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Whether it’s paypal, stripe or whomever else, it’s completely absurd that they can just hold your money hostage for indefinite period of time for no reason.

kayodelycaon 5y ago
Banks do this too. It’s an anti-fraud measure. The amount of fraud that happens in electronic payments is absolutely staggering. As soon as someone finds out your defenses are lower than someone else, you get spammed with people testing stolen credit card numbers. Your account can, and will, be blacklisted promptly. If your payment processor and the banks they work with don’t stop you, the credit card company will. This kind of thing happened at every place I’ve been at where financial institutions are involved. The size of your company does not matter. Visa has so many customers they do not need Amazon. If Amazon fucks up, they will pull the plug if something isn’t fixed.
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  Sure but for some of these stories, the provider is clearly just incompetent. I’ve read of PayPal holding $100,000 for 6+ months with no reason given or response. That goes far beyond an anti-fraud measure.
  - kayodelycaon 5y ago
    That’s because $100,000 is noise as far as they are concerned. The small company I work at has millions per week in transactions. We have little to no leverage against anyone.
  - avmich 5y ago
    If you delay payments to them for similar reason, you'll probably get an invitation to a court. How come you can't complain to the court about such a behavior?
    - corpdronejuly 5y ago
      Usually because of the terms of service. That said the fastest way to a resolution is often exactly this. Either get a lawyer to send a letter saying you're gonna file in court, or just file for arbitration yourself. If money on that scale is at stake, this is a comparatively cheap way to make sure a real human looks at the problem.
fisf 5y ago
Reading that on HN, where anti-crypto sentiment is generally very strong, is really ironic.
pvm3 5y ago
Companies make money on float[1], it is not surprising they would want to hold your money as long as possible. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/float.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/float.asp

kayodelycaon 5y ago

Banks do this too. It’s an anti-fraud measure. The amount of fraud that happens in electronic payments is absolutely staggering. As soon as someone finds out your defenses are lower than someone else, you get spammed with people testing stolen credit card numbers. Your account can, and will, be blacklisted promptly. If your payment processor and the banks they work with don’t stop you, the credit card company will. This kind of thing happened at every place I’ve been at where financial institutions are involved. The size of your company does not matter. Visa has so many customers they do not need Amazon. If Amazon fucks up, they will pull the plug if something isn’t fixed.

ceilingcorner 5y ago
Sure but for some of these stories, the provider is clearly just incompetent. I’ve read of PayPal holding $100,000 for 6+ months with no reason given or response. That goes far beyond an anti-fraud measure.
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  That’s because $100,000 is noise as far as they are concerned. The small company I work at has millions per week in transactions. We have little to no leverage against anyone.
- avmich 5y ago
  If you delay payments to them for similar reason, you'll probably get an invitation to a court. How come you can't complain to the court about such a behavior?
  - corpdronejuly 5y ago
    Usually because of the terms of service. That said the fastest way to a resolution is often exactly this. Either get a lawyer to send a letter saying you're gonna file in court, or just file for arbitration yourself. If money on that scale is at stake, this is a comparatively cheap way to make sure a real human looks at the problem.

fisf 5y ago

Reading that on HN, where anti-crypto sentiment is generally very strong, is really ironic.

pvm3 5y ago

Companies make money on float[1], it is not surprising they would want to hold your money as long as possible. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/float.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/float.asp