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501 points eeemmmooo | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.838s | source

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.

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A4ET8a8uTh0 ◴[] No.34233273[source]
Sadly, this has been a thing for a while. As a T-Mobile customer, at one point, it eventually took me to put a request via Twitter to get the matter resolved in 20 minutes as opposed to previously spending hours on the phone with tech support ( with no results to show for it ). It is, quite frankly, infuriating; especially for a telecom.

edit: I genuinely do not get why it took Twitter referral in my case either ( it was a technical matter of moving one phone number from carrier to another, but do they have their 'A team' for social media only?). Well, did. No idea what Twitter looks like now.

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randomdata ◴[] No.34234749[source]
Last time I had to speak to my telecom operator, which granted has been a while, Twitter was clearly where business took place. Interactions were always pleasant meeting them in the right place.

Isn't calling them by phone, as if you're still stuck in the 1950s, like showing up at the back door at a restaurant and wondering why you weren't greeted by the host and seated promptly? Maybe the surly dishwasher will eventually notice you standing there, but why would their 'A team' be there waiting for you?

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1. reaperducer ◴[] No.34238109[source]
Twitter was clearly where business took place... Isn't calling them by phone, as if you're still stuck in the 1950s

You're using Twitter like you're still stuck in 2008? All the cool kids are on Vazpe32shaau! If you aren't reaching out to customer service on Vazpe32shaau, then you're not worth having as a customer!

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2. randomdata ◴[] No.34238182[source]
> You're using Twitter like you're still stuck in 2008?

That's approximately the timeframe when I last had to speak to my telecom operator, yes. Like I said in the previous comment, it's been a while.

I wouldn't expect that to be where business is conducted in 2023. The world certainly doesn't stand still. You can stand still if you wish, I guess, but don't expect everyone else to cater to that choice.

Don't get me wrong, I like banging out morse code on the telegraph as much as anyone, but if you don't get the desired results from it at some point you have to look inward.