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Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned

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Re: Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned

#191

Post by rladd »

pc wrote: post #66
mchusma wrote: post #33

Note: this is different than Braintree and Amazon payments, which either refund in full or simply charge only the $0.30 fee. Stripe is now at or near the most expensive here relative to the competition. The idea that they have been doing customers a favor is not accurate. I have used stripe for years, but they are a company that has continued to make things worse with every update, versus AWS which has my trust they…

(I'm one of Stripe's cofounders.) Thanks for the candid feedback. A few quick thoughts -- - This is not a new policy change -- it's been our pricing for all new users since 2017. (The news is that we're now applying this pricing to Stripe's older users, in part as a response to some price increases that the card networks are making.) - Our policy on refunds is pretty much the same as Braintree's. - We've added a lot…

I was hit by this charge too, when doing some test purchases.

Support said "use test mode for that", but test mode is NOT adequate to fully test a live production system. The keys are different, the card numbers are different... it should work the same but may not.

With this policy change, there's no way to test a live production system without paying Stripe all the money it would have gotten if the charge were real.

And that's just a minor case. What happens if a huge fraudulent charge is made and we undo it before shipping product? We potentially get hit with huge fees, for no particular reason: Stripe doesn't have to pay those fees to the processor if there's a refund (Stripe cofounder, please correct me if I'm wrong).

That being the case, this is pure gouging and nothing else.

And gouging because others gouge is not a good reason or excuse. Be better, don't stoop to their level.

Re: Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned

#193

Post by patio11 »

abduhl wrote: post #190
patio11 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry that happened to you. Could you email me at this handle at stripe.com? I want to look into why we didn’t auto-detect that surge in suspicious transactions. We’re here to support startups. If you ever have a unique circumstance, write us; we’ll try to be reasonable, in the same fashion that your hosting provider will try to be reasonable if an engineer e.g. fumble fingers a deploy and briefly turns on a larg…

While this is an interesting response, it strictly does not the answer the poster’s question. Would they be liable for the fees for an attack like this?

It's difficult for me to predict our response in every possible hypothetical circumstance, so I'm promising what I feel we can actually promise: a human who cares about your success will review the circumstances and make a judgment call.

Re: Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned

#194

Post by thowfaraway »

sovande wrote: post #184
tomcam wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were a customer of Stripe, would you feel you were being treated well by this policy after you'd already been dealt a refund?

No, this is infuriating, but we must not forget that they “built an ML engine to automatically optimize bla bla bla.” But really, pretense should be off. Stripe is nothing more than a PayPal clone. Even the refund policy is now perfectly cloned. Someone here said that the only way our discontent can be heard is for us to switch between platforms regularly. Right now, PayPal does not look so bad. Their API and documen…

PayPal does not look so bad. Their API and documentation has also become pretty good.

Documentation has gone form terrible to bad. API has gone from always terrible to appearing OK but will periodically destroy your happiness and productivity for a week. I would never voluntarily work with PayPal tech.

Re: Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned

#195

Post by [deleted] »

patio11 wrote: post #193
abduhl wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is an interesting response, it strictly does not the answer the poster’s question. Would they be liable for the fees for an attack like this?

It's difficult for me to predict our response in every possible hypothetical circumstance, so I'm promising what I feel we can actually promise: a human who cares about your success will review the circumstances and make a judgment call.

[deleted]

Re: Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned

#196

Post by joecool1029 »

patio11 wrote: post #193
abduhl wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is an interesting response, it strictly does not the answer the poster’s question. Would they be liable for the fees for an attack like this?

It's difficult for me to predict our response in every possible hypothetical circumstance, so I'm promising what I feel we can actually promise: a human who cares about your success will review the circumstances and make a judgment call.

Translation: Come to HN with your problems and you'll get the VIP treatment while there's a spotlight on the company.

Attempting to find an answer as an outsider lead me to this PR release from last year: https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/chargeback-protection < It makes me assume that if the merchant wasn't paying that extra fee they are going to be slammed.

Re: Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned

#197

Post by commoner »

joecool1029 wrote: post #196
patio11 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult for me to predict our response in every possible hypothetical circumstance, so I'm promising what I feel we can actually promise: a human who cares about your success will review the circumstances and make a judgment call.

Translation: Come to HN with your problems and you'll get the VIP treatment while there's a spotlight on the company. Attempting to find an answer as an outsider lead me to this PR release from last year: https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/chargeback-protection < It makes me assume that if the merchant wasn't paying that extra fee they are going to be slammed.

I don't think that press release is applicable, since no chargebacks are involved here. According to Stripe's documentation (see submitted link), the merchant must still pay the 2.9% + $0.30 processing fee for each refunded transaction, unless Stripe's customer service representatives waive the fees as an exception.

But there is an issue with this euphemism in the parent comment:

> a human who cares about your success

If Stripe "cares about your success", Stripe would return the processing fee on all refunded transactions (regardless of whether they are fraudulent) just like Square and Amazon Pay does.

Re: Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned

#198

Post by belzebalex »

commoner wrote: post #114
pc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm one of Stripe's cofounders.) Thanks for the candid feedback. A few quick thoughts -- - This is not a new policy change -- it's been our pricing for all new users since 2017. (The news is that we're now applying this pricing to Stripe's older users, in part as a response to some price increases that the card networks are making.) - Our policy on refunds is pretty much the same as Braintree's. - We've added a lot…

This trend is awful for businesses. In October 2019, PayPal (which owns Braintree) also started to retain their 2.9% + $0.30 processing fee from refunded transactions. Stripe is now in the same class as PayPal. https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/20/20876570/paypal-refund-fe... Square still refunds processing fees to merchants for refunded transactions. They have the same fee (2.9% + $0.30) for online transactions, and a…

* Whistling * Crypto's coming!

Re: Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned

#199

Post by threeseed »

belzebalex wrote: post #198
commoner wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This trend is awful for businesses. In October 2019, PayPal (which owns Braintree) also started to retain their 2.9% + $0.30 processing fee from refunded transactions. Stripe is now in the same class as PayPal. https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/20/20876570/paypal-refund-fe... Square still refunds processing fees to merchants for refunded transactions. They have the same fee (2.9% + $0.30) for online transactions, and a…

* Whistling * Crypto's coming!

Crypto is like Linux on the Desktop i.e. about as popular as it's always going to be.

And the reason is that most people simply don't hate the status quo.

Re: Stripe refunds: fees from the original charge are not returned

#200

Post by nemothekid »

hawkice wrote: post #138
btown wrote: post #40

There's a vast payments ecosystem beyond Stripe that lets you avoid this. With companies like Spreedly to provide almost-Stripe-quality APIs and PCI-compliant card vaulting at only a flat cost, and a massive amount of "merchant account providers" a quick Google away that can hook into Authorize.net and then into Spreedly, you can end up at 1.75% or less depending on your industry, and the flexibility to dynamically r…

Wow, Stripe is the best developer experience? When I integrated a few months ago their documentation was so confusing I ended up giving up and not using it at all, relying on using a library for laborious guess and check, and watching the JSON responses. I suspect my product can still be purchased for free if you use that EU security feature because nothing could help me figure out when I need to use it or how to do…

Your experience isn’t invalid, but it’s by and far the best developer experience compared to everyone else.

Stripe was “bleeding edge” in their desicion to use JSON when I first integrated with them which was a hell of a lot easier than integrating with PayPal’s SOAP API

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