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Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

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Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#171
post #68

As someone with a pre-launch SaaS who just signed up for Stripe, reading this has me shook up a little bit. I'm Stripe-integrated for payments, and poised to go through Stripe Atlas soon, or at least I was.. Now I have no idea what to do. I know that OP's story isn't spotless, but what if it's my thing that gets in this situation too? I wish I could say I'm joking but I don't need this right now, I'm ~90 days out fro…

Use a middleware like Chargebee. Your subscriptions will be saved and there will be no change in UX when you are forced to change the underlying payment processor. Even before launch (assuming you’re a US business) you can have a backup in form of PayPal Payflow Pro, which integrates fine with chargebee.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#173
post #108

(Stripe cofounder.) Ugh, apologies. Something very clearly went wrong here and we’re already investigating. Zooming out, a few broader comments: * Unlike most services, Stripe can easily lose very large amounts of money on individual accounts, and thousands of people try to do so every day. We are de facto running a big bug bounty/incentive program for evading our fraudulent user detection systems. * Errors like thes…

Stripe’s customer support is absolutely horrible and ineffective, in my opinion. I have multiple firsthand data points, including three ongoing issues.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy cards means the cards protect the user's real cards not their identity. If you have ever been hacked or cannot cancel a renegade subscription, you would quickly grasp the need for Privacy cards.

Gym memberships are notorious for this, btw.

FWIW I've been fucked over by Standard Bank in South Africa for just this. It's not just "shady" operators.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#175
post #7

I guess stripe wasn't kidding when they said they would disrupt online payments. On a more serious note; How much further is society going to allow this kind of thing? Hiding behind templated e-mails without any explanation. Disrupting people's lives who become collateral damage with no way out.

How much further is society going to allow this kind of thing?

"what these corporations are doing is literally destroying the basis for a developed economy.... [They] have all collectively routed around the rule of law which is necessary for sustained economic growth over time.

In countries with strong rule of law:

1. Property rights over land, equipment, and personal items are clear and protected by law.

2. Contracts between people, businesses, and the government are effectively enforced by the legal system.

3. Political accountability is high and corruption is low.

4. Business regulations are clear and enforced in a transparent manner.

In such environments people make long-term investments and build large organizations. In contrast, if the property rights and contracts are not enforced and the business regulations are not clear, most of the economy consists of small family owned firms with little modern equipment. A high-tech, prosperous economy would not develop.

Effectively, there are no contracts anymore in the digital economy. There is no predictability anymore. There is no accountability. There is no responsibility. There are no requirements for performance anymore. In sum, the US digital economy is rapidly becoming the equivalent of a third-world economy, complete with crony capitalism and digital robber barons."

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if I want to disrupt a competitor all I have to do is hire a bunch of darknet identify thieves and you'll shut down their merchant account?

Great point. This does seem like an important vulnerability. I think one method of protection would be using Stripes Radar service to screen transactions for malicious patterns. While it probably won’t catch all fraudulent charges, it’ll catch a bunch. You can use that increase in rejected transactions as a canary to take a closer look at the other transactions coming through. Does anyone else have ideas on how you c…

Actually they are relatively cheap to purchase. It’s been a while since I saw numbers, but googling around seems like 25-50.

I also remember something about bulk sales.

If you never intend to capitalize on the gains other then an attack vector it would minimize the risk.

So eliminating someone’s business is 2% revenue * 25$ usd optimally.

Surely we can build a better service to get these costs down.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#178
post #108

(Stripe cofounder.) Ugh, apologies. Something very clearly went wrong here and we’re already investigating. Zooming out, a few broader comments: * Unlike most services, Stripe can easily lose very large amounts of money on individual accounts, and thousands of people try to do so every day. We are de facto running a big bug bounty/incentive program for evading our fraudulent user detection systems. * Errors like thes…

Sorry to say that, but the fact that founders have to post on Hacker News to get necessary support from Stripe in case something like this happens, gives the impression that your reply is just reputation damage control, and nothing will actually change.

It is just reputation damage control (i.e. this type of mistake will continue to happen - to err is human anyway), but communication is seen pretty favorably and it’s the sensible course of action.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a consumer, do you trust cryptocurrencies to get you a refund if the seller fails to deliver the product you've ordered?

this question always gets avoided, its great for the seller but the buyer is in a way wprse spot than before.

It requires a paradigm shift. Automated escrow services could handle almost every dispute where both parties are honest, APIs for validating shipping and handling of goods/egoods could handle another large chunk, and human dispute resolution could handle the remainder.

Such a service could be offered by the legacy payment providers.

I have used such services in the past, but still feel the field is ripe for disruption.

Re: Stripe banned us for payment disputes but we never had a single dispute

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gym memberships are notorious for this, btw.

Said gym memberships tend to be because you signed an annual contract, with specific requirements to cancel early. Using one of these one-time-use cards won't get you out of the debt itself, and these sorts of gyms will happily wreck your credit by sending it to collections.

I've heard of some cases where the contract auto-renews and requires an in-person presence during a limited time window to cancel when they're quite busy.

While I'm sure these places have it in their terms, just making someone sign a contract to agree to it doesn't make it not-unethical or not worth criticising. It just makes it "not illegal in some jurisdictions"

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