5 ms·

> We actually have an ongoing project to reduce the occurrence of these mistaken rejections by 90% by the end of this year. I think we’ll succeed at it. (They’r

> We actually have an ongoing project to reduce the occurrence of these mistaken rejections by 90% by the end of this year. I think we’ll succeed at it. (They’re already down 50% since earlier this year.) More important than that is provide a way for people to get this revolved without having to make the front page of HN.

oconnor663 5y ago
One particularly frustrating aspect of fraud prevention is that fraudsters are better than the rest of us at getting human support staff to do what they want. They have way more practice, and they learn techniques that work from other fraudsters.
- pc 5y ago
  Right. It's a hard problem. That said, we think we can get better.
  - effingwewt 5y ago
    Let me help you. Stop relying on HN/Twitter as coalmine canaries and hire human fucking support. This trope is ground into the mud by now. You don't get to outsource customer support, or better- nix it entirely and then act all shocked shit like this happens. 'Oh no I have no idea how this happened, even though this was the exact plan when we went to email-only suppprt' If the entire road you have paved is one big crack in the ground, it's less like customers falling through the cracks and more like a city being swallowed up in an earthquake. It should be made law if you are a payimg customer companies should have to offer customer support that the customer can actually understand. Doordash and UberEATS are two of the worst companies in the US, and yet even they have (garbage, to be sure) customer service. You guys cut all corners in the name of the Holy Profit. So why the hell should we cut you slack when you fall in the pit you dug. Aww how cute you downvote me immediately with not a word of rebuttal. I'm sure because there is literally no excuse for this bullshit behavior. Im fine eating fake points to call you out on it.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    Reading the stories week in and week out, we think you can get better, too. Hopefully that's a more diplomatic version of my (somewhat valid) sibling comment.
    - harry8 5y ago
      That comment is a valid opinion and should _not_ be dead.
- fencepost 5y ago
  I'll say the same thing about fraudsters I tell clients about hackers, ransomware gangs, etc. What they do is their jobs and some of them are quite good at those jobs. Don't think of them as the stereotype angry teen that might have come to mind 30 years ago - these days it's more likely that they look just like your IT department working from home - or like technical employees in a Russian government office in Moscow.
- dwild 5y ago
  > One particularly frustrating aspect of fraud prevention is that fraudsters are better than the rest of us at getting human support staff to do what they want. They have way more practice, and they learn techniques that work from other fraudsters. Then put a flag on that account. Repetitive issues will make it clear what's happening. Fraudster also doesn't have the same needs as most customers, they don't need to keep the same account... at best the same account will barely give them more credibility, but that would no longer be true if a flag has been raised previously. There's plenty of ways to verify identities, use that when a flag has been raised previously. Again, something that sure a fraudster can do but lower odds than an actual customers.
  - morei 5y ago
    It's never that simple. You're implicitly assuming that a fraudster wants the account long term, which is rarely true. And identity is a VERY complex area, and nothing like as simple as "plenty of ways to verify identities". Particularly noting that fraud is often carried out by leveraging many partial opportunities: I use the (false/stolen) identity from over there to carry out of the fraud over here.
    - dwild 5y ago
      > You're implicitly assuming that a fraudster wants the account long term, which is rarely true. Wait what? Here my comment: > Fraudster also doesn't have the same needs as most customers, they don't need to keep the same account... How does I assume fraudster wants the account? I'm arguing the reverse, that they don't want it, thus give more credibility over anyone doing effort to get his account back. I don't understands that part, feel free to clarify it. > And identity is a VERY complex area, and nothing like as simple as "plenty of ways to verify identities". I was arguing that opening up customer service for theses instances won't be a huge risk if you keep a flag on the account as they fraudster don't need the account long term (as you seems to agree). Doing others verification is to reduce that risk further, risk that I already consider minimal. No one said that it would be 100% effective, nothing is perfect, sure some will be able to bypass, but as I said, they don't need to. > Particularly noting that fraud is often carried out by leveraging many partial opportunities: I use the (false/stolen) identity from over there to carry out of the fraud over here. Yup, thus why getting more proof of the user identity will allow to confirm he is actually who he is claiming to be. Here in Canada we can do that at Canada Post office. It's not something Stripe ask for, thus if someone with a flagged account ask to get it back, doing a local verification will most probably be harder for him.
mbreese 5y ago
I know it’s not an ideal support mechanism, but I think this is one of the services HN provides to the community (informally). It can provide backdoor/informal channels through engineers and founders to some rather large companies. Especially when other avenues fail. But for the community, in this case, not only Stripe gets to learn about the issue, but we can all take something from this about automated systems and needs for manual overrides/reviews. This type of “case-study” can help many other companies avoid similar problems. But we also get some of the back story from Stripe about why their systems are designed this way. What challenges they face that made these engineering choices make sense. I’m sorry that this happened to the OP. But at least this channel of communication exists. And I think we can all benefit from it.
- falcolas 5y ago
  It only exists as long as the post gains enough attention to get to the front page. Which doesn't happen for every post - not even most posts - which makes it an exceptionally poor avenue of support.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- rualca 5y ago
  > I know it’s not an ideal support mechanism, but I think this is one of the services HN provides to the community (informally). I would like to know where and why Stripe's customer support failed in this case. Or even if it failed at all. Those are the only relevant details. It's immaterial to the discussion whether any other web forum was used as an alternative to Stripe's customer support. I'm sure HN didn't signed up to be any company's customer support channel, or if it's reasonable to get it involved in this ordeal. If I have a problem with Stripe, I want my business to be dealt with Stripe directly, and in the process not get a web forum involved. I would hate to be in a position where escalating an issue so that it becomes a PR issue as well is seen as the first step in a problem-solving workflow.
rajeevk 5y ago
Only a few HN posts can make it to the front page. Only if you are lucky then you will be able to raise your voice through here. So I assume there would be many users out there affected like this and their issues were never resolved.
jjav 5y ago
> More important than that is provide a way for people to get this revolved without having to make the front page of HN. Absolutely! Mistakes are ok, it'll always happen. Great to try to minimize them, but there will always be mistakes. The real key is how they are handled and how easy it is to get a real responsive human on the line who is empowered to fix it ASAP.

oconnor663 5y ago

One particularly frustrating aspect of fraud prevention is that fraudsters are better than the rest of us at getting human support staff to do what they want. They have way more practice, and they learn techniques that work from other fraudsters.

pc 5y ago
Right. It's a hard problem. That said, we think we can get better.
- effingwewt 5y ago
  Let me help you. Stop relying on HN/Twitter as coalmine canaries and hire human fucking support. This trope is ground into the mud by now. You don't get to outsource customer support, or better- nix it entirely and then act all shocked shit like this happens. 'Oh no I have no idea how this happened, even though this was the exact plan when we went to email-only suppprt' If the entire road you have paved is one big crack in the ground, it's less like customers falling through the cracks and more like a city being swallowed up in an earthquake. It should be made law if you are a payimg customer companies should have to offer customer support that the customer can actually understand. Doordash and UberEATS are two of the worst companies in the US, and yet even they have (garbage, to be sure) customer service. You guys cut all corners in the name of the Holy Profit. So why the hell should we cut you slack when you fall in the pit you dug. Aww how cute you downvote me immediately with not a word of rebuttal. I'm sure because there is literally no excuse for this bullshit behavior. Im fine eating fake points to call you out on it.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Reading the stories week in and week out, we think you can get better, too. Hopefully that's a more diplomatic version of my (somewhat valid) sibling comment.
  - harry8 5y ago
    That comment is a valid opinion and should _not_ be dead.
fencepost 5y ago
I'll say the same thing about fraudsters I tell clients about hackers, ransomware gangs, etc. What they do is their jobs and some of them are quite good at those jobs. Don't think of them as the stereotype angry teen that might have come to mind 30 years ago - these days it's more likely that they look just like your IT department working from home - or like technical employees in a Russian government office in Moscow.
dwild 5y ago
> One particularly frustrating aspect of fraud prevention is that fraudsters are better than the rest of us at getting human support staff to do what they want. They have way more practice, and they learn techniques that work from other fraudsters. Then put a flag on that account. Repetitive issues will make it clear what's happening. Fraudster also doesn't have the same needs as most customers, they don't need to keep the same account... at best the same account will barely give them more credibility, but that would no longer be true if a flag has been raised previously. There's plenty of ways to verify identities, use that when a flag has been raised previously. Again, something that sure a fraudster can do but lower odds than an actual customers.
- morei 5y ago
  It's never that simple. You're implicitly assuming that a fraudster wants the account long term, which is rarely true. And identity is a VERY complex area, and nothing like as simple as "plenty of ways to verify identities". Particularly noting that fraud is often carried out by leveraging many partial opportunities: I use the (false/stolen) identity from over there to carry out of the fraud over here.
  - dwild 5y ago
    > You're implicitly assuming that a fraudster wants the account long term, which is rarely true. Wait what? Here my comment: > Fraudster also doesn't have the same needs as most customers, they don't need to keep the same account... How does I assume fraudster wants the account? I'm arguing the reverse, that they don't want it, thus give more credibility over anyone doing effort to get his account back. I don't understands that part, feel free to clarify it. > And identity is a VERY complex area, and nothing like as simple as "plenty of ways to verify identities". I was arguing that opening up customer service for theses instances won't be a huge risk if you keep a flag on the account as they fraudster don't need the account long term (as you seems to agree). Doing others verification is to reduce that risk further, risk that I already consider minimal. No one said that it would be 100% effective, nothing is perfect, sure some will be able to bypass, but as I said, they don't need to. > Particularly noting that fraud is often carried out by leveraging many partial opportunities: I use the (false/stolen) identity from over there to carry out of the fraud over here. Yup, thus why getting more proof of the user identity will allow to confirm he is actually who he is claiming to be. Here in Canada we can do that at Canada Post office. It's not something Stripe ask for, thus if someone with a flagged account ask to get it back, doing a local verification will most probably be harder for him.

mbreese 5y ago

I know it’s not an ideal support mechanism, but I think this is one of the services HN provides to the community (informally). It can provide backdoor/informal channels through engineers and founders to some rather large companies. Especially when other avenues fail. But for the community, in this case, not only Stripe gets to learn about the issue, but we can all take something from this about automated systems and needs for manual overrides/reviews. This type of “case-study” can help many other companies avoid similar problems. But we also get some of the back story from Stripe about why their systems are designed this way. What challenges they face that made these engineering choices make sense. I’m sorry that this happened to the OP. But at least this channel of communication exists. And I think we can all benefit from it.

falcolas 5y ago
It only exists as long as the post gains enough attention to get to the front page. Which doesn't happen for every post - not even most posts - which makes it an exceptionally poor avenue of support.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
rualca 5y ago
> I know it’s not an ideal support mechanism, but I think this is one of the services HN provides to the community (informally). I would like to know where and why Stripe's customer support failed in this case. Or even if it failed at all. Those are the only relevant details. It's immaterial to the discussion whether any other web forum was used as an alternative to Stripe's customer support. I'm sure HN didn't signed up to be any company's customer support channel, or if it's reasonable to get it involved in this ordeal. If I have a problem with Stripe, I want my business to be dealt with Stripe directly, and in the process not get a web forum involved. I would hate to be in a position where escalating an issue so that it becomes a PR issue as well is seen as the first step in a problem-solving workflow.

rajeevk 5y ago

Only a few HN posts can make it to the front page. Only if you are lucky then you will be able to raise your voice through here. So I assume there would be many users out there affected like this and their issues were never resolved.

jjav 5y ago

> More important than that is provide a way for people to get this revolved without having to make the front page of HN. Absolutely! Mistakes are ok, it'll always happen. Great to try to minimize them, but there will always be mistakes. The real key is how they are handled and how easy it is to get a real responsive human on the line who is empowered to fix it ASAP.