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Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

support.stripe.com

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Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#221
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some Stripe alternatives that provide Merchant of Record?

Paddle comes to mind.

Despite the clear advantages of the MoR model for many small and growth businesses there is still little competition in that space. Paddle is always the one that comes to mind because there are so few alternative resellers catering for the same merchants right now. The lack of a vibrant, competitive market for MoRs is a significant risk that has to be weighed against the advantages.

But in 5-10 years I won't be surprised if Paddle is the new Stripe because of that. It has the same feeling of being a disruptive upstart but solving a real and significant problem that Stripe had at the start. And with the way the political winds have been blowing in much of the world I can only see that problem becoming more significant for more businesses over the next few years.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Could you give an example as to why this would not be legal in some country of your choice?

In the case of card fraud, you don’t have a contract with the actual account owner. So taking that money results in THE COMPANY fraudulently charging a card. Again. In the case of an actual dispute (non-shipment, etc) you do have an actual contract. However, this smells like extortion(?). You didn’t deliver on your end of the contract (deliver goods) but are penalizing the other side for your failure to deliver. It w…

It seems that you're missing the obvious assumption that we're talking about disputes won by the seller, i.e. friendly fraud attempts.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of card fraud, you don’t have a contract with the actual account owner. So taking that money results in THE COMPANY fraudulently charging a card. Again. In the case of an actual dispute (non-shipment, etc) you do have an actual contract. However, this smells like extortion(?). You didn’t deliver on your end of the contract (deliver goods) but are penalizing the other side for your failure to deliver. It w…

It seems that you're missing the obvious assumption that we're talking about disputes won by the seller, i.e. friendly fraud attempts.

Yep, totally missed that.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#224
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not quite right. To simplify things, think of Stripe as an facilitator in the dispute process. Stripe has no influence over the outcome—it's at the sole discretion of the cardholder's bank. Stripe deducts a dispute fee to cover the cost charged to us for dispute submission. In the past, we returned this fee even though the card networks don't reimburse us. This is no longer the case (we now pass through the fe…

So basically, you're saying that your dispute fee costs have increased...but you pass along all those charges to the merchant anyways...so it boils down to: you're just increasing fees because you can under the guise of expenses that aren't your own.

I'm happy to explain this in depth if you'd like clarity (my username at stripe.com) but no, that's incorrect.

We're now charged more for dispute submissions. These costs are set solely by the card networks and we'll no longer bear those costs (bringing us inline with the market).

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#225

>Link, Stripe’s one-click checkout experience, can be used to process all domestic cards for 1.2% + €0.25 per transaction (or your local equivalent). This is probably the most annoying change. Raising the fees to push their card-storing solution.

We're able to offer lower card pricing with Link because it has much higher conversion rates (7% for logged-in Link customers, 2% overall).

It's clear that the card networks are committed to their higher fees. As a result, we’ve invested in lower cost options. That doesn't have to be Link (although it has tangible benefits), as there are cheaper non-card payment methods:

• Bank transfers (0.5% per transaction, capped at €5.00)

• SEPA Direct Debit (€0.35 per transaction)

• Bacs Direct Debit (1% starting at 20p, capped at £2)

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But fraud are the problematic ones, the normal disputes are not as costly

My experience is that disputes are 100% from Americans who are encouraged by banks to "just do a dispute" anytime they are dissatisfied with anything. And in 100% of these cases it is customers who forgot to cancel or just didn't need the service as much, not really any actual dissatisfaction. Most fraud is stopped by Stripe and not really a big issue, in some cases we do a manual check and it is obvious fraud (no ac…

On the other hand, the existence of a consumer-leaning disputes resolution system, while pretty unfair to merchants in some situations, is probably a big accelerator for e-commerce in general.

I'm much more likely to enter my card number somewhere online knowing that I'll be made whole if something doesn't work out than knowing I'll have to fight for my money back, submit evidence I might not have etc.

Just like with fraud [1], and for similar reasons, the optimal number of successful "false disputes" in a payments and commerce system is probably non-zero: Hopefully, for every dishonest/egregious dispute, merchants see dozens of customers that would otherwise not dare to do business with an unknown/new merchant.

[1] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#227
post #171
post #156

Oh, so I'm going to pay more for customers who have "premium cards"? > Standard EU cards: 1.5% + €0.25 per transaction > Premium EU card: 1.9% + €0.25 per transaction That sounds completely backwards. They chose to have premium cards, not me.

This is not about actual premium cards. Premium cards are defined by Stripe as: > Commercial, corporate, or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard The reason is that in 2015 the EU capped interbank fees to 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards. Visa and Mastercard (and issuing banks) managed to carve out an exemption for payment cards that are issued to businesses. These cards do have much higher fees.…

It would be bloody nice if the PaymentMethod object included a flag telling if Stripe thinks a card is premium or not.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the ballpark figure for the payments for this side project? $200 seems extreme unless your side project is charging $10,000~ per payment.

Amount $4,500.00 Fee $310.80 > Application fees: $180.00 > Stripe processing fees:$130.80

130 / 4500 is roughly 2.9% which seems reasonable - application fees are from the third party application ("platform") you use: https://stripe.com/docs/connect/direct-charges#collecting-fe...

Some on this forum may even say it's great that the APIs provided enable someone to build this additional payment app on top of Stripe that makes it easier for you to take payment in exchange for a 180 / 4500 = 4% cut. However maybe you should look into lower cost payment methods if possible.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#229
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically, you're saying that your dispute fee costs have increased...but you pass along all those charges to the merchant anyways...so it boils down to: you're just increasing fees because you can under the guise of expenses that aren't your own.

I'm happy to explain this in depth if you'd like clarity (my username at stripe.com) but no, that's incorrect. We're now charged more for dispute submissions. These costs are set solely by the card networks and we'll no longer bear those costs (bringing us inline with the market).

No, the problem isn't that you're passing along the larger fees that you're being charged for disputes, the problem is the additional fees that you're charging on top of those fees, and not refunding the fees that are refunded to you when stripe/the merchant wins a dispute, which is decidedly non-standard based on the set of payment processors we use at my current company.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#230
post #2

Something needs to change in the digital payments sector. 1.5% is ok-ish but 3.25% to accept foreign cards in the EU is a lot of money! I understand that costs are higher when using credit cards because of the credit part that introduces risk, but in my case for example I have a debit card that runs also over Mastercard, so either I have the money or I don't. Why should a merchant be charged the same fee of using a r…

https://www.epicompany.eu/

https://nordicpayments.eu/

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