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This isn't surprising to me, and I don't think less of Stripe for doing this. It appears everybody is jumping to conclusions. Saying Stripe is "stealing" is lau
by xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
This isn't surprising to me, and I don't think less of Stripe for doing this. It appears everybody is jumping to conclusions. Saying Stripe is "stealing" is laughable.
There is a tremendous amount of fraud abound. Payment service providers like Stripe sit in between businesses and credit card companies, who proxy banks, who proxy customers.
Banks are pretty solid, as are credit card companies, so the transitive nature of these transactions means Stripe proxies customers. A significant feature of modern payment processing is the ability to reconcile fraud for either party, but typically these measures are structured in a way to protect the customer.
For example, you buy a $3000 computer and the business goes under before they can ship it to you. It's likely you can get your money back by calling your credit card company but it's not like they're being generous. What happens is exactly what is happening here:
Money is held until it can be safely cleared without dispute; money is clawed back from merchant bank accounts and held until it can be cleared (there is practically no limit to what can be clawed back out of your merchant bank account).
If this makes you uncomfortable, don't deal with credit card companies, and only take cash. It doesn't matter who your payment processor is, this can and will happen with any of them.
I'm sympathetic to the OP here, but from a business perspective, the fact that this is such a significant event is a red flag. Shit happens -- your credit card could be stolen, you could be robbed, you could be defrauded -- it's prudent to have a safety net for when such things occur. And while realistically such safety can be unreasonable to secure, that just signals to me that so much of society is living at the edge of a knife. It's easy to be angry at Stripe here, but I believe that's misguided.
- nfreising 4y agoI don't think Stripe holding money is the problem here. The problem to me seems that there is no support to be reached at Stripe to dispute their decision or get a human to answer. I agree that OP's business doesn't seem that healthy if $3000 are such a big problem, however that doesn't make Stripe's non-existing support any better.
- xyzzy_plugh 4y agoI've dealt with Stripe support and it's been... fine? Good even? I can only assume that if they've gone radio silent there's a reason. I'm not convinced Stripe is acting in bad faith, as shitty as this is. (Unlike, say, PayPal, who is notorious for shit like this). At least one instance I'm aware of has to do with anti-money laundering regulations, where it can be disallowed to communicate regarding a pending investigation, but obviously I can't speak to if that's happening here.
- joshstrange 4y agoI'd be very interested to know what your issue was that they helped with. I'm 0 for 3 (potentially 1 is fixed now, 1 fixed itself, and the last I gave up on). Unless your issue is trivial you will be thrown in limbo and go days/weeks without a reply.
- anonymousab 4y ago> I can only assume that if they've gone radio silent there's a reason This is the fundamental mistake made when dealing with these corporations. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, but beyond that, any customer service system that has a heavy bot presence and outright removes inconvenient (for them) points of contact should be assumed negligent and suspect by default.
- norswap 4y agoWhy do you assume they're holding the money for legimitate reasons? I count as much more likely they're just fucking up and have no idea or don't care enough. Plenty of example of this, event amongst top tech companies: see the clusterfuck that is youtube copyright claims for instance. Every time there are automated flaggings, there are fuckups. We can accept it if there's an efficient way to challenge, but that's not happening. Stripe/Google doesn't care and/or it would hurt the bottom line too much. Also if credit cards company are much better at this, I don't see why Stripe gets a free pass for sucking.
- kylecordes 4y agoAll of the companies are needlessly inviting the wrath of regulation on themselves. Sooner or later (probably later) a political consensus could emerge to require detailed human review, subject to a regulator intervening on any/every case, whenever they keep more than $X for more than Y days. I suggest that it might be smarter for all of these firms to do a better job, voluntarily, of providing human interaction and review - to forestall such regulation as long as possible.
- EastSmith 4y agoWhat is frustrating for me and most of the folks here are the robot emails. Give me a effin proper response. I am your customer!
- Spooky23 4y agoFederal law requires that banks hold you harmless from certain perils. Your risk for the $3000 computer is limited to $50. Money is not held until cleared. Credit cards are a cash flow business and settle very quickly, but contract terms allow the credit card to recover chargebacks or other losses by nabbing future cash flows. My guess is the issue that triggered this is that a big transaction is a risk as a chargeback may not be recoverable as there is no baseline level of activity. Or… they suspect that the merchant is getting a cash advance outside of the terms of the contract. Other than the lack of process to resolve the hold, I always reserve judgement on stuff like this as you never get the full story.