It does sound exactly like that. Guy sold a van, but his business codes we completely unrelated to that type of transaction so it got flagged. It wouldn't surprise me if that was a common Stripe issue considering how easy and contact free it is to get started.
We sold a cheap van in the company name. I was 100% straightforward about this with Stripe. I would happily reverse the charge and reprocess it through our primary processor. The customer would also be willing. We have all the paperwork to prove the sale and a signed credit authorization. Stripe has asked us for 0 documents pertaining to the sale.
On top of being out this money, we have to remit sales tax to the state for this sale. It's not a truckload of money but it's enough to make a small business owner throw his head in his hands
If we are taking him at face value that he sold a van, should we also take him at face value that he would be happy to reverse the transaction to his customer and that Stripe is holding his funds hostage and is impossible to get a resolution from?
The core complaint about Stripe getting back to you is patently false -- it's simple enough to request a callback and a human from Stripe will call you. Typically within minutes.
> I used Stripe for about a year to run a small cell phone store in Denver
> [...] All of a sudden, we run a charge for $3300 because our primary
> processor in my business was down,
During the discussion it came out that this cell phone store used their Stripe account to sell a used vehicle[0], which is the sort of unusual activity that makes every regulated financial services company sit up and pay attention. A common risk mitigation is for the payment processor to hold the money in escrow until after the dispute period.
Why would this story be reposted without mention of the first post at all ?
Most social media advertising is made to look organic. For instance, Reddit's entire frontpage is typically astroturfed BS from marketing agencies with an angle.
Disclosure: I spent years on Stripe's IRC channel and most recently on Discord, so definitely biased.
People like to shit on Stripe due to bad customer support, but to be honest you could say the same about any other company.
There's always a better way to handle customer support, and the best way is to decentralize it.
When most of your customer support is locked in a geo-area, it's tough to get great customer support.
It's actually pretty simple to change this, you just need to be willing to change.
However as someone who is on Stripe's discord channel (for dev purposes), the # 1 issue is that people DO NOT know how to ask for help.
The amount of times folk comes into discord to ask about how to reset their password or block a credit card...in a channel called #dev-help... are you serious?
There's a whole customer support site with a LIVE-CHAT and yet you somehow make it to dev-help on Discord? You can't make this shit up.
The ease and availability of card processing has created an wealth of people who use it without understanding the agreements, risks and requirements of using it.
The processors focus on ease of use and friction-free on-boarding isn't helping matters.
Something gets picked up that shouldn’t be picked up by the automated detection systems.
For the average user this is uncommon so even if the offending communication is dealt with in a clumsy and slow fashion it doesn’t happen often enough to visibly impact the bottom line of the company.
Eventually over time users hear stories of this and as time goes by the more stories are heard until it reaches a point where the average user regards it as a fixed property of the system.
Reddit rants are by their nature difficult to believe. Also, the identical rant was posted previously under a different username so it's difficult to take seriously.
Though it wouldn't be surprising that small accounts are simply not worth offering phone support service in a low margin industry.
I think the number is around $100 to $150/hour in terms of fully loaded costs for even the most junior dev. So a half hour on the phone would cost $50 to $75.
The cost to get someone on the line with actual authority to reverse anti-fraud systems would likely be an order of magnitude more expensive.
Though it would be surprising if their email ticketing system didn't have a way to track cases. I wonder how true that really is.
[deleted]
Now imagine if you didn't live in SF.
Have you tried walking in the front door of the Whitehouse and asking for or insisting on government assistance?
I certainly hope that you'd get thrown out. It's easier for everyone if you go through the appropriate channels.
[deleted]
The typical experience is just fine and nobody posts to Reddit about it -- never mind posting twice.
No but when I was a kid there was a store that the phone company owned and you could go there to have issues handled.
Now stores are sales only, and customer service is online or on phone outsourced overseas.
Covid has been another excuse to cut back customer service and support.
It is quite easier to ignore people when they write an email and then go sit in a corner for a response that will never come.
It's disingenuous to tell people to go through proper channels when those channels are built to ignore or disregard people entirely.
I feel like we saw this exact story before. IIRC the guy sold a company truck or van.
It does sound exactly like that. Guy sold a van, but his business codes we completely unrelated to that type of transaction so it got flagged. It wouldn't surprise me if that was a common Stripe issue considering how easy and contact free it is to get started.
The relevant reply: https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/wa1zob/comme...
If we are taking him at face value that he sold a van, should we also take him at face value that he would be happy to reverse the transaction to his customer and that Stripe is holding his funds hostage and is impossible to get a resolution from?
The core complaint about Stripe getting back to you is patently false -- it's simple enough to request a callback and a human from Stripe will call you. Typically within minutes.
The linked reddit post is a word for word copy of an earlier reddit post by another user: https://www.reddit.com/r/stripe/comments/wa1zd6/run_from_str...
This is the same story as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32261868, even with identical wording. Interesting that it's posted by a different Reddit and HN account.
During the discussion it came out that this cell phone store used their Stripe account to sell a used vehicle[0], which is the sort of unusual activity that makes every regulated financial services company sit up and pay attention. A common risk mitigation is for the payment processor to hold the money in escrow until after the dispute period.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32264886
I swore I already read a post just like this one. I couldn't believe the "posted 10hs ago" time that reddit is saying.
Why would this story be reposted without mention of the first post at all ?
Most social media advertising is made to look organic. For instance, Reddit's entire frontpage is typically astroturfed BS from marketing agencies with an angle.
Disclosure: I spent years on Stripe's IRC channel and most recently on Discord, so definitely biased.
People like to shit on Stripe due to bad customer support, but to be honest you could say the same about any other company.
There's always a better way to handle customer support, and the best way is to decentralize it.
When most of your customer support is locked in a geo-area, it's tough to get great customer support.
It's actually pretty simple to change this, you just need to be willing to change.
However as someone who is on Stripe's discord channel (for dev purposes), the # 1 issue is that people DO NOT know how to ask for help.
The amount of times folk comes into discord to ask about how to reset their password or block a credit card...in a channel called #dev-help... are you serious?
There's a whole customer support site with a LIVE-CHAT and yet you somehow make it to dev-help on Discord? You can't make this shit up.
The ease and availability of card processing has created an wealth of people who use it without understanding the agreements, risks and requirements of using it.
The processors focus on ease of use and friction-free on-boarding isn't helping matters.
Yikes. Time to diversify processors
This is the same issue with content moderation.
Something gets picked up that shouldn’t be picked up by the automated detection systems.
For the average user this is uncommon so even if the offending communication is dealt with in a clumsy and slow fashion it doesn’t happen often enough to visibly impact the bottom line of the company.
Eventually over time users hear stories of this and as time goes by the more stories are heard until it reaches a point where the average user regards it as a fixed property of the system.
Reddit rants are by their nature difficult to believe. Also, the identical rant was posted previously under a different username so it's difficult to take seriously.
Though it wouldn't be surprising that small accounts are simply not worth offering phone support service in a low margin industry.
I think the number is around $100 to $150/hour in terms of fully loaded costs for even the most junior dev. So a half hour on the phone would cost $50 to $75.
The cost to get someone on the line with actual authority to reverse anti-fraud systems would likely be an order of magnitude more expensive.
Though it would be surprising if their email ticketing system didn't have a way to track cases. I wonder how true that really is.
I've got a killer startup idea. "Post your problem with <tech company> to HN as a service."