay them because of them and do they want another criminal coming after them?

Re: Update: Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation [resolved]

#116

Post by TAForObvReasons » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

jlokier wrote: post #99

DevX101 wrote: post #5

I'm glad your issues were sorted, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea that you need to make a social media post to get a customer service issue resolved. This isn't just stripe. I see this with many other companies on social media. I don't post on Twitter, and I'd rather not put my account details for some service I use in a public forum. It's starting to seem like for too many companies, resolving public complaints…

After 5 days of trying to get my bank account at Revolut unblocked so I could pay my rent with the cash locked up in it, having chatted with maybe 5 representatives, waited for hours each time (their only official contact channel was in-app chat and you had to wait hours for a response), got told "since you are not replying I'm closing this chat" a couple of times in the middle of the night while I was asleep having…

Frontline support is oftentimes outsourced to firms like Arise Virtual Solutions [1] and workers typically have very little authority to escalate or fix more complex issues. Social media people usually have channels to marketing and other teams and are explicitly instructed to escalate the "trending" cases

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/meet-the-customer-service...

Re: Update: Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation [resolved]

#117

Post by randomdata » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #13

DevX101 wrote: post #5

I'm glad your issues were sorted, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea that you need to make a social media post to get a customer service issue resolved. This isn't just stripe. I see this with many other companies on social media. I don't post on Twitter, and I'd rather not put my account details for some service I use in a public forum. It's starting to seem like for too many companies, resolving public complaints…

Sadly, this has been a thing for a while. As a T-Mobile customer, at one point, it eventually took me to put a request via Twitter to get the matter resolved in 20 minutes as opposed to previously spending hours on the phone with tech support ( with no results to show for it ). It is, quite frankly, infuriating; especially for a telecom. edit: I genuinely do not get why it took Twitter referral in my case either ( it…

Last time I had to speak to my telecom operator, which granted has been a while, Twitter was clearly where business took place. Interactions were always pleasant meeting them in the right place.

Isn't calling them by phone, as if you're still stuck in the 1950s, like showing up at the back door at a restaurant and wondering why you weren't greeted by the host and seated promptly? Maybe the surly dishwasher will eventually notice you standing there, but why would their 'A team' be there waiting for you?

Re: Update: Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation [resolved]

#118

Post by fnordpiglet » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:38 PM UTC

I would note that in a fraud investigation or other sorts of investigations of malfeasance in financial crimes a lack of communication is a key component. Communications provide information to the fraudster about which they can plan around the investigation or deceive it. It also provides a direct vector for social engineering. I’m not saying it’s all good or any commentary on the stripe issue, but from my work in this space it’s sometimes not about customer service but about investigating a possible financial crime - which financial services companies are on the hook for. It’s not the police’s job to KYC, AML, or other investigations - it’s the companies job, and if they do a bad job of it or do it in a way a regulator finds easily compromised, they are the ones liable.

Re: Update: Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation [resolved]

#119

Post by jaredsohn » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:42 PM UTC

james_pm wrote: post #97

cjbgkagh wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someday it’ll be cheaper to suppress negative views on social media than to address them. Until then I’ll enjoy the good times that come with being able to shame big companies in public.

Twitter Blue Plus - boosts your @ messages sent to verified companies to shame them more effectively.

Based on what you replied to, I thought you were going to say that Twitter Blue Plus allows you to suppress posts written about your company

Re: Update: Stripe is holding over $400k of mine with no explanation [resolved]

#120

Post by m-ee » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

hex4def6 wrote: post #105

neilv wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this extortion practice isn't a common curse of Etsy stores with her scale of revenue, I wonder whether it might actually be a competitor (who gets the sales and customers whenever her store is down).

That seems unlikely. The legal risk you put yourself in doing that would be easy higher than any gains you could hope to make. This is likely some callcenter-adjacent scam. They're probably doing this to hundreds of shops, and occasionally get one cave in and pay.

It happens on Amazon, there was a post on here about it. I’m not sure they’d want to double dip and demand the hush money in that case, but it seems possible it happens on Etsy too.