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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

#261

Post by poxrud »

This is a disaster. Simply put, this change makes Stripe a nonviable option as an e-commerce payment processor. The modern consumer expects easy, no questions asked refunds. How many people buy a few shirts/shoes of different sizes knowing that they will return the ones that do not fit? How can a retailer provide that when there is now a 2.9% (in our case 3.5%) charge added on every item refunded?

This change directly hurts smaller retailers/e-commerce sites who are not big enough to negotiate smaller processing fees with Stripe.

I run a niche e-commerce site in Canada where the majority of my customers are located in the US. This puts my processing rate at 3.5%. My products are priced anywhere from $1k to $6k. So now with this change, I could pay up to $210 for when a customer simply changes their mind. I guess I could enact a strict NO REFUNDS policy but that will put me at a severe disadvantage vs the bigger retailers.

As things stand I would only recommend Stripe for recurring subscription billing.

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

#262

Post by Silhouette »

polemic wrote: post #139
Silhouette wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Payment providers have test gateways and cards for you to test your code against. And yet in 2020, you still can't write an automated test suite that spins up a virgin test environment, simulates all relevant scenarios, and allows you to quickly verify that your integration is responding properly as part of your normal CI process. Working with a single, persistent test environment that offers no facilities to manage…

I don't quite understand this comment. In my experience, payment processors (and related services) are somewhat unique in providing test gateways & APIs. Unlike other API services you can write integration tests against their test gateways. What are part of our industries is that normal? Most API-first services don't provide test endpoints at all.

In my experience, payment processors (and related services) are somewhat unique in providing test gateways & APIs.

They are also somewhat unique in that they handle real money. You don't need a simulated API if you're sending an email or SMS message to a designated recipient or downloading the local weather forecast or traffic news, because there are no significant and irreversible consequences to these actions anyway.

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

#263

Post by knudt »

ykevinator wrote: post #225
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…

We've been using stripe for years, this may be enough for us to switch. Is Amazon's service reliable, easy etc?

Wondering the same. This is the first I am hearing about Amazon having a payment service too.

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

#264

Post by ValentineC »

jasonkester wrote: post #248
commoner wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fee is only $1 when the transaction amount is $24.14. The fee is $29.30 for a $1,000 transaction. For industries with lower margins or higher refund rates, Stripe's refusal to return the fee on refunded transactions is a problem. Regardless, Stripe's nickel-and-diming is not something to be grateful for in any industry when there are competitors that don't do the same.

Feel free to substitue $29.30, or even $1,000 as values that should not sink one's software business. Considering how often you're going to be issuing refunds (I tend to do maybe 2 or 3 in a big month), I'd be surprised if we hadn't each spent more in billable hours typing into this text box than we will in Stripe refund fees over the next four years.

I organise tech conferences as part of a non-profit.

If I've already started selling tickets, and had to postpone the event because of something like COVID-19, I'd be looking at paying Stripe something like $3,500 in payment processing fees (it's 3.4%+$0.50 here; and assuming $100k in ticket revenue) for the privilege of refunding my attendees.

It's not an amount that would sink our non-profit, but the full fee is also not something that we should have to pay, just because we want to do right by our attendees.

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

#265

Post by commoner »

nickjj wrote: post #252
patio11 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that you are contemplating a build-or-buy decision and do not want to purchase the software which we sell. You can ask the engineering teams that you want to dedicate to this to scope out the build option; there are likely tradeoffs you can make which would make this a 3 engineer-year project or 30 engineer-year project. It is implausible that their design document for the build option will conveniently…

> I wish your teams the best of luck and skill in this project. If in the alternative you would like to dedicate their time and attention to more pressing concerns in your business, our software is available for 2 cents a transaction. Do you happen to work for Stripe support? I'm just asking because your response reminds me of how they addressed my questions in email. It's very dismissive of my original questions, an…

> Do you happen to work for Stripe support?

He does work for Stripe. There are at least 4 Stripe employees in this discussion performing damage control: pc, patio11, nkohari, edwinwee, and anyone who has not yet self-disclosed.

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

#266

Post by cwyers »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #223
fsloth wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the un-charitable interpretation. When dealing with complex problems with no clear cut analytical solution putting a real human in the loop who can make a judgement call instead of playing back a prewritten script is often the optimal solution.

> That's the un-charitable interpretation. Well, the truth sucks sometimes, doesn't it? Traditionally there's been 2 customer service lines: regular and VIP. Now there's 3: regular, VIP, and social media apology tour. And it'd sure be nice if these companies had decent policies to begin with... But that's the problem, isn't it?

Decent policies that apply in all situations and are robust against being exploited by bad actors are very, very hard to come by sometimes.

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

#267

Post by crankylinuxuser »

cwyers wrote: post #266
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the un-charitable interpretation. Well, the truth sucks sometimes, doesn't it? Traditionally there's been 2 customer service lines: regular and VIP. Now there's 3: regular, VIP, and social media apology tour. And it'd sure be nice if these companies had decent policies to begin with... But that's the problem, isn't it?

Decent policies that apply in all situations and are robust against being exploited by bad actors are very, very hard to come by sometimes.

I do get that. But many of these stories we hear have to do with consistent customers with a stable payment history and a good relationship. Something goes terribly wrong, helpdesk bombs it, and then what? Well, twitter, HN, reddit.

All I know is the current situation, well, stinks.

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

#268

Post by NicoJuicy »

commoner wrote: post #215
NicoJuicy wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's given an honest answer, the situation has to be checked. You don't know that the poster is 100% honest also. Patio has always been transparent and honest, long before he joined Stripe ;)

patio11 gave a nonanswer, which is hardly transparent. > a human who cares about your success Regarding honesty, if Stripe "cares about your success", Stripe would relinquish processing fees for all refunded transactions (regardless of whether they are fraudulent) just like Square and Amazon Pay do.

I'm pretty sure you don't have a big business.

Receiving a temporarily update on a situation that has to be checked, is better than no update.

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

#269

Post by lucaswb »

wonderwonder wrote: post #75
exhilaration wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use Adyen (we deal with international customers) and they've got the same rule - no test cards in production. I've never heard of a payment provider allowing test cards in prod.

I integrated with Adyen and found Stripe far easier to use. The international aspect forced me to use Adyen though. What was your experience like with them?

I work for Adyen and would love to talk over any feedback and suggestions you have to make the integration easier. My email is lucas@adyen.com

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

#270

Post by ativzzz »

mercwear wrote: post #232
ativzzz wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In house solutions. Once a company becomes large enough where paying a company like Stripe's fees becomes larger than hiring enough people to create and maintain an internal billing system, then you do it yourself. This is something that companies that are near public company size do since the amount of work required to meet payment regulations alone, not to mention all of the infrastructure to support things like su…

I have migrated 2 companies away from internal billing systems (one went to Stripe and the other went to Chargify). The amount of hacks that went into maintaining these internal systems was shocking. One company literally devised its own currency to deal with the complexity. Managing and developing your own billing system is a almost always a bad idea, no matter how big your company is. There is a high likelihood tha…

Yea it depends on the technological competencies of the company. I have a friend who works at a company who implemented their own, and they seem to be doing fine, but you hit the nail on the head saying

> you will end up running a business within a business if you go that route.

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