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My biggest problem with Stripe is that roughly 50% of transactions are declined! This is a huge business problem. Not uncommon either for Stripe users. I suspe

My biggest problem with Stripe is that roughly 50% of transactions are declined! This is a huge business problem. Not uncommon either for Stripe users. I suspect (without proof) that if you are a big trusted entity, Stripe and the whole financial system probably greases the wheels a bit to improve your success rate...

edwinwee 8y ago
Oof, that is a problem...a decline rate like that is not normal. Have you seen our guide on reducing your decline rate? https://stripe.com/docs/declines https://stripe.com/docs/declines If you email in (https://support.stripe.com/contact https://support.stripe.com/contact), we also have a declines team that can investigate (I'm also happy to help at edwin@stripe.com).
- Silhouette 8y ago
  Oof, that is a problem...a decline rate like that is not normal. Does Stripe publish any statistics on what is normal for decline rates, perhaps broken down by categories like payment method, whether it's a first payment or a subsequent subscription payment, how effective the various automatic retry strategies are at saving an initially failed charge, etc?
  - edwinwee 8y ago
    We haven't yet, but that's a neat idea...
SkyPuncher 8y ago
> My biggest problem with Stripe is that roughly 50% of transactions are declined! Are you guys actually collecting all of the relevant information for an account, like billing info? We've only had a single failed payment in the past year and it was an issue at the card's bank rather than Stripe.
- etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
  I collect only the most basic info, name, card number, zip, cvc. Maybe that's part of the problem? However this was the happy path that Stripe's docs encouraged me to use.
chmarr 8y ago
Are you running a store that sells stuff that could be easily resold, or action on your sales pages could be easily automated? If you're getting a lot of declines (and they're not due to tech issues) sounds like you're being used to use, or at least "test" stolen CC numbers. A lot chargebacks would mean you're selling porn ;)
- etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
  Nah, I'm selling API services. I have a majority of international customers, which maybe doesn't help...

edwinwee 8y ago

Oof, that is a problem...a decline rate like that is not normal. Have you seen our guide on reducing your decline rate? https://stripe.com/docs/declines https://stripe.com/docs/declines If you email in (https://support.stripe.com/contact https://support.stripe.com/contact), we also have a declines team that can investigate (I'm also happy to help at edwin@stripe.com).

Silhouette 8y ago
Oof, that is a problem...a decline rate like that is not normal. Does Stripe publish any statistics on what is normal for decline rates, perhaps broken down by categories like payment method, whether it's a first payment or a subsequent subscription payment, how effective the various automatic retry strategies are at saving an initially failed charge, etc?
- edwinwee 8y ago
  We haven't yet, but that's a neat idea...

SkyPuncher 8y ago

> My biggest problem with Stripe is that roughly 50% of transactions are declined! Are you guys actually collecting all of the relevant information for an account, like billing info? We've only had a single failed payment in the past year and it was an issue at the card's bank rather than Stripe.

etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
I collect only the most basic info, name, card number, zip, cvc. Maybe that's part of the problem? However this was the happy path that Stripe's docs encouraged me to use.

chmarr 8y ago

Are you running a store that sells stuff that could be easily resold, or action on your sales pages could be easily automated? If you're getting a lot of declines (and they're not due to tech issues) sounds like you're being used to use, or at least "test" stolen CC numbers. A lot chargebacks would mean you're selling porn ;)

etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
Nah, I'm selling API services. I have a majority of international customers, which maybe doesn't help...