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How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

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Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#121

Post by flurdy »

pm90 wrote: post #56
wheelerwj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe, probably, is going to handle something like this the best. but there are a TON of "alternatives" out there.

Is it very hard to roll an in house solution in collaboration with a local bank?

Not hard. And is an option as a fall back mode. Especially if not making any money yet....

But not one I would recommend. As you would spend too much of your time on your payment solution than your business. Continually trying to detect fraud, recovering from devastating fraud that has already happened, dealing with volumes of chargebacks, hiring a lot of customer service people, wasting time on edge cases, accepting customers from different countries, dealign with legal from different countries etc.

If only a niche business for local customers, with low volume, then fine. Not for nationwide, definitely not for international, and not for big volumes.

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#122

Post by smdz »

justin66 wrote: post #13

As they're a subsidiary of PayPal, it really would require extraordinary evidence to convince me that Braintree doesn't suck. Sadly, no such evidence was offered in the linked post.

> As they're a subsidiary of PayPal, it really would require extraordinary evidence to convince me that Braintree doesn't suck

Really! If it is a subsidiary of PayPal - That itself is an evidence that stuff doesn't always work and destined for poor customer service. When stuff works with PayPal, it normally works. But when it doesn't work - it's almost impossible to get their Support to acknowledge the problem. I've been following up on two problems - first one is 10 months old related to reducing merchant fees (as they advertise), the second one is 6 months old related to incorrectly deducted chargeback fee (when there was really no chargeback). Every time they have a call with me, the support person doesn't know the history of the case. I've given up on those cases because its not a huge amount to crib on. For now, being outside the US, PayPal holds a strong monopoly. But Really - if its from PayPal, its destined to be poor customer service with some horror stories.

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#123

Post by jamiethompson »

Tarq0n wrote: post #108
scrollaway wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripe supports virtually all credit cards as well as alipay and bitcoin. If that's not most of the world, what is?

Credit card use is highly uncommon in large parts of Europe.

Really?

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#124

Post by otoburb »

skrebbel wrote: post #120
sk5t wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sorry if this sounds harsh to Americans, but the fact it was thanksgiving did not interest me in the slightest, as we are at work that day, and so are our banks. If you want to sell your service in the UK you should be available 9-5 UK time What does Braintree's SLA look like? Are these service levels something a UK customer ought to expect having enrolled for an account with Braintree?

How is the SLA relevant? I mean, GP is not blaming Braintree for breach of contract, they're blaming Braintree for shitty service.

The SLA is 100% relevant. If Braintree had an SLA that stated (hopefully clearly) that they would only be offering support during US hours then there'd be little standing to complain from a contractual standpoint.

No doubt this would be a questionable business practice on Braintree's part if true, but clarity around expectations from each party is pretty fundamental to the question at hand.

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#125

Post by wheelerwj »

briandear wrote: post #111
pm90 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it very hard to roll an in house solution in collaboration with a local bank?

I was about to say that this 'problem" smells like a potential new startup.

payments, in general, are terrible for startups. They are low margin, high capital cost, extremely regulated, and highly competitive. The incumbents have zero interest or incentive to work with you, so you have to be very well connected to get anything done. All of these alone make it a bad idea for a startup, but combined, they are nothing short of insurmountable for all but the experienced and well funded founders.

Here is a great piece by Danny Shader, CEO of PayNearMe. They are one of the most successful payments startups in recent history. You should give it a read: http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/17/so-you-want-to-start-a-pay...

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#126

Post by wichert »

jamiethompson wrote: post #123
Tarq0n wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit card use is highly uncommon in large parts of Europe.

Really?

For payments using direct bank transfers tends to be the standard approach in the EU, certainly for national payments.

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#128

Post by taBelgrado »

iaintnohacker wrote: post #34
whalesalad wrote: post #29

Sounds like you need to stop complaining and pick a new payment provider. Get a local loan, start giving away free rides, continue to pay your drivers and start a countdown clock to doomsday. That's how long you have to implement a new solution and recover from this. Or you can whine about it on Facebook and a few weeks from now you'll be forgotten.

Easier said than done...I already borrowed bunch of cash to keep the wheels spinnin...cant get a loan, as we got no physical assets, so doomsday came and I bitch about it. Still, it is unfair what they are doing to us, I am sure we are not the only ones too...

Have you considered getting a loan from a P2P lending network? I heard good things about mintos.com, check them out or google for alternatives.

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#129

Post by koolba »

otoburb wrote: post #124
skrebbel wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the SLA relevant? I mean, GP is not blaming Braintree for breach of contract, they're blaming Braintree for shitty service.

The SLA is 100% relevant. If Braintree had an SLA that stated (hopefully clearly) that they would only be offering support during US hours then there'd be little standing to complain from a contractual standpoint. No doubt this would be a questionable business practice on Braintree's part if true, but clarity around expectations from each party is pretty fundamental to the question at hand.

Bingo. It's not what you think you're going to get or what you want to get, it's what they said they're going to give you.

If the SLA says they're available from M-F 9am-5pm NYC time then you're SOL if you're expecting them to be around on Saturday morning.

EDIT: For the non-native speakers, SOL = Shit Outta Luck

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#130

Post by [deleted] »

koolba wrote: post #129
otoburb wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SLA is 100% relevant. If Braintree had an SLA that stated (hopefully clearly) that they would only be offering support during US hours then there'd be little standing to complain from a contractual standpoint. No doubt this would be a questionable business practice on Braintree's part if true, but clarity around expectations from each party is pretty fundamental to the question at hand.

Bingo. It's not what you think you're going to get or what you want to get, it's what they said they're going to give you. If the SLA says they're available from M-F 9am-5pm NYC time then you're SOL if you're expecting them to be around on Saturday morning. EDIT: For the non-native speakers, SOL = Shit Outta Luck

[deleted]
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