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Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#221

Post by humanistbot »

layer8 wrote: post #202
awinter-py wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seriously you should write this as a blog (or if you are trying to be pseud, let me interview you and I'll write it) if this is SOP it's important information

I’m curious what benefit you think publishing the comment as a blog post would provide over the existent HN comment (which also has its own URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32855106 ). Possibly better SEO?

I've literally never seen a link to an HN comment go viral on social media, such that my non-HN friends would read it. It happens for blog/medium/substack posts all the time.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#222

Post by cm42 »

tlb wrote: post #190
ianhawes wrote: post #40

I will take the OP's story at face value, but I think a common theme in these sort of posts is the "Stripe not happy with my business model" angle which typically does not actually include any details about the business model. For example, a few weeks ago the founder of Tailwind tweeted [0] about how Stripe had shut down their account when they were set to launch the Tailwind Job Board, despite many other job boards…

Yes, they almost always fail to mention it. Then it turns out they’re selling cannabis to Iran or something. And (rightly so) payment processors can’t tell us what the problem is. So I’m inclined to flag all such stories missing the obviously key information.

"rightly so"

What possible benefit could there be to anyone in "golly gee, who could possibly know?" vs. "It's because you're selling cannabis to Iran, stupid"?

My guess is that it's because most people aren't selling cannabis to Iran, and the Real Problem is the liability they [Stripe, et al] would be exposed to if they admitted their billion-dollar system (and/or call center employees) can't distinguish between Cuba and a cubano.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#224

Post by bogwog »

bombcar wrote: post #115
deng wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not. A company like Stripe is free to decide it does not want to be associated with certain services. You may disagree with that, and I would certainly agree they should at least be upfront about it, but it is not beside the point.

It certainly sounds like it’s some sort of e-pimp business based on what we know so far.

Source for that? OP is usign a throwaway account and hasn’t said anything about the business.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#225

Post by WalterBright »

orionint wrote: post #121

Used to work for a “high risk” payment processor, we inherited tons of accounts that were terminated by Stripe, Square, and PayPal. Here’s one small bit of inside info that may help the newer businesses out there: Most real payment processors (e.g. banks, merchant services companies) “underwrite” a company BEFORE allowing them to process. Underwriting means they look over the business model, financials, etc and make…

I also learned the hard way to never rely on a single payment processor. It was an expensive lesson. Of course, being thick-headed, I had to learn this lesson twice before it stuck.

Always have at least two payment processors. If you've got a lot of money on the line, get a third lined up, too.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#226

Post by rickitan »

Suffering with a very similar situation but from Facebook. This hyper growth companies don't give a shit about customer support. They let their AIs and Machine learning models do all the work, which inevitably flags healthy businesses.

Reminds me of collateral damage and kills in a war.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#227

Post by wikitopian »

We've got to learn that this is an inevitable consequence of our appetite for automation and scale.

If your business is important enough that it can't risk falling into the endless hellpit of automated, anonymous, hyperscaled infrastructure, then don't build your business on automated, anonymous, hyperscaled infrastructure.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#228

Post by mardifoufs »

jstummbillig wrote: post #189
brightball wrote: post #131

Stuff like this is why I think a business should have a system that abstracts away the payment processor. I use Stripe for invoices, but I can easily send an invoice through another platform if needed. For processing transactions on the web, I would always lean toward using a service like ChargeBee that allows me to setup multiple payment gateways. Getting off the ground quickly is one thing, but the moment that you…

> Stuff like this is why I think a business should have a system that abstracts away the payment processor. Realistically, more humanly, payment processors and other big tech companies that are basically societies digital gum and infrastructure can simply not be tasked with making these calls. I also don't think they are very keen to do it but in the absence of timely regulation they must. There have to be more rigor…

But there are tons of rules and laws around payments already, and they are often the reason why providers are so trigger happy and conservative even if it means losing clients. Regulatory requirements (KYC, money laundering, sanctions) usually force them to make those calls, quickly and by design. It's very clear that most financial regulations are customer/client unfriendly, and inherently treat them with distrust.

I'm not saying that's an inherently good or bad thing... But it sure would be hard to fit both customer protections laws and service guarantees while at the same time having laws that explicitly force providers to do the opposite.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#230

Post by mgkimsal »

apeace wrote: post #198

I had a very similar experience, except it was on our launch day . We hadn't charged a single live customer yet, but we had done plenty of tests using the Stripe testing environment. So we go live with a huge launch event, and we have customers signing up in droves. When they get to the last step -- payment -- they get an error. Logging in to the dashboard I didn't see any indication that there was anything wrong wit…

> Next time I build something with Stripe I'm going to test it in production before launching

I'm genuinely curious why you wouldn't have done that anyway? I pretty much always do, precisely so I can experience a full end to end user experience.

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