I've been banging my head against a wall the past few days trying to work out a solution to this. I've yet to make a decision, but my discoveries / theories so far:
- Stripe Atlas accounts are treated separately to regular US Stripe accounts at the moment when it comes to address verification. My Stripe Atlas account has passed this verification fine because of this difference (maybe because Stripe auto-uses the Delaware registered agent I paid for during Stripe Atlas setup as physical address?), but a regular Stripe US account using the same Earth Class Mail address fails verification. Stripe support says this: 'The address given to you on your Stripe Atlas account will be valid as it is provided by our partner, but then for normal Stripe account, one requirement is to have a physical business address.'
- I'm wondering if the Earth Class Mail address for my Regular Stripe US account is failing specifically because it has the words 'PMB XXXX' (private mailbox) in the first line of the address. This address was given to me at random by Earth Class Mail when I created my Stripe Atlas account, and I didn't really think anything of it - but I can see how 'PMB' is an instant red-flag for not being a physical location. The exact error message I get is: 'Invalid address. Your business address must be a valid physical address from which you conduct business and cannot be a private mailbox'.
- Also stumbled across the virtual office solution. Instead of PMB's they have 'suite numbers' in an actual building. I agree it also feels hacky, and likely to come under the same verification issues, but might a short term fix for my PMB issue. A lot of the services I contacted seem a bit shady though. I even emailed one of Stripe's partners (usestable.com) with a specific question regarding if their virtual addresses still work with Stripe, and have so far got no response.
- Co-working spaces like WeWork and Regus offer a virtual office service, which seem a bit more legitimate than some of the specific virtual office services I've seen, but come with a higher price-point.
I will probably try a cheap virtual office solution first, then move onto the co-working solution if that fails. I want to try and avoid switching Stripe accounts if possible as I think it's going to cause a lot of pain with migrating subscriptions etc.
The meta-issue here is the quality of Stripe support. I have paid so much to Stripe in transaction fees, but when a problem like this threatens to shut down an account I operate, all I get from them is vague answers, pointing to documentation, and 'computer says no' responses from people who have no idea what they're talking about.