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Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

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Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#521

Post by parkerhiggins »

mtmail wrote: post #286
mgkimsal wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Stripe advises against that (I'm not saying it makes sense) "Do not use real card details. Testing in live mode using real payment method details is prohibited by the Stripe Services Agreement. Use your test API keys and the card numbers below." https://stripe.com/docs/testing

This cause exists not for product testing and QA but rather to prevent payment details for being abused in the name of “testing”.

Everyone runs 1-3 “real transactions” as a “real customer” when getting ready for a launch with QA.

This cause exists for Stripe to point to for excuses people make when attempting to wash transaction or test stolen CC info in a prod environment (which doesn’t work with a test api key)

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#522

Post by joecot »

bslorence wrote: post #512
joecot wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is between the company having their own merchant account with a bank (which is what most large companies do) using an online payment gateway, and not having one and leveraging the processor's instead (which is what Stripe, Paypal, etc provide). When you apply for a merchant account you get that approval and underwriting, but with a hefty application fee for obvious reasons. If your payment gateway shut…

What is a "large company" in this context? My employer is on track to run about $5m through Stripe this year, which will be our fourth full year using Stripe. Our first year we did about $2.75m. This year I've been getting occasional emails from a Stripe sales rep for the first time, which suggests that we've crossed some sort of threshold...

Your stripe transaction cost is probably around the advertised fee, 2.9% + 30¢

With an actual merchant account you can probably get closer to 2% or at least 2.5% + 25-30¢

At 5 million in transaction revenue, a .5% decrease would be 25k a year. You can probably get a larger decrease depending on how much risk your company's business has.

Stripe's sales rep might be contacting your company because you've hit the threshold where it's probably worth getting a merchant account, and they want to see if you're considering leaving to give you a discounted rate to stay. You're pretty much in Stripe's retention department because of your volume. It is definitely worthwhile at this point for your company to shop around for a merchant account. Some don't even have application fees if you're not a high risk business. At the least they can get an idea of how much they could save, and use that to leverage lower fees from Stripe.

I would still consider trying for a processing gateway that handles all the card transmission, though, even at a slightly higher margin. Handling the card at all means you need PCI Compliance. At your revenue you're probably PCI Level 2 or 3, which only requires a self-assessment questionnaire (that is lengthy but doable), and a quarterly vulnerability scan. At 6 Million transactions a year, you'll be PCI Level 1, which means you'll need an auditor to come in and look at your processes and policies.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#523

Post by disqard »

demarq wrote: post #464
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…

I'm surprised there is a next time. I think that's the biggest thing I see on this thread. That Stripe gets the chance of a next time. This validates what Stripe is doing to developers.

"What is water?"

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#524

Post by etcet »

yaythefuture wrote: post #365
jessaustin wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, me too. I was wrong to suspect that you wanted to avoid associating your business with your HN content. So, are you trying to avoid leaving an online record of "this business helped Stripe screw over its customers"? Unless your customers have strong incentives not to talk publicly about their experiences, that ship has sailed...

Ha, not quite. It's more I'm concerned that people considering using my product will see this in the future (hopefully when this issue is resolved) and be wary of doing business with us.

Is it an animal, a mineral, or a vegetable? Surely you can give us enough generic information that we can know roughly what kind of business you run without making it searchable.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#525

Post by mandeepj »

> You cannot call Stripe. They do not have a phone number. Their support page on their website has Phone call and messaging grayed out.

There you have it. Their core business model is to process payments for their own customers and they are gaslighting them with passion.

Lesson for all of us: We all are working to get paid, so before you finalize your payment processor and start the integration, make sure you are able to reach out to them via multiple mediums - phone/chat/email.

I believe it's time to show these idiots at S - how it's done. I've heard their founders talk, they come across as over-grown kindergarten kids. S to graveyard. The story of past.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#527

Post by hitekker »

pc86 wrote: post #295
redeeman wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have personal knowledge of more than one instance where stripe totally screwed over small companies and simply decided to ignore any contact for more than half a year, withholding the money and putting everyone in limbo. yeah, im sure its a minority of accounts at stripe, but seriously, do not take the chance!

Not to mention the several instances where pc will come into threads like this and outright lie about reaching out to customers, or will ask them to reach out then ghost them again, etc.

Do you have specific examples? Not to imply you’re wrong, I’m just curious

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#528

Post by Twirrim »

apeace wrote: post #393
krisoft wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> charging a real card, and if it works, reversing it Why would you reverse it? If you can’t afford to consume one unit of whatever you are selling are you really in a good place to be in that business? I guess there can be rare exceptions where the business sell only a handfull of high ticket items. But then again probably Fincantieri does not let you put your bespoke mega yacht on a card through a web transaction.

We are an internet service provider and we charge a monthly fee for our service. So the real thing I would've been doing was reversing the first month's charge and then cancelling the recurring subscription. Which is exactly what I'd recommend you do if you are launching a new subscription service on Stripe!

Why not just claim the expense on your card as business expense, and pay yourself back?

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#529

Post by 10g1k »

Western payment processors have proven in recent years that they will cancel/unperson anyone who doesn't fit with their political ideology. This is not the first instance of it happening. And it may not be any actual wrongthink; it may merely be perceived wrongthink or programmatically determined wrongthink.

Because of this, I strongly recommend connecting to Asian payment processors. Even Chinese is more reliable than western these days.

Re: Stripe has decided to nuke my entire business

#530

Post by jlokier »

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #287
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…

This is how an auto insurance company I used to work for wrote policies. They didn’t underwrite them until there was a claim and then they would rescind the policy and deny the claim when they found a “material misrepresentation”. They called it underwriting on the back end.

Sounds like private health insurance.

Initial form questions like "tell us if you have ever been to hospital for anything serious?", you're thinking "I'm not sure if that time I dropped in to the GP 5 years ago with a headache counts as serious [same for other things that seem trivial over the years, just being sensible]".

You phone the insurer to check, they say "oh there's no need to put that down, it's not meant for trivial things, you'd have to write an essay in a small box if we meant literally anything conceivable; don't worry about it". You couldn't possibly hope to remember every tiny thing over the years anyway, unless you had access to your various written medical records held by various parties.

10 years of premium payments later you make a claim because you now have MS, you need support and treatment, a brain scan confirms physical issues, and..... "your policy is invalid because you didn't tell us about that time you went in about a headache 15 years ago". They still keep the 10 years of premiums though.

You take them to court. Your lawyer mentions that this is extremely common practice by health insurance companies. They don't provide you with any way to confirm if your policy is valid until you make a claim, then it's too late. You did what you thought you were supposed to do. The lawyer says most people who then take the insurer to court are unable to prove they were misled, and the insurer keeps the premiums you paid despite not providing any actual insurance.

Don't ask me how I know.

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