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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

#21

Post by SwellJoe »

snackai wrote: post #18

So you guys relied on a single payment provider? And you chose a PayPal company to rely on? Well of course your accounts would be frozen someday. It's a PayPal company. Seriously what did you expect?

I'd expect that most companies rely on one payment provider, at least in the early days. The cost of implementing, testing, etc. multiple providers is pretty high. I have only switched providers twice in the decade long life of my company, and only due to extreme pain from the previous one. It takes a lot to get me to sign on for the pain of a migration, and that's even more pronounced now that so much data ends up stored in your payment providers database; so, your customer data isn't even yours to migrate, anymore (AFAIK, I haven't crossed this bridge yet, but I guess I will one day, if Braintree, who I'm currently using, does something to make their service untenable for us).

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#22

Post by intrasight »

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.

>a subsidiary of PayPal

And for that reason, I direct my clients to go elsewhere.

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#23

Post by kolinko »

sova wrote: post #15
zitterbewegung wrote: post #4

The post rambles for a long time and slings some mud against braintree. Their claim is that they couldn't do a wire transfer from their merchant account to their business account. Looking on braintree's website they don't appear to support Serbia. https://www.braintreepayments.com/en-si/country-selection?re...

If they are using USD I fail to see how country even plays a role. It makes sense if you are converting currency, you want to have a local office to keep some sort of buoyancy. However, if the currency matches your origin, then you can do digital business anywhere there's an ip address. I fail to see how country can play a role in what is presumably an entirely USD-based transaction.

Different regulations regarding money transmitting businesses in different countries.

Different countries require different paperwork from money transmitters, and you have tomcomplain with it. If you could just follow your country's red tape, all the money transmitters would just operate from an unregulated tax heaven...

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#25

Post by kolinko »

daenney wrote: post #16
dewey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He replied to that question on FB: "We had to open a company and a bank account in the EU."

Ah, that solves that mystery. Thanks! Also means that them being a Serbian company hasn't really got anything to do with why they had issues with Braintree.

Not necessarily. E.g. for PayPal you need to provide company president's home address in a given country.

I had a company and a bnak account registered in UK, and PayPal didn't want to do business with me, because I lived in Poland. I couldnt register for Polish paypal either, because the company was in UK.

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#26

Post by charlesdm »

kolinko wrote: post #23
sova wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are using USD I fail to see how country even plays a role. It makes sense if you are converting currency, you want to have a local office to keep some sort of buoyancy. However, if the currency matches your origin, then you can do digital business anywhere there's an ip address. I fail to see how country can play a role in what is presumably an entirely USD-based transaction.

Different regulations regarding money transmitting businesses in different countries. Different countries require different paperwork from money transmitters, and you have tomcomplain with it. If you could just follow your country's red tape, all the money transmitters would just operate from an unregulated tax heaven...

This sounds like the Paypal stories all over again. Oh wait, Paypal acquired Braintree.

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#27

Post by snackai »

SwellJoe wrote: post #21
snackai wrote: post #18

So you guys relied on a single payment provider? And you chose a PayPal company to rely on? Well of course your accounts would be frozen someday. It's a PayPal company. Seriously what did you expect?

I'd expect that most companies rely on one payment provider, at least in the early days. The cost of implementing, testing, etc. multiple providers is pretty high. I have only switched providers twice in the decade long life of my company, and only due to extreme pain from the previous one. It takes a lot to get me to sign on for the pain of a migration, and that's even more pronounced now that so much data ends up s…

Of course it is painful to implement a seconds provider for backup, but payments are their lifeline. And PayPal has a track record for stuff like that. Never rely your whole business on PayPal!

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#29

Post by whalesalad »

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.

Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia

#30

Post by wheelerwj »

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.

you can't pay your drivers if you have no money...
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