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You’ve come to the right place! This is where the Stripe CEO will reply to you when all their support processes have failed, and you have no other course to sa

You’ve come to the right place! This is where the Stripe CEO will reply to you when all their support processes have failed, and you have no other course to save your business. That’s the way all $122billion companies operate. If he hasn’t been here yet, stay on hold he’ll be here soon. Patrick? Catastrophic customer support fail call for you…. (Call waiting music….) Oh dear he’s on Christmas holidays. I’m pretty sure their automated processes suspended your account for good reason. If you feel this is not correct, email your case for why you should be allowed by us to have a working business to noreply@stripe.com

zerr 5y ago
Did anyone notice if Paypal CEO is also hanging here?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ognarb 5y ago
  That would be nice to know, our non profit organization is struggling to get a Braintree account enabled and their customer support just doesn't answer us.
  - styles 5y ago
    We used Braintree and during the time they were bought out by PayPal and all th terrible PayPal support was integrated. We could never reach a live person at Braintree again and ended up switching processors. It's scary to think a processor can't answer a phone call but hold your entire business' money in their hands.
  - weasel_whiplash 5y ago
    For what it's worth, we recently tried to get a new Braintree account set up (this summer) and ended up in the same situation. After a few months of trying to get in touch with them, a coworker of mine was told that Braintree is being integrated into PayPal and is no longer accepting new customers. We ultimately had no other choice than to switch payment processors.
    - ognarb 5y ago
      Thanks for the information. Looks like we will need to look at another payment processor and adapts our code to it...
m_st 5y ago
I love that comment. This is how support is handled these days. If you want to know whether a famous Windows audio app works on Surface X (ARM), just ask them on Twitter because the web site sucks and mails aren't replied. If you have an issue with your groceries, just call them out on Twitter because in the store they don't care. For big tech, use HN. Fine.
- zachrip 5y ago
  I personally don't see this as entirely a negative. If I have an issue usually I can just dm a company on twitter and I don't have to call anyone, deal with phone trees, or be there actively waiting for a response. I know this doesn't work well for folks that don't use twitter and it's definitely not a replacement for proper customer service. I do think it's a good addition to proper customer support, though.
  - eganist 5y ago
    > I personally don't see this as entirely a negative. If I have an issue usually I can just dm a company on twitter and I don't have to call anyone, deal with phone trees, or be there actively waiting for a response. I know this doesn't work well for folks that don't use twitter and it's definitely not a replacement for proper customer service. I do think it's a good addition to proper customer support, though. Pivoting the angle on your perspective a bit: "If a customer having a problem with our service isn't technical enough to backchannel us, they're not technical enough to be a viral thorn in our side." To be clear, this is a process defect, and no company should aspire to build this into their processes as a feature. It's a net negative for absolutely everyone except perhaps you, me, and in the short term, the company. I'd argue it's a long term negative for you and me too as we hawk a service to others based on our current experiences, keeping the product from improving for everyone, including ourselves.
    - zachrip 5y ago
      It could definitely (and is already) be a negative for some people. My hope is that support can become better and more async. By becoming async it becomes less "I get whoever I get when they answer the phone" and more "I get the support I actually need instead of being bounced around". I don't enjoy having to harass a company on twitter, I just hate it less than getting on the phone. A good example of this is apple card support. You just text the support line. It's great because I don't need to wait on the phone. If someone doesn't have the info I need they can pass it on without me needing to know about it. I can continue my day without making a chore out of something. This is the part I was trying to highlight (not the reduced access to support).
starklevnertz 5y ago
Last time Patrick was on HN customer support duty: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28522784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28522784
- chinathrow 5y ago
  Yeah and it worked last time. As a Stripe customer myself with way less revenue than OP, I worry about this a lot. How can any sane company terminate any client with revenue (any size) without having been in contact to sort issues before hand or if not possible, to terminate them with a grace period? This is insanity.
  - janoc 5y ago
    You don't know what the OP has left out of their post. I am pretty sure Stripe didn't terminate a major customer like that overnight because some admin or bot got bored.
    - chinathrow 5y ago
      Correct, but they stated they're in delayed fulfillment within the travel vertical.
    - busymom0 5y ago
      Google often does that to Google play developers so I don’t see why stripe can’t?
jacquesm 5y ago
The Stripe CEO was on HN before stripe was even a thing. This comment is disgusting on so many levels. In other companies the CEO wouldn't even give you the time of day whereas with Stripe if something goes wrong in their processes, which given the size of that company is by now inevitable there is at least one way in which you can try to correct this. Obviously, it would be great if nothing ever went wrong. It would be better still if Stripe had a couple of thousand people manning the phones over Christmas. But automation can and does fail and I figure that by now anybody that decides to farm out a critical portion of their business to a large company is able to figure out for themselves that such a dependency has risks as well as benefits. It still sucks for the OP, but your characterization, using a novelty account at that, is below the belt, especially on a one-sided story that appears to have plenty left out.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- norswap 5y ago
  Why is the comment so unfair though? It's true that for many companies, customer support is a joke in poor taste compared to the profits brought in by said customers. And "appeal through HN" often seems like the only solution that will get you unstuck. I think this event, and many others (and Stripe is very far from being the worse of the lot - looking at you Apple & Google) shows that these companies simply do not value their customers' peace of mind and are perfectly happy to send automated notices and perform automated takedowns without a (relevantly informed & powerful enough to act) human in the loop, and without the possibility of a meaningful appeal (that gives actual reasons and not "you have violated policies"). Automation can fail, but this begs the question of why this is automated in the first place, given the consequences. This is also not a business bringing in 100$ per month (though I will argue they also deserve respect, but I understand if they're not giving quite the same care as business bringing in hundreds of thousands or millions).
- norswap 5y ago
  > I figure that by now anybody that decides to farm out a critical portion of their business to a large company is able to figure out for themselves that such a dependency has risks as well as benefits. This is a disingenuous argument in general. If cars were much more unsafe than they are, would you also blame car crash victim for driving a car knowing what the risks are?
DenisM 5y ago
HN isn’t a place for this sort of rhetoric. From the guidelines: Don't be snarky. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

zerr 5y ago

Did anyone notice if Paypal CEO is also hanging here?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ognarb 5y ago
That would be nice to know, our non profit organization is struggling to get a Braintree account enabled and their customer support just doesn't answer us.
- styles 5y ago
  We used Braintree and during the time they were bought out by PayPal and all th terrible PayPal support was integrated. We could never reach a live person at Braintree again and ended up switching processors. It's scary to think a processor can't answer a phone call but hold your entire business' money in their hands.
- weasel_whiplash 5y ago
  For what it's worth, we recently tried to get a new Braintree account set up (this summer) and ended up in the same situation. After a few months of trying to get in touch with them, a coworker of mine was told that Braintree is being integrated into PayPal and is no longer accepting new customers. We ultimately had no other choice than to switch payment processors.
  - ognarb 5y ago
    Thanks for the information. Looks like we will need to look at another payment processor and adapts our code to it...

m_st 5y ago

I love that comment. This is how support is handled these days. If you want to know whether a famous Windows audio app works on Surface X (ARM), just ask them on Twitter because the web site sucks and mails aren't replied. If you have an issue with your groceries, just call them out on Twitter because in the store they don't care. For big tech, use HN. Fine.

zachrip 5y ago
I personally don't see this as entirely a negative. If I have an issue usually I can just dm a company on twitter and I don't have to call anyone, deal with phone trees, or be there actively waiting for a response. I know this doesn't work well for folks that don't use twitter and it's definitely not a replacement for proper customer service. I do think it's a good addition to proper customer support, though.
- eganist 5y ago
  > I personally don't see this as entirely a negative. If I have an issue usually I can just dm a company on twitter and I don't have to call anyone, deal with phone trees, or be there actively waiting for a response. I know this doesn't work well for folks that don't use twitter and it's definitely not a replacement for proper customer service. I do think it's a good addition to proper customer support, though. Pivoting the angle on your perspective a bit: "If a customer having a problem with our service isn't technical enough to backchannel us, they're not technical enough to be a viral thorn in our side." To be clear, this is a process defect, and no company should aspire to build this into their processes as a feature. It's a net negative for absolutely everyone except perhaps you, me, and in the short term, the company. I'd argue it's a long term negative for you and me too as we hawk a service to others based on our current experiences, keeping the product from improving for everyone, including ourselves.
  - zachrip 5y ago
    It could definitely (and is already) be a negative for some people. My hope is that support can become better and more async. By becoming async it becomes less "I get whoever I get when they answer the phone" and more "I get the support I actually need instead of being bounced around". I don't enjoy having to harass a company on twitter, I just hate it less than getting on the phone. A good example of this is apple card support. You just text the support line. It's great because I don't need to wait on the phone. If someone doesn't have the info I need they can pass it on without me needing to know about it. I can continue my day without making a chore out of something. This is the part I was trying to highlight (not the reduced access to support).

starklevnertz 5y ago

Last time Patrick was on HN customer support duty: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28522784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28522784

chinathrow 5y ago
Yeah and it worked last time. As a Stripe customer myself with way less revenue than OP, I worry about this a lot. How can any sane company terminate any client with revenue (any size) without having been in contact to sort issues before hand or if not possible, to terminate them with a grace period? This is insanity.
- janoc 5y ago
  You don't know what the OP has left out of their post. I am pretty sure Stripe didn't terminate a major customer like that overnight because some admin or bot got bored.
  - chinathrow 5y ago
    Correct, but they stated they're in delayed fulfillment within the travel vertical.
  - busymom0 5y ago
    Google often does that to Google play developers so I don’t see why stripe can’t?

jacquesm 5y ago

The Stripe CEO was on HN before stripe was even a thing. This comment is disgusting on so many levels. In other companies the CEO wouldn't even give you the time of day whereas with Stripe if something goes wrong in their processes, which given the size of that company is by now inevitable there is at least one way in which you can try to correct this. Obviously, it would be great if nothing ever went wrong. It would be better still if Stripe had a couple of thousand people manning the phones over Christmas. But automation can and does fail and I figure that by now anybody that decides to farm out a critical portion of their business to a large company is able to figure out for themselves that such a dependency has risks as well as benefits. It still sucks for the OP, but your characterization, using a novelty account at that, is below the belt, especially on a one-sided story that appears to have plenty left out.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
norswap 5y ago
Why is the comment so unfair though? It's true that for many companies, customer support is a joke in poor taste compared to the profits brought in by said customers. And "appeal through HN" often seems like the only solution that will get you unstuck. I think this event, and many others (and Stripe is very far from being the worse of the lot - looking at you Apple & Google) shows that these companies simply do not value their customers' peace of mind and are perfectly happy to send automated notices and perform automated takedowns without a (relevantly informed & powerful enough to act) human in the loop, and without the possibility of a meaningful appeal (that gives actual reasons and not "you have violated policies"). Automation can fail, but this begs the question of why this is automated in the first place, given the consequences. This is also not a business bringing in 100$ per month (though I will argue they also deserve respect, but I understand if they're not giving quite the same care as business bringing in hundreds of thousands or millions).
norswap 5y ago
> I figure that by now anybody that decides to farm out a critical portion of their business to a large company is able to figure out for themselves that such a dependency has risks as well as benefits. This is a disingenuous argument in general. If cars were much more unsafe than they are, would you also blame car crash victim for driving a car knowing what the risks are?

DenisM 5y ago

HN isn’t a place for this sort of rhetoric. From the guidelines: Don't be snarky. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html