9 ms·

It sucks this happened to you, but like with all the PayPal hate stories, I notice you're very careful not to describe what type of business you operate.

yaythefuture 4y ago
This is more a function of the fact that I don't want my business to be identifiable from this post than that it's a sketchy business. You'll have to take my word for it, but it's exceedingly benign.
- Exuma 4y ago
  Are you sure it's not a medium risk business that IS benign, but STILL is considered medium to high risk? For example, selling video game digital products like a strategy guide is benign, but gaming industry is ripe with fraud so most processors will give you shit if you're in the gaming niche, let alone (non-crypto) digital currencies, crypto, health products, non-snakeoil supplements, etc.
  - pmx 4y ago
    Even if this is the case, it doesn't mean that Stripe should just be able to turn off a 3rd of the guy's business with no warning or reason. If they don't like what he's doing, tell him and give him notice to switch to another provider rather than just tanking his business over night.
    - m4jor 4y ago
      Yeah that isn't how payment processors work. If his clients are in breach of Stripes TOS it puts Stripe at odds with the compliance teams at Visa/MC/Amex immediately if they are processing his payments. Source: I used to run adult websites which is considered 'high risk' and also these days responsible for overseeing 1M/m in CC processing for a state agency.
    - kevinmchugh 4y ago
      They only reason theyd do this is for reputation. They don't want a good reputation with people in risky business.
- deng 4y ago
  I believe you, but I was also triggered by this line here > They know exactly who our customers are and what services we offer, and have approved it as such. which sounds like you offer services out of the ordinary.
  - politelemon 4y ago
    Which is besides the point.
    - deng 4y ago
      It is not. A company like Stripe is free to decide it does not want to be associated with certain services. You may disagree with that, and I would certainly agree they should at least be upfront about it, but it is not beside the point.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        It certainly sounds like it’s some sort of e-pimp business based on what we know so far.
        bogwog 4y ago
        Source for that? OP is usign a throwaway account and hasn’t said anything about the business.
        bombcar 4y ago
        That's most of it; having clients that have their own sub-stripe accounts that are triggering fraud detection and not mentioning the business. It's not much to go on but it's all we have.
      - remram 4y ago
        It is free to do that, but if it decides it wants to kick customers out immediately without explanation, we are free to tell one another and use a different provider. That is the point we're discussing, whether the dev community can still consider Stripe reliable and professional.
- jessaustin 4y ago
  Since HN is a community, you might have more luck getting this fixed if you posted this with your regular username? Never mind this suggestion if you have previously posted "sketchy" opinions that would harm your business, although you may be past that point now...
  - trollied 4y ago
    Agree. The OP account was created today. If it was a long-standing user with lots of comment history, then I’d be more inclined to wonder what was going on etc. Creating a new account on here to potentially get support is just plain wrong, and needs dealing with IMO. Should never hit the front page.
    - yaythefuture 4y ago
      The problem is that my real HN account is my actual name. It'd be like 2 clicks to figure out what my business is.
      - jessaustin 4y ago
        Yeah, me too. I was wrong to suspect that you wanted to avoid associating your business with your HN content. So, are you trying to avoid leaving an online record of "this business helped Stripe screw over its customers"? Unless your customers have strong incentives not to talk publicly about their experiences, that ship has sailed...
        yaythefuture 4y ago
        Ha, not quite. It's more I'm concerned that people considering using my product will see this in the future (hopefully when this issue is resolved) and be wary of doing business with us.
        etcet 4y ago
        Is it an animal, a mineral, or a vegetable? Surely you can give us enough generic information that we can know roughly what kind of business you run without making it searchable.
mikece 4y ago
Does it matter? PayPal and Stripe don't advertise that they will only do business with organizations with which they agree. To accept a business as a client for a mission critical service like payment processing and then summarily cancel or suspend service without notice should be able to be prosecuted the same as someone who vandalizes a physical storefront to the point they cannot open for business. This is non-trivial and PayPal and others are acting like rat bastards to accept a client, get them dependent, and then dump them without warning.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Is it all companies that can no longer decide who they do business with in accordance with the terms of the contracts in place?
- bagels 4y ago
  It does matter if it actually violates the TOS, or could be vaguely interpreted to do so I guess?
  - mikece 4y ago
    And how many times does a company claim you have violated TOS and then refuse to tell you how you violated the TOS? To act in this manner nullifies the TOS in my opinion.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      It definitely sucks for the merchant companies ending up on the pointy end of the TOS. But you also need to consider the payment company side of things. They face a relentless tide of fraud and shady merchants. If they are too transparent about exactly how they detect a problem, that makes it much easier for the criminals, scam artists, and dodgy merchants to get around TOS enforcement. The real culprits here are the people trying to violate the TOS, plus everybody's desire for cheap services and easy onboarding. The historical alternative was very expensive setup (e.g., spend a few years building a relationship with your local bank branch manager and establishing a financial track record). Making it easy to get started means that most problems will show up down the road, and the lower merchant costs means less money to pay for smart people to carefully untangle the truly dodgy from accounts that just look that way.
jacknews 4y ago
Assuming it's legal, should it matter?
- tptacek 4y ago
  Yes, it matters deeply, because some product categories are so rife with fraud (or are positioned so prominently in the fraud value chain, from carders to cashers) that they can't be served cost-effectively by conventional payment processors.
  - tremon 4y ago
    That still does not excuse the total information blackout.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      I don't know what that statement has to do with my comment or the comment I replied to.
chernevik 4y ago
The post does note that Stripe has been supporting this business and these customers for years. If for some reason Stripe wants to withdraw that support, they must give their reasons and a proper period for transition to another provider.
awinter-py 4y ago
you're implying the business is illegal or violates TOS? if it's egregious, I'm assuming someone from stripe could get in here and ask permission from the OP to explain to the community what happened?
cwkoss 4y ago
The overwhelming majority of stories I hear about paypal fucking over businesses are about benign transactions. I don't think your judgmental paranoia is founded.
- StickyThink 4y ago
  I would agree with you, cwkoss, except for this: https://www.reddit.com/r/paypal/ https://www.reddit.com/r/paypal/ and https://www.trustpilot.com/review/paypal.us https://www.trustpilot.com/review/paypal.us and https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-03/paypal-customer-account-freeze-lawsuit-sent-to-arbitration#:~:text=Two%20California%20residents%20and%20a,their%20money%20placed%20on%20hold https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-03/paypal-cu.... (which was attempted as a class action lawsuit)
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    Are these supposed to be evidence that paypal doesn't fuck over businesses engaging in benign transactions? Because just seems to be evidence that paypal fucks a lot of businesses over.
derbOac 4y ago
FWIW, there was a story about this sort of issue on national radio (in the US) a few weeks ago. The gist of it was "I can't rely on Stripe for my payment system because they vanish too much for too long." The businesses were very not shady, and nowhere near morally controversial. My impression from that piece and these stories is that Stripe is having some technical problems and it's wreaking havoc everywhere.
- yaythefuture 4y ago
  I'd be curious to listen to this if you have a link?
  - derbOac 4y ago
    I was trying to find it but can't... I thought it was on Planet Money but might not have been. I'm pretty sure it was a program on NPR because that and college radio are about all I listen to on the radio, and it wasn't a podcast. I wish I could remember the details better. They were focused on small business owners, retail mostly. I think they started out with an interview of someone with an interior design-related business.

yaythefuture 4y ago

This is more a function of the fact that I don't want my business to be identifiable from this post than that it's a sketchy business. You'll have to take my word for it, but it's exceedingly benign.

Exuma 4y ago
Are you sure it's not a medium risk business that IS benign, but STILL is considered medium to high risk? For example, selling video game digital products like a strategy guide is benign, but gaming industry is ripe with fraud so most processors will give you shit if you're in the gaming niche, let alone (non-crypto) digital currencies, crypto, health products, non-snakeoil supplements, etc.
- pmx 4y ago
  Even if this is the case, it doesn't mean that Stripe should just be able to turn off a 3rd of the guy's business with no warning or reason. If they don't like what he's doing, tell him and give him notice to switch to another provider rather than just tanking his business over night.
  - m4jor 4y ago
    Yeah that isn't how payment processors work. If his clients are in breach of Stripes TOS it puts Stripe at odds with the compliance teams at Visa/MC/Amex immediately if they are processing his payments. Source: I used to run adult websites which is considered 'high risk' and also these days responsible for overseeing 1M/m in CC processing for a state agency.
  - kevinmchugh 4y ago
    They only reason theyd do this is for reputation. They don't want a good reputation with people in risky business.
deng 4y ago
I believe you, but I was also triggered by this line here > They know exactly who our customers are and what services we offer, and have approved it as such. which sounds like you offer services out of the ordinary.
- politelemon 4y ago
  Which is besides the point.
  - deng 4y ago
    It is not. A company like Stripe is free to decide it does not want to be associated with certain services. You may disagree with that, and I would certainly agree they should at least be upfront about it, but it is not beside the point.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      It certainly sounds like it’s some sort of e-pimp business based on what we know so far.
      - bogwog 4y ago
        Source for that? OP is usign a throwaway account and hasn’t said anything about the business.
        bombcar 4y ago
        That's most of it; having clients that have their own sub-stripe accounts that are triggering fraud detection and not mentioning the business. It's not much to go on but it's all we have.
    - remram 4y ago
      It is free to do that, but if it decides it wants to kick customers out immediately without explanation, we are free to tell one another and use a different provider. That is the point we're discussing, whether the dev community can still consider Stripe reliable and professional.
jessaustin 4y ago
Since HN is a community, you might have more luck getting this fixed if you posted this with your regular username? Never mind this suggestion if you have previously posted "sketchy" opinions that would harm your business, although you may be past that point now...
- trollied 4y ago
  Agree. The OP account was created today. If it was a long-standing user with lots of comment history, then I’d be more inclined to wonder what was going on etc. Creating a new account on here to potentially get support is just plain wrong, and needs dealing with IMO. Should never hit the front page.
  - yaythefuture 4y ago
    The problem is that my real HN account is my actual name. It'd be like 2 clicks to figure out what my business is.
    - jessaustin 4y ago
      Yeah, me too. I was wrong to suspect that you wanted to avoid associating your business with your HN content. So, are you trying to avoid leaving an online record of "this business helped Stripe screw over its customers"? Unless your customers have strong incentives not to talk publicly about their experiences, that ship has sailed...
      - yaythefuture 4y ago
        Ha, not quite. It's more I'm concerned that people considering using my product will see this in the future (hopefully when this issue is resolved) and be wary of doing business with us.
        etcet 4y ago
        Is it an animal, a mineral, or a vegetable? Surely you can give us enough generic information that we can know roughly what kind of business you run without making it searchable.

mikece 4y ago

Does it matter? PayPal and Stripe don't advertise that they will only do business with organizations with which they agree. To accept a business as a client for a mission critical service like payment processing and then summarily cancel or suspend service without notice should be able to be prosecuted the same as someone who vandalizes a physical storefront to the point they cannot open for business. This is non-trivial and PayPal and others are acting like rat bastards to accept a client, get them dependent, and then dump them without warning.

wpietri 4y ago
Is it all companies that can no longer decide who they do business with in accordance with the terms of the contracts in place?
bagels 4y ago
It does matter if it actually violates the TOS, or could be vaguely interpreted to do so I guess?
- mikece 4y ago
  And how many times does a company claim you have violated TOS and then refuse to tell you how you violated the TOS? To act in this manner nullifies the TOS in my opinion.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    It definitely sucks for the merchant companies ending up on the pointy end of the TOS. But you also need to consider the payment company side of things. They face a relentless tide of fraud and shady merchants. If they are too transparent about exactly how they detect a problem, that makes it much easier for the criminals, scam artists, and dodgy merchants to get around TOS enforcement. The real culprits here are the people trying to violate the TOS, plus everybody's desire for cheap services and easy onboarding. The historical alternative was very expensive setup (e.g., spend a few years building a relationship with your local bank branch manager and establishing a financial track record). Making it easy to get started means that most problems will show up down the road, and the lower merchant costs means less money to pay for smart people to carefully untangle the truly dodgy from accounts that just look that way.

jacknews 4y ago

Assuming it's legal, should it matter?

tptacek 4y ago
Yes, it matters deeply, because some product categories are so rife with fraud (or are positioned so prominently in the fraud value chain, from carders to cashers) that they can't be served cost-effectively by conventional payment processors.
- tremon 4y ago
  That still does not excuse the total information blackout.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I don't know what that statement has to do with my comment or the comment I replied to.

chernevik 4y ago

The post does note that Stripe has been supporting this business and these customers for years. If for some reason Stripe wants to withdraw that support, they must give their reasons and a proper period for transition to another provider.

awinter-py 4y ago

you're implying the business is illegal or violates TOS? if it's egregious, I'm assuming someone from stripe could get in here and ask permission from the OP to explain to the community what happened?

cwkoss 4y ago

The overwhelming majority of stories I hear about paypal fucking over businesses are about benign transactions. I don't think your judgmental paranoia is founded.

StickyThink 4y ago
I would agree with you, cwkoss, except for this: https://www.reddit.com/r/paypal/ https://www.reddit.com/r/paypal/ and https://www.trustpilot.com/review/paypal.us https://www.trustpilot.com/review/paypal.us and https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-03/paypal-customer-account-freeze-lawsuit-sent-to-arbitration#:~:text=Two%20California%20residents%20and%20a,their%20money%20placed%20on%20hold https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-03/paypal-cu.... (which was attempted as a class action lawsuit)
- cwkoss 4y ago
  Are these supposed to be evidence that paypal doesn't fuck over businesses engaging in benign transactions? Because just seems to be evidence that paypal fucks a lot of businesses over.

derbOac 4y ago

FWIW, there was a story about this sort of issue on national radio (in the US) a few weeks ago. The gist of it was "I can't rely on Stripe for my payment system because they vanish too much for too long." The businesses were very not shady, and nowhere near morally controversial. My impression from that piece and these stories is that Stripe is having some technical problems and it's wreaking havoc everywhere.

yaythefuture 4y ago
I'd be curious to listen to this if you have a link?
- derbOac 4y ago
  I was trying to find it but can't... I thought it was on Planet Money but might not have been. I'm pretty sure it was a program on NPR because that and college radio are about all I listen to on the radio, and it wasn't a podcast. I wish I could remember the details better. They were focused on small business owners, retail mostly. I think they started out with an interview of someone with an interior design-related business.