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501 points eeemmmooo | 7 comments | | HN request time: 1.274s | source | bottom

This is an update to my previous post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34189717 . Stripe has resolved the issue and everything has been released. I told the contacts at Stripe that I would do a write up about what happened from my point of view to help them understand what happened to me. I figured it would be good to do that write up publicly to help both Stripe and potential Stripe customers understand what happened and how it was resolved.

Summary: Stripe put my accounts in review for a spike in sales on Cyber Monday. Throughout the month we received very little communication from Stripe and had many support chats and calls. Keep in mind that the whole time Stripe was still accepting payments on our behalf on all of these accounts. Each of the chats/calls asked us to upload the same invoices each time for review and gave us vague information that our accounts were being reviewed. Finally out of frustration I posted on HN about my issue. Thanks to @dang for getting a Stripe employee to respond and he was finally able to resolve the issue for me.

Overall this review process was pretty bad. Very little communication and nothing I could really do directly to move things along or get any real information. It took a random Stripe employee to get an email from @dang and post on HN in order to get this issue resolved. I’m lucky because I know about HN and know that Stripe employees frequent the site, but I don’t think HN wants to become the Stripe support forum.

Stripe you can do better. We all know that in order to scale you need to automate pieces of your infrastructure and communication. But, there is a balance between automation and manual review. When someone like me gets caught up in an automated system there needs to be better ways of letting support help that person.

See my comments below for actual details and dates.

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DevX101 ◴[] No.34233215[source]
I'm glad your issues were sorted, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea that you need to make a social media post to get a customer service issue resolved. This isn't just stripe. I see this with many other companies on social media. I don't post on Twitter, and I'd rather not put my account details for some service I use in a public forum.

It's starting to seem like for too many companies, resolving public complaints has become a line item in the marketing budget.

replies(11): >>34233273 #>>34233335 #>>34233358 #>>34233481 #>>34233483 #>>34233484 #>>34234259 #>>34235004 #>>34235022 #>>34235713 #>>34236367 #
d883kd8 ◴[] No.34233358[source]
There's this other thing where instead of posting your Complaint to HN you can file your Complaint in a court of law, it's kind of like an analog version of Zendesk that every company has to use.
replies(1): >>34233423 #
1. bobbylarrybobby ◴[] No.34233423[source]
And it takes a thousand times as long and infinitely more money than posting a complaint online.
replies(1): >>34233540 #
2. cjbgkagh ◴[] No.34233540[source]
Small claims court is pretty good if it’s available to you and most disputes probably fit within the limits. These courts deal with corporate malfeasance quite a bit so they’ve likely seen it before. They’ll often penalize the offending company with 2x+ damages and if the company still won’t pay you can get a bailiff to come with you to go impounding assets. They use fire sale prices to offset the debt so it costs the company way more to let you walk off with assets than it does to cut you a check. So usually by that stage they relent and pay you your judgement.
replies(1): >>34234035 #
3. jimnotgym ◴[] No.34234035[source]
In the UK you couldn't claim $400k through small-claims, it is limited to £10k. Is it that high in the US?

You also can't get 2x damages, or a fast process!

replies(2): >>34234294 #>>34234361 #
4. cjbgkagh ◴[] No.34234294{3}[source]
> if it’s available to you and most disputes probably fit within the limits
5. criddell ◴[] No.34234361{3}[source]
Small claims is definitely less than $400k. In Texas the limit is $20k.

It probably doesn't really matter though. Your contact with Stripe probably requires arbitration but that isn't necessarily a bad thing either.

Check out:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31567673

replies(1): >>34237024 #
6. ethbr0 ◴[] No.34237024{4}[source]
Do you still technically have a contract with Stripe after they've suspended access to your funds?

I'd assume yes, but it seems weird to have a contract still in force with a company who refuses to do business with you...

replies(1): >>34276804 #
7. jacquesm ◴[] No.34276804{5}[source]
You can literally claim 'breach of contract' and force them to perform under the contract. Stripe can stop further processing under the contract by all past actions until their notice of termination is going to be under the contractual terms as prior agreed upon.