3 ms·

Wrong. I'm speaking from the personal experience of knowing poor people who have been hurt by this practice. There's no reason this couldn't have been implemen

Wrong. I'm speaking from the personal experience of knowing poor people who have been hurt by this practice. There's no reason this couldn't have been implemented by asking customers for consent. Consent isn't asked because it's not likely to be granted in many cases and they fucking know it.

nrmitchi 6y ago
Exactly. If Postmates (or Stripe, they can pass this logic through if they really wanted to) already knows (or thinks it knows) your new card details, it could just as easily be an in-app pop-up or push notification of "We've detected that your card you use on Postmates has been replaced. Would you like to update your account to the card ending in XXXX?" Extremely little use friction, it's a single button press, but it actually informs the user or what is happening. It would be really interesting to me to see the stats on how many users who have had their cards automatically updated actually make a purchase afterwards, and how many are zombies.
edwinwee 6y ago
If a cardholder cancels their account and gets a new one, that card number won’t be shared and updated with Stripe’s Card Account Updater. We work directly with each card issuer to update the number if the physical card is lost, stolen, or got renewed. The most common use case I’ve seen: a customer losing their wallet and then getting a replacement card. But when checking out on a site where they saved their card, they don’t have to re-enter their new number. This is why we call it Card Account Updater.
- staunch 6y ago
  Yeah, in other words, Stripe engages in exactly the unethical behavior I described above. Why does Stripe not insist on requiring customer consent for this feature created supposedly for their convenience? And we all know why: because a lot of customers would not consent to the thing Stripe does supposedly for their benefit. And then you couldn't write articles and sell Stripe as a solution to extracting money from people who, in many cases, don't actually want to be customers. You can blame people for not handling their finances better or claim that "everyone else is doing it" too, just like banks do with overdraft fees, but that doesn't make it less evil. Rationalize it however you want. You're hurting poor people.

nrmitchi 6y ago

Exactly. If Postmates (or Stripe, they can pass this logic through if they really wanted to) already knows (or thinks it knows) your new card details, it could just as easily be an in-app pop-up or push notification of "We've detected that your card you use on Postmates has been replaced. Would you like to update your account to the card ending in XXXX?" Extremely little use friction, it's a single button press, but it actually informs the user or what is happening. It would be really interesting to me to see the stats on how many users who have had their cards automatically updated actually make a purchase afterwards, and how many are zombies.

edwinwee 6y ago

If a cardholder cancels their account and gets a new one, that card number won’t be shared and updated with Stripe’s Card Account Updater. We work directly with each card issuer to update the number if the physical card is lost, stolen, or got renewed. The most common use case I’ve seen: a customer losing their wallet and then getting a replacement card. But when checking out on a site where they saved their card, they don’t have to re-enter their new number. This is why we call it Card Account Updater.

staunch 6y ago
Yeah, in other words, Stripe engages in exactly the unethical behavior I described above. Why does Stripe not insist on requiring customer consent for this feature created supposedly for their convenience? And we all know why: because a lot of customers would not consent to the thing Stripe does supposedly for their benefit. And then you couldn't write articles and sell Stripe as a solution to extracting money from people who, in many cases, don't actually want to be customers. You can blame people for not handling their finances better or claim that "everyone else is doing it" too, just like banks do with overdraft fees, but that doesn't make it less evil. Rationalize it however you want. You're hurting poor people.