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Bolt: An End-To-End Payments Stack with Zero Fraud

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Re: Bolt: An End-To-End Payments Stack with Zero Fraud

#31

Post by skrebbel »

rbres wrote: post #11
kodablah wrote: post #7

Why do companies choose not to be 100% transparent? Any time I have to contact a company to see more or a demo or, even worse, see pricing, I close the page and make a mental note to never work with them in any capacity. I feel this type of boycotting is the only way to change the practice. I mean, you even hide your docs behind a password? How terrible. What are you keeping so secret? Does this translate to your oth…

Just launched a couple hours ago. Thanks for the find, and I agree fully with the sentiment. Docs are now fully public: https://docs.bolt.com/ Pricing varies depending on volume, risk, and a number of different factors given the complexity of payments (and that we're taking on full liability). But after a short call we provide a very simple flat rate with no BS. As much as we'd like to do one price, given the nature…

Marginally related question: I just read https://bolt.com/team and how do you build such a large company before even launching? I mean, you have a fulltime recruiter on payroll. If you started in 2014 and stayed stealth for 4 years, how on earth did you manage to raise the funds needed to a) survive and b) have such a large team?

Note: I mean this entirely unskeptically. I wonder how you pulled this off and I think it's a positive signal about your company that you did.

Re: Bolt: An End-To-End Payments Stack with Zero Fraud

#33

Post by tootie »

sprite wrote: post #16
rbres wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just launched a couple hours ago. Thanks for the find, and I agree fully with the sentiment. Docs are now fully public: https://docs.bolt.com/ Pricing varies depending on volume, risk, and a number of different factors given the complexity of payments (and that we're taking on full liability). But after a short call we provide a very simple flat rate with no BS. As much as we'd like to do one price, given the nature…

If you can't provide specific pricing maybe give a few sample pricings with different scenarios so people can at least ballpark it before requesting a quote?

I'd wager they are planning to A/B test pricing models and hence can't make a public commitment.

Re: Bolt: An End-To-End Payments Stack with Zero Fraud

#34

Post by jacksnipe »

juskrey wrote: post #12
rbres wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEO of Bolt here. We'll be writing more about this in the future. In short, our fraud detection is really really good (although not perfect). However, the fraud that ends up making it through the pipeline is so minimal that we cover it fully. So, for a small fee as an online business you never have to pay for / deal with fraudulent chargebacks again. There are other companies that do this, but none of them also do pa…

Is it always the case that more variables are necessary better? After some sweet spot, with more variables false correlations increase exponentially.

I believe that scaling would be quadratic; but yes, more features (variables) isn't always better.

However, you can't know which features carry information until you collect and analyze them. For a problem like fraud -- where "expert" input probably would not allow you to figure out which features you need ahead of time -- it was almost certainly more reasonable to gather all the data and then, after the fact, perform feature selection[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_selection

Re: Bolt: An End-To-End Payments Stack with Zero Fraud

#36

Post by ABCLAW »

rbres wrote: post #26
ABCLAW wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit, those are titanic interchange fees.

That's the starting processing rate for any major processor: - https://www.braintreepayments.com/braintree-pricing - https://stripe.com/us/pricing All of our clients (typically larger businesses) provide proof of lower rates with their existing processors and get those rates 100% matched. We do not negotiate processing, we just match the industry.

No, it isn't? Those are the prices for two providers that aren't even close to lowest-cost providers in the space. They compete on service, not price.

I can get .9 to 2.0% (depending on the industry of my business) off the shelf from at least 6+ sources.

And that's before any interchange rebate programs, volume discounts, or specially negotiated interchange waivers past a certain fee per quarter.

Re: Bolt: An End-To-End Payments Stack with Zero Fraud

#37

Post by rbres »

skrebbel wrote: post #31
rbres wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just launched a couple hours ago. Thanks for the find, and I agree fully with the sentiment. Docs are now fully public: https://docs.bolt.com/ Pricing varies depending on volume, risk, and a number of different factors given the complexity of payments (and that we're taking on full liability). But after a short call we provide a very simple flat rate with no BS. As much as we'd like to do one price, given the nature…

Marginally related question: I just read https://bolt.com/team and how do you build such a large company before even launching? I mean, you have a fulltime recruiter on payroll. If you started in 2014 and stayed stealth for 4 years, how on earth did you manage to raise the funds needed to a) survive and b) have such a large team? Note: I mean this entirely unskeptically. I wonder how you pulled this off and I think i…

Good question. It was actually pretty insane.

In payments, the MVP bar is high and we built like 4 companies in one (payment processor, fraud detection co, checkout platform, + more). So we had to raise a bunch, hire world-class people, and write code for a couple years before launch, all the while convincing investors that we weren't going to be another stealth-disaster-company. We then landed close to 100 customers while totally in stealth.

I'll be writing blog posts about how we did it -- from fundraising to recruiting to sales. It was 100 times harder than I ever imagined. But, it's made us stronger than ever.

Re: Bolt: An End-To-End Payments Stack with Zero Fraud

#38

Post by ikeboy »

goldenkey wrote: post #13
IshKebab wrote: post #10

So it's not really zero fraud, Bolt just covers the cost of fraud.

See the fine print too. They have tiered service. I don't know why they are advertising their super plan on the front page as if its their whole offering... "If you have Bolt's fraud indemnification, Bolt will fully cover the costs of and manage fraud-related chargebacks. But, you will still be responsible for Merchant-related chargebacks (damaged goods, goods not received, unhappy customers, etc.)" "If you do not ha…

So someone falsely claiming order not received is not covered. You don't cover friendly fraud.

Re: Bolt: An End-To-End Payments Stack with Zero Fraud

#39

Post by tomp »

rbres wrote: post #4
StavrosK wrote: post #2

Does anyone know how this guarantees exactly zero fraud? The page just tells you to book a demo.

CEO of Bolt here. We'll be writing more about this in the future. In short, our fraud detection is really really good (although not perfect). However, the fraud that ends up making it through the pipeline is so minimal that we cover it fully. So, for a small fee as an online business you never have to pay for / deal with fraudulent chargebacks again. There are other companies that do this, but none of them also do pa…

What happens if you're flagged for fraud? e.g. on a recent talk by a different company, the presenter said that buying Pepsi implies a slightly higher percentage of fraud than buying Coca Cola. What happens if I, a legitimate customer with a real, non-expired, not-overcharged credit card cannot make a purchase because your system flags my transaction as fraud?

Re: Bolt: An End-To-End Payments Stack with Zero Fraud

#40

Post by huhtenberg »

rbres wrote: post #4
StavrosK wrote: post #2

Does anyone know how this guarantees exactly zero fraud? The page just tells you to book a demo.

CEO of Bolt here. We'll be writing more about this in the future. In short, our fraud detection is really really good (although not perfect). However, the fraud that ends up making it through the pipeline is so minimal that we cover it fully. So, for a small fee as an online business you never have to pay for / deal with fraudulent chargebacks again. There are other companies that do this, but none of them also do pa…

Say, I got myself a credit card number of someone from Toronto, Canada and I am checking out through your system using a botnet-based Toronto exit node.

Similar scenario, but this time I am an actual owner of that Canadian credit card, but I'm using Tor (or VPN) with an exit in Romania.

Can you elaborate how your 200+ variables will be able to block first and allow second purchase?

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