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83 points buf | 14 comments | | HN request time: 1.365s | source | bottom

I'm posting this as a warning to other startups who might be thinking of using Stripe to process payments.

I was employee #10 at Eventbrite, founding engineer at Reforge, Techstars alum, startup founder X 3. I can't imagine treating my users like this and I am really upset with how Stripe is handling this situation.

The situation: I own an online SaaS company that processes $500k+ per year through both Stripe and Braintree. I've been using Stripe for years.

Today I received this email:

[b]"Our systems recently identified charges that appear to be unauthorized by the customer, meaning that the owner of the card or bank account did not consent to these payments. This unfortunately means that we will no longer be able to accept payments for

Refunds on card payments will be issued in 5–7 business days, although they may take longer to appear on the cardholder's statement. Please refer to your dashboard for a list of the charges to be refunded[1]."[/b]

I have NO idea what payments they could possibly be referring to & support doesn't respond to my numerous messages. They won't tell me which payments are being refunded (dashboard link they provided just sends me to the list of ALL our payments).

There was a button to verify my identity, which I did, and an hour later, I got:

[b]"Thank you for completing our verification process. Unfortunately, after conducting a further review of your account, we’ve determined that we still won't be able to accept payments for xx moving forward."[/b]

I have messaged my friends who work at Stripe, and edwin@stripe who works there who responded to the last HN thread there was about this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21030633).

Until I get a response through a backdoor way in, my business is at a complete halt.

1. navd ◴[] No.28088283[source]
I'm currently running into this but the shutdown didn't occur until I was preparing for launch this week. I've gotten some success reaching out to them on Twitter but it's been a slow process convincing them that my business does not violate any of their T&C...

Please let me know if you have any other tips on resolving this in a fast manner...

replies(2): >>28088530 #>>28091407 #
2. buf ◴[] No.28088530[source]
Apparently the answer is create a Hacker News thread, tweet about it, have your Stripe PM friends contact internal support, have your VC friends round up some internal contacts in Stripe, contact old Stripe employees...

...until a real life person from Stripe support finally gives you the time of day.

Really poor process if you ask me.

replies(3): >>28091383 #>>28092242 #>>28096273 #
3. RikNieu ◴[] No.28091383[source]
Why do all major companies act like this? Facebook, Google, PayPal, Stripe...

Is this being taught in some Ivy League module somewhere? I'm genuinely baffled.

replies(3): >>28092784 #>>28095169 #>>28095273 #
4. edwinwee ◴[] No.28091407[source]
I'm sorry for the delays here. I've just sent you an email update. Your Stripe account's all set.
replies(3): >>28092179 #>>28098625 #>>28213606 #
5. navd ◴[] No.28092179[source]
Thank you Edwin. I really appreciate it!
6. navd ◴[] No.28092242[source]
You saved my project from certain death. Thank you
7. MattGaiser ◴[] No.28092784{3}[source]
It doesn’t scale. As soon as you start doing things that don’t scale at scale, costs soar.
replies(1): >>28105807 #
8. NathanielWest ◴[] No.28095169{3}[source]
Because they can, they pay no price for it That's what happens when you have monopolies and politicians who are supposed to antitrust them are corrupted by them
replies(1): >>28109172 #
9. is_true ◴[] No.28095273{3}[source]
Amazon is the only big company I know that, at least, seems to care. I had horrible experiences with MercadoLibre and it's payments platform.
10. Abishek_Muthian ◴[] No.28096273[source]
@navd @buf Was Stripe Radar enabled? If I understand right the source of the problem is that a scammer is using a stolen card to make purchase on your platforms?
11. zerr ◴[] No.28098625[source]
Interesting, how do you check/respond for such HN posts - do you take in count the upvotes/visibility on the front page, or you just scan "Tell HN: *Stripe*" posts even with zero upvotes?
12. busymom0 ◴[] No.28105807{4}[source]
How many businesses are they having to "shut down without explanation" that it doesn't scale? I understand if this was something like not responding to a wrong charge/refund etc for one customer. But here we are talking about shutting down someone's business without explanation. I do not think "scaling" is the problem here.

Also as someone else mentioned, as much as I love hating on Amazon, customer support is one place where they are absolutely outstanding. I have been able to reach out to their chat support and get issues resolved multiple times (refunds/item returns etc). If Amazon can scale it, then so can these payment processors.

replies(1): >>28110259 #
13. aaronchall ◴[] No.28109172{4}[source]
They might not be paying a big price today, but they do pay a price - their reputation is damaged and when other potential customers look at who to use, they give more consideration to alternatives.
14. afarrell ◴[] No.28110259{5}[source]
Sure, but people can only focus on so much at once. To achieve Amazon levels of customer support at Amazon scale, you need years of sacrificing other things in pursuit of customer service.

See this Jeff Bezos interview from 1999: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GltlJO56S1g