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Stripe's list of prohibited businesses

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Re: Stripe's list of prohibited businesses

#41

Post by throwaway_yy2Di »

pc wrote: post #25

I'm one of Stripe's cofounders. There are a few reasons businesses end up on our prohibited list: they're full of fraud (get rich quick schemes), legally regulated (guns, drugs), or regulated by card companies (pornography). In many ways, I'd prefer a world where Stripe's prohibited business list was no more specific than that of a web hosting service, and didn't prohibit anything beyond what's required by law. Howev…

This might seem unfair...

If it were unfair, your ToS would categorically prohibit itself, under B.5.56 "any... service... that is... unfair".

Re: Stripe's list of prohibited businesses

#42

Post by [deleted] »

pc wrote: post #25

I'm one of Stripe's cofounders. There are a few reasons businesses end up on our prohibited list: they're full of fraud (get rich quick schemes), legally regulated (guns, drugs), or regulated by card companies (pornography). In many ways, I'd prefer a world where Stripe's prohibited business list was no more specific than that of a web hosting service, and didn't prohibit anything beyond what's required by law. Howev…

[deleted]

Re: Stripe's list of prohibited businesses

#43

Post by pc »

throwaway_yy2Di wrote: post #41
pc wrote: post #25

I'm one of Stripe's cofounders. There are a few reasons businesses end up on our prohibited list: they're full of fraud (get rich quick schemes), legally regulated (guns, drugs), or regulated by card companies (pornography). In many ways, I'd prefer a world where Stripe's prohibited business list was no more specific than that of a web hosting service, and didn't prohibit anything beyond what's required by law. Howev…

This might seem unfair... If it were unfair, your ToS would categorically prohibit itself, under B.5.56 "any... service... that is... unfair".

Touché. We should probably remove that term.

Re: Stripe's list of prohibited businesses

#44

Post by wmf »

applecore wrote: post #36
t0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you enjoy being at the mercy of the credit card companies? How hard would it be to remove them from the equation?

They're a company that makes it easy to accept credit cards on the web. How can you remove credit card companies from the equation?

Some payment companies accept credit cards to reduce signup friction and then try to switch users over to ACH to reduce fees.

Re: Stripe's list of prohibited businesses

#45

Post by t0 »

pc wrote: post #40
t0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you enjoy being at the mercy of the credit card companies? How hard would it be to remove them from the equation?

It's a bit like asking how you feel about being at the mercy of Linux, or web browsers, or SSL. We work with the technology that exists. That's a little bit facetious, but though there are lots of aspects of the card networks that I dislike (and suspect will change), they work pretty damn well for most transactions. We could devote ourselves to usurping them, but it feels more interesting to see how rapidly we can ad…

Aaaaaand it's gone. The censorship is a bit high lately.

Re: Stripe's list of prohibited businesses

#46

Post by greenyoda »

wmf wrote: post #44
applecore wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're a company that makes it easy to accept credit cards on the web. How can you remove credit card companies from the equation?

Some payment companies accept credit cards to reduce signup friction and then try to switch users over to ACH to reduce fees.

Doesn't using ACH imply giving a company direct access to your bank account? Credit cards offer all sorts of consumer protections that ACH doesn't have, e.g., the customer can be immediately reimbursed for fraudulent transactions, etc.

Not to mention that credit cards allow people to buy stuff they can't really afford on credit. If you remove that ability, you'll be losing a lot of potential customers.

Re: Stripe's list of prohibited businesses

#47

Post by malandrew »

pc wrote: post #25

I'm one of Stripe's cofounders. There are a few reasons businesses end up on our prohibited list: they're full of fraud (get rich quick schemes), legally regulated (guns, drugs), or regulated by card companies (pornography). In many ways, I'd prefer a world where Stripe's prohibited business list was no more specific than that of a web hosting service, and didn't prohibit anything beyond what's required by law. Howev…

Perhaps, support on Bitcoin transactions with a caveat emptor notice for those that are full of fraud and regulated by card companies. I'm not sure what you can do about the legally regulated industries outside of operating via a joint partnership with an organization in a different jurisdiction than the US.

Re: Stripe's list of prohibited businesses

#48

Post by hga »

pc wrote: post #25

I'm one of Stripe's cofounders. There are a few reasons businesses end up on our prohibited list: they're full of fraud (get rich quick schemes), legally regulated (guns, drugs), or regulated by card companies (pornography). In many ways, I'd prefer a world where Stripe's prohibited business list was no more specific than that of a web hosting service, and didn't prohibit anything beyond what's required by law. Howev…

I don't completely buy it. Your proscribed list includes "(49) weapons and munitions", yet at least in the US, outside of a few slave states, there's no regulation of ammunition once it's imported or manufactured besides the usual ORD-M shipping requirements (ground). And I know for an absolute fact Mastercard has no trouble processing payments for mail order ammo, and the sites I use say they accept , Visa, Discover and Amex. Ditto for knives (e.g. see how many are for sale at Amazon).

For guns you're refusing to do business with Federal Firearms Licensees, the BATF even has a nice page allowing you to verify them: https://www.atfonline.gov/fflezcheck/

I am not aware of any case where the authorities have gone after a payment processor serving a store selling any of these items. It's certainly not common, we watch this because of all the illicit efforts by them to shut down gun stores and manufacturers.

In the long run you might find this policy politically crippling; e.g. it says something that 42 states, with Illinois joining them in a few months, have shall issue concealed carry regimes.

Re: Stripe's list of prohibited businesses

#49

Post by johnny22 »

kneisley wrote: post #20
rgbrenner wrote: post #15

I think most of these are reasonable, and I immediately see why they are on the list. I think I know why this is on there: "(10) age restricted products or services" But wouldn't that also apply to every business that has a COPPA disclaimer in its ToS.

Even though I said it wasn't absurd, this does seem contradictory since they seem to allow face-to-face tobacco sales, which are certainly age restricted.

face to face is CP (card present) . it's far less prone to any sort of fraud and IDs can be checked.
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