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Stripe works closely with banking partners and card networks in many countries. These institutions have strict rules that govern them. We have an obligation to

by smca 4y ago

Stripe works closely with banking partners and card networks in many countries. These institutions have strict rules that govern them. We have an obligation to uphold those rules—and so the decision to support a business isn't solely up to Stripe. We wrote more on that here (as it can be a understandable source of confusion): https://stripe.com/blog/why-some-businesses-arent-allowed https://stripe.com/blog/why-some-businesses-arent-allowed. Essay mills fall under the category of "deceptive" products and services. It's clear we made a mistake here in looking at this particular business and we've re-enabled the account (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34802504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34802504). In particular, we didn’t correctly distinguish between augmenting the ability to write content vs. buying essays to commit academic fraud. We'll be revisiting our internal policies to better dilineate between these categories.

gwerbret 4y ago
While I'm sure the OP appreciates the successful "support via HN", it seems very clear that the real problem with your organization in this regard is people needing to do this in the first place. OP did say of the initial ban that "I tried to appeal but no luck."
Vanit 4y ago
If it weren't for your intervention would Stripe have made this correction through its regular processes?
- smca 4y ago
  Yes, we'd like Stripe to be available to as broad a set of users as possible. Restrictions on businesses ought to be malleable and we need to have the capacity to adapt as the world around us changes. We also work with our partners to relax or remove unnecessary restrictions where we can. Being overly restrictive towards legitimate businesses flies in the face of growing the GDP of the internet—it's a precondition for us to operate. A small component of that is being reactive: seeing where we make mistakes and noticing where our processes need to be adapted. (As we saw today with essay mills!)

by smca 4y ago

gwerbret 4y ago

While I'm sure the OP appreciates the successful "support via HN", it seems very clear that the real problem with your organization in this regard is people needing to do this in the first place. OP did say of the initial ban that "I tried to appeal but no luck."

Vanit 4y ago

If it weren't for your intervention would Stripe have made this correction through its regular processes?

smca 4y ago
Yes, we'd like Stripe to be available to as broad a set of users as possible. Restrictions on businesses ought to be malleable and we need to have the capacity to adapt as the world around us changes. We also work with our partners to relax or remove unnecessary restrictions where we can. Being overly restrictive towards legitimate businesses flies in the face of growing the GDP of the internet—it's a precondition for us to operate. A small component of that is being reactive: seeing where we make mistakes and noticing where our processes need to be adapted. (As we saw today with essay mills!)