The article could also be called “Why selling crypto for real money tends to attract every card thief on earth and is the worst choice of business for your new startup”
They created a crypto startup that allowed you to purchase with stripe, then had a bunch risky transactions come through, which they diligently told stripe about. So stripe closed the account because it was high risk.
They were a magnet for fraudulent transactions and had a ton of support requests on how to block various things; I don't really blame stripe for not wanting to process them.
Keys4Coins is not a cryptocurrency company. We are an online shop for pc games. Your comment makes as much sense as it would saying Steam is a cryptocurrency company when they only accepted Bitcoin for payments.
If you read the article, they did get some seemingly nonsensical support responses from Stripe. Regardless of their application at the time they were a customer and given the standard customer-no-service support. That is notable.
You are right. It seems like a lot of people assume Keys4Coins is a crypto startup and we do not know why. They certainly do not bother to read the article or have a look on the website or they would easily see what we actually sell: pc games.
We are not a crypto startup. We are an ecommerce shop selling pc games. Cryptocurrency is a payment option. We did not sell cryptocurrency and we did not use Stripe for anythin related to cryptocurrency. Stripe was only used to sell video games. Also, we are not high risk, we are low risk. Go read the article.
Also, our support requests was in regards to a bug in Stripe's system that made some anti fraud measures not work at all. It is Stripes fault that the anti fraud rules we put in place did not work, not ours.
This is being downvoted however the irony is clear: this business seems to be a magnet for fraudulent transactions, so “honest” is a bit funny to me. I have been with Stripe since 2010 and have processed thousands of transactions with only two or three fraudulent transactions during that time period, this company is open five minutes and has to go to pretty strict lengths to combat fraud. It seems like that is a type of business that Stripe is better off not serving. The higher costs for serving those types of businesses means higher costs for everyone else who aren’t working in high-risk areas. Perhaps Stripe could have a higher fee tier for higher risk businesses — such as a 10% fee, but given that payments are such a compliance nightmare, even that doesn’t seem like a good idea.
However, thinking outside the box, it seems that the person who wrote the article might have stumbled on his next startup: Stripe for high risk startups. If the current market isn’t meeting defined needs, create a company to meet that need. If such a company doesn’t seem viable, then who could blame Stripe for not wanting to assume similar risk?
I help manage support at Stripe. While we can’t discuss an individual business’ situation publicly (feel free to write us at support@stripe.com), we agree that the emails here were confusing. I’ll look into what happened here and how we can fix any underlying issues.
Serious question: Is initial email support with Stripe handled by bots? Every time I've had an issue the replies from support@ have been so bad and so unrelated to the questions that I'm asking that I've resorted to calling it out publicly as a bot on Twitter. Only after I've done that do I start getting replies that are sane and relevant.
You have our contact information and are more than welcome to look into this.
We did send an email to support@stripe.com as you suggested and we asked for your attention but the response was:
"I'm reaching out to let you know that in case you have questions or concerns, I can personally assist you since Edwin Wee is somewhat not familiar to me."
The email continued like a copy paste with "do you have a question about" and listed 3 things and 3 links. When it was obvious why we contacted with a link to your comment here.
You're a Crypto business, there is no good payment processor for your startup.
Stripe literally says in their tos that you can't use their service to buy crypto
But the company is not selling that and their customers are not buying it.
Then, does that Stripe TOS rule relate to this case?
"Worst" choice? The reason Stripe exists is because PayPal is hard to trust. Don't even get started on Google Wallet/ Google pay.
The article could also be called “Why selling crypto for real money tends to attract every card thief on earth and is the worst choice of business for your new startup”
But also "why customer support has turned into a pointless exercise of copy pasting with zero understanding or decency".
Are you sure they sell CryptoCurrency? I thought they are only selling games, not crypto.
They created a crypto startup that allowed you to purchase with stripe, then had a bunch risky transactions come through, which they diligently told stripe about. So stripe closed the account because it was high risk.
They were a magnet for fraudulent transactions and had a ton of support requests on how to block various things; I don't really blame stripe for not wanting to process them.
They probably don't even have the option of supporting them; their upstream banking partners have restrictions on these kinds of businesses.
What do you mean by "these kinds of businesses?"
Cryptocurrency companies. Banks ban them.
Keys4Coins is not a cryptocurrency company. We are an online shop for pc games. Your comment makes as much sense as it would saying Steam is a cryptocurrency company when they only accepted Bitcoin for payments.
Do you accept cryptocurrency in exchange for USD-denominated gift cards?
If you don't know the answer to this question, why are you making these bold declarations about the company?
He knows that they do -- it's on the Keys4Coins front page.
In case this is genuine confusion, this is a rhetorical device. i.e.
A: "Do you want to go get ice cream?"
B: "Is the Pope Catholic?!"
The (obvious) "yes" to the second question is an indirect answer to the first.
If you read the article, they did get some seemingly nonsensical support responses from Stripe. Regardless of their application at the time they were a customer and given the standard customer-no-service support. That is notable.
What part of their business model suggests to you that this company is a "crypto startup"?
For my point of view, it does not seem that Cryptocurrency was their product. They are not selling Cryptocurrency AFAIK.
You are right. It seems like a lot of people assume Keys4Coins is a crypto startup and we do not know why. They certainly do not bother to read the article or have a look on the website or they would easily see what we actually sell: pc games.
We are not a crypto startup. We are an ecommerce shop selling pc games. Cryptocurrency is a payment option. We did not sell cryptocurrency and we did not use Stripe for anythin related to cryptocurrency. Stripe was only used to sell video games. Also, we are not high risk, we are low risk. Go read the article.
Also, our support requests was in regards to a bug in Stripe's system that made some anti fraud measures not work at all. It is Stripes fault that the anti fraud rules we put in place did not work, not ours.
With a domain like “honest.cash” what’s not to love?
This is being downvoted however the irony is clear: this business seems to be a magnet for fraudulent transactions, so “honest” is a bit funny to me. I have been with Stripe since 2010 and have processed thousands of transactions with only two or three fraudulent transactions during that time period, this company is open five minutes and has to go to pretty strict lengths to combat fraud. It seems like that is a type of business that Stripe is better off not serving. The higher costs for serving those types of businesses means higher costs for everyone else who aren’t working in high-risk areas. Perhaps Stripe could have a higher fee tier for higher risk businesses — such as a 10% fee, but given that payments are such a compliance nightmare, even that doesn’t seem like a good idea.
However, thinking outside the box, it seems that the person who wrote the article might have stumbled on his next startup: Stripe for high risk startups. If the current market isn’t meeting defined needs, create a company to meet that need. If such a company doesn’t seem viable, then who could blame Stripe for not wanting to assume similar risk?
It's not their domain, it's a blogging platform they use.
Your business is specifically of a restricted type according to their site. Why was this a surprise at all?
Why and how is their business of a restricted type?
I help manage support at Stripe. While we can’t discuss an individual business’ situation publicly (feel free to write us at support@stripe.com), we agree that the emails here were confusing. I’ll look into what happened here and how we can fix any underlying issues.
Serious question: Is initial email support with Stripe handled by bots? Every time I've had an issue the replies from support@ have been so bad and so unrelated to the questions that I'm asking that I've resorted to calling it out publicly as a bot on Twitter. Only after I've done that do I start getting replies that are sane and relevant.
You have our contact information and are more than welcome to look into this.
We did send an email to support@stripe.com as you suggested and we asked for your attention but the response was:
"I'm reaching out to let you know that in case you have questions or concerns, I can personally assist you since Edwin Wee is somewhat not familiar to me."
The email continued like a copy paste with "do you have a question about" and listed 3 things and 3 links. When it was obvious why we contacted with a link to your comment here.