6 ms·

Great feedback... thank you. In case it's useful, some context on them: On (1), we started an FX team this year. (There are a lot of legal complexities here ar

by pc 6y ago

Great feedback... thank you. In case it's useful, some context on them: On (1), we started an FX team this year. (There are a lot of legal complexities here around how the funds move, who has title to what at which moment, and so on.) But we're investing significantly in improving it and it should get better soon. On (2), the core issue is card network pricing rules -- by design, they discriminate on the basis of where the business is located. We happily extend EU fees to all EU legal entities, however, and would be happy to work with you to set that up. On (3), refunds aren't free for Stripe, and we were previously in a position where businesses with a lot of refunds were being subsidized by those who didn't. We want to give this margin away more sensibly. Still, all the issues you bring up are real and I'd like us to find better solutions.

trevor-e 6y ago
Just want to say thanks for being so transparent with your answers in this thread, really appreciated. As a fly on the wall to most of this -- I don't have a business myself, yet ;) -- I'm learning a lot so far.
- m11a 6y ago
  Ditto. I don't know how he finds the time, and always touches his email in to make himself available to customers. It's customer service done right and it's great to see.
econcon 6y ago
Isn't FX a done deal based on how TransferWise is able to do it. Maybe you guys can collaborate with them and make payouts in any currency possible atleast in countries where there are no Forex restrictions like Hong Kong.
- joering2 6y ago
  Please no. TransferWise is terrible at customer support and internet is full of horror stories of people founds being frozen. The are the new incarnation of good ole’ paypal. You will get your account frozen the moment you wire more than$1,500 as per my own experience with 3 different businesses giving them a chance. I hope Stripe which is amazing will never have anything to do with TransferFraud.
  - byefruit 6y ago
    Not affiliated with TransferWise in any way but just want to say that this is totally the opposite of my experience and that of pretty much everyone I know who uses TransferWise. We've moved hundreds of thousands of dollars through them over the last couple of years with no problems on their end (we've had problems with banks failing to transfer correctly though..)
    - joering2 6y ago
      Glad to know your experience.
    - candu 6y ago
      Also not affiliated with them, and have been very satisfied so far. OTOH, I'm in Canada, and I've only used them for personal transfers. I have no idea how they perform for businesses, nor do I know whether they work well for individuals in other countries.
    - kernelbugs 6y ago
      I've had the same (mostly) great experience with them. My only issues with TransferWise have been having to ask recipients for their full addresses and then manually having to translate address schemes into something that fits in the boxes TransferWise provides in their forms. Sometimes things don't map over 1-to-1 (some Japanese and Taiwanese addresses, for example). I've also found that some Japanese banks only have one branch without a name and Transferwise requires a branch name. I eventually figured things out by researching the branch number online though. All minor gripes though. Transferwise has let my business operate smoothly and make connections to vendors that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive to pay.
      - timcameron 6y ago
        Hey kernelbugs, I work at TransferWise and would love to learn a little more about the issues you face with our address forms (it could be due to the fact that payment system limitations often lead to field limitation on our side). Hopefully I can help you figure out a way to make your life using our product easier as well. Could you please send me an email to tim@transferwise.com?
- sealthedeal 6y ago
  TW is not an ideal solution. I am biased, but IMHO using a service like Routefusion solves all of these problems. Companies like Elliot use our API's to settle CC transactions that are in different countries. You hook your Stripe account in and then they re-patriate the money to wherever it needs to go. Check us out! developer.routefusion.co
  - sealthedeal 6y ago
    -4 points. Maybe this reads as too self-promoting. Apologies to the HN'ers reading this :)
- dx034 6y ago
  I love transferwise and use their service for several currencies but it shows how hard it is to get right. E.g. EU customers in the US get a bank account on the name of Transferwise with you as the beneficiary. Even larger invoicing systems in the US can struggle with this as the person is not a US resident, has sole access to the funds and yet the account holder is a US entity. Customer Service, UX and speed are amazing. But it took me a while to convince US companies to accept this structure.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
plantain 6y ago
>(3), refunds aren't free for Stripe, and we were previously in a position where businesses with a lot of refunds were being subsidized by those who didn't. We want to give this margin away more sensibly. I understand they're not free, but I also understand Stripe does get a considerable portion back that they are no longer passing on? Couldn't this just have been applied to the problematic businesses then rather than all?
- pc 6y ago
  It varies based on the card type, country, and other things. We could expose all of that more directly but the trade-off there is obviously pricing complexity, which we'd like to avoid. In our analysis in making this change, we saw that this simply makes little difference for the vast majority of businesses. For example, if you're processing $100k/year and refund 5% of your payments (which would be on the high end of normal), it works out to about $12/month. While refund rate of course is not definitively coupled to the quality of a business, we do see across our portfolio that it is strongly correlated. Given a basket of possible fees (for example, higher fees on Amex, which most other providers have), we prefer the fees that, on the margin, are least consequential for the businesses that are doing the best job of serving their customers. Having said all of that, none of our pricing is cast in stone, and we always genuinely appreciate feedback, including contrary views.
  - infinitelurker 6y ago
    Are those fees also present for transactions that are refunded immediately before they batch (i.e. testing). Let's say a stripe IP wasn't whitelisted on the server and started being denied coming back, causing transactions to fail. If I want to do a quick live environment test on this it now costs my client money, which is not ideal.
    - adambyrtek 6y ago
      You can do that using Stripe test environment and test cards without any fees. Refunds can take over a week to get processed by some banks, so testing on live data doesn't sound like a great idea. But even if you have to do a couple of live transactions I don't see how the cost of refunds could be significant.
sealthedeal 6y ago
You should consider chatting with us @routefusion :) developer.routefusion.co we will solve all of those nasty FX problems your customers are having. Already doing it for a few other e-comm platforms that link into Stripe.
BartBoch 6y ago
A solution, it seems, might be to allow users to get free refunds for up to 5% transactions in current month. Anything above that is paid. This way regular members are not penalized by big refunders...

by pc 6y ago

trevor-e 6y ago

Just want to say thanks for being so transparent with your answers in this thread, really appreciated. As a fly on the wall to most of this -- I don't have a business myself, yet ;) -- I'm learning a lot so far.

m11a 6y ago
Ditto. I don't know how he finds the time, and always touches his email in to make himself available to customers. It's customer service done right and it's great to see.

econcon 6y ago

Isn't FX a done deal based on how TransferWise is able to do it. Maybe you guys can collaborate with them and make payouts in any currency possible atleast in countries where there are no Forex restrictions like Hong Kong.

joering2 6y ago
Please no. TransferWise is terrible at customer support and internet is full of horror stories of people founds being frozen. The are the new incarnation of good ole’ paypal. You will get your account frozen the moment you wire more than$1,500 as per my own experience with 3 different businesses giving them a chance. I hope Stripe which is amazing will never have anything to do with TransferFraud.
- byefruit 6y ago
  Not affiliated with TransferWise in any way but just want to say that this is totally the opposite of my experience and that of pretty much everyone I know who uses TransferWise. We've moved hundreds of thousands of dollars through them over the last couple of years with no problems on their end (we've had problems with banks failing to transfer correctly though..)
  - joering2 6y ago
    Glad to know your experience.
  - candu 6y ago
    Also not affiliated with them, and have been very satisfied so far. OTOH, I'm in Canada, and I've only used them for personal transfers. I have no idea how they perform for businesses, nor do I know whether they work well for individuals in other countries.
  - kernelbugs 6y ago
    I've had the same (mostly) great experience with them. My only issues with TransferWise have been having to ask recipients for their full addresses and then manually having to translate address schemes into something that fits in the boxes TransferWise provides in their forms. Sometimes things don't map over 1-to-1 (some Japanese and Taiwanese addresses, for example). I've also found that some Japanese banks only have one branch without a name and Transferwise requires a branch name. I eventually figured things out by researching the branch number online though. All minor gripes though. Transferwise has let my business operate smoothly and make connections to vendors that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive to pay.
    - timcameron 6y ago
      Hey kernelbugs, I work at TransferWise and would love to learn a little more about the issues you face with our address forms (it could be due to the fact that payment system limitations often lead to field limitation on our side). Hopefully I can help you figure out a way to make your life using our product easier as well. Could you please send me an email to tim@transferwise.com?
sealthedeal 6y ago
TW is not an ideal solution. I am biased, but IMHO using a service like Routefusion solves all of these problems. Companies like Elliot use our API's to settle CC transactions that are in different countries. You hook your Stripe account in and then they re-patriate the money to wherever it needs to go. Check us out! developer.routefusion.co
- sealthedeal 6y ago
  -4 points. Maybe this reads as too self-promoting. Apologies to the HN'ers reading this :)
dx034 6y ago
I love transferwise and use their service for several currencies but it shows how hard it is to get right. E.g. EU customers in the US get a bank account on the name of Transferwise with you as the beneficiary. Even larger invoicing systems in the US can struggle with this as the person is not a US resident, has sole access to the funds and yet the account holder is a US entity. Customer Service, UX and speed are amazing. But it took me a while to convince US companies to accept this structure.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

plantain 6y ago

>(3), refunds aren't free for Stripe, and we were previously in a position where businesses with a lot of refunds were being subsidized by those who didn't. We want to give this margin away more sensibly. I understand they're not free, but I also understand Stripe does get a considerable portion back that they are no longer passing on? Couldn't this just have been applied to the problematic businesses then rather than all?

pc 6y ago
It varies based on the card type, country, and other things. We could expose all of that more directly but the trade-off there is obviously pricing complexity, which we'd like to avoid. In our analysis in making this change, we saw that this simply makes little difference for the vast majority of businesses. For example, if you're processing $100k/year and refund 5% of your payments (which would be on the high end of normal), it works out to about $12/month. While refund rate of course is not definitively coupled to the quality of a business, we do see across our portfolio that it is strongly correlated. Given a basket of possible fees (for example, higher fees on Amex, which most other providers have), we prefer the fees that, on the margin, are least consequential for the businesses that are doing the best job of serving their customers. Having said all of that, none of our pricing is cast in stone, and we always genuinely appreciate feedback, including contrary views.
- infinitelurker 6y ago
  Are those fees also present for transactions that are refunded immediately before they batch (i.e. testing). Let's say a stripe IP wasn't whitelisted on the server and started being denied coming back, causing transactions to fail. If I want to do a quick live environment test on this it now costs my client money, which is not ideal.
  - adambyrtek 6y ago
    You can do that using Stripe test environment and test cards without any fees. Refunds can take over a week to get processed by some banks, so testing on live data doesn't sound like a great idea. But even if you have to do a couple of live transactions I don't see how the cost of refunds could be significant.

sealthedeal 6y ago

You should consider chatting with us @routefusion :) developer.routefusion.co we will solve all of those nasty FX problems your customers are having. Already doing it for a few other e-comm platforms that link into Stripe.

BartBoch 6y ago

A solution, it seems, might be to allow users to get free refunds for up to 5% transactions in current month. Anything above that is paid. This way regular members are not penalized by big refunders...