6 ms·

AIs and other opaque processes making decisions are incredibly frustrating. I'm still wondering why my tea-of-the-month business [0] got turned down by Stripe w

by Xixi 3y ago

AIs and other opaque processes making decisions are incredibly frustrating. I'm still wondering why my tea-of-the-month business [0] got turned down by Stripe when I incorporated an LLC (technically a Godo Kaisha, as it is incorporated in Japan). It came as a surprise as it was perfectly fine by them for as long as it was a sole proprietorship. Which is why I strongly suspect the rejection came from an AI. At the time of rejection we were still using the Stripe account of the sole proprietorship, and surely a human would have noticed and blocked that account if it was actually running against Stripe ToS!?! It doesn't make any sense to me. In any case, I know that financial regulations are stringent and payment providers are often required to leave us in the dark. But is it frustrating... Now I'm stuck with PayPal for the time being. Unless they, too, decide that selling green tea is against their ToS. By the way, does anyone know if it's ok to re-attempt to open an account with Stripe? Our offering has been evolving, so we might very well be within their ToS now? [0] https://tomotcha.com https://tomotcha.com EDIT: wording

Aeolun 3y ago
You can always contact them? I can’t say my experience with their support has been anything like good, but we did eventually resolve the problem. Apparently Stripe has great difficulty with non-Japanese people, living in Japan, owning a company overseas.
- Xixi 3y ago
  We tried, to no avail, just got the same unhelpful answer each time. Although we didn’t push too much, as we were still relying on the sole proprietorship account, and didn’t want to jeopardize that! Now that we’re 90% done with the migration to PayPal, I think we can try again…
  - bombcar 3y ago
    It sounds like the real story is you need to keep two payment processing setups active and used at all times, because you never know when one is going to mysteriously disappear.
    - Xixi 3y ago
      Exactly why I’d like to get a Stripe account up and running again, while also keeping PayPal. I was very happy with Stripe all these years… but having a least two payment processors is probably safer.
Yizahi 3y ago
The so called AI is very infuriating indeed. I was once banned by such dumb script because I was trying to call my cell operator via a regular telephone number and there were some technical issues either at my phone or at the base station, and calls were dropping. After about 5 tries I got a robot answer that I'm now banned from ever using support line for "abuse". And to appeal the ban, I would have to use a support line. Ok, I thought, I'll try robochat at the website. No luck - banned there too. So I have resorted to searching the Facebook page and hoping that a human moderates it. Thankfully I got to a human support and they revoked this ban. I've stopped posting anything on the Facebook a few years ago and keep the account alive just to have a backup contact option with dumb corpos.
hartator 3y ago
> when I incorporated an LLC An LLC can’t be incorporated. If you say you had an Inc when you had an LLC is a good cause of rejection.
- Xixi 3y ago
  I didn’t know the nuance in English. Although in this case it’s neither an Inc. nor an LLC: it’s a 合同会社. That’s what I wrote on the form, obviously.
rurban 3y ago
Maybe their AI found https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/NEOBK-2635049 https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/NEOBK-2635049 Godo Kaisha Seigi Ya 1 (Young Animal Comics) and decided Japanese mangas are off-limits for stripe.
msie 3y ago
It may not be the sexy AI robots that get us in the end but this.
londons_explore 3y ago
> AIs and other opaque processes making decisions are incredibly frustrating. Simply better messaging would fix most of this. One approach is to be upfront and say: Our automated AI systems have decided that it probably isn't in our best interests to do business with you. We can't elaborate on why, because that would give clues to spammers to help evade our detection of them. However, if you are willing to pay us $15, we will have a human look at your case and make the decision instead. You will be able to send evidence to the human (for example evidence of legitimate sales, a registered company, etc.). The human will be able to ask for further information, but will not be able to tell you the reason for any rejection. Your $15 will not be refunded if your case is rejected. Before you do, double check that your use isn't borderline on our rules and T&C's - human review isn't an opportunity to push the boundaries of what is allowed.
- gosub100 3y ago
  > pay us $15, then some business-school asshat will say "wait! I have the most disruptive idea! let's tweak the algo to get 10% more rejections because analytics show 5% of rejectees result in a conversion!" As he proceeds to get a bonus for momentarily boosting revenue while permanently enshittifying the product.
  - TrapLord_Rhodo 3y ago
    as sad as it is... I'd still prefer this. You'd think in 2023 we'd have figured out this whole identity thing by now. Crypto has some unique ideas, but they don't really get all the way there. Things just aren't "mandated", or ubiquitous enough.
  - sigsergv 3y ago
    ...and still use AI not real humans to decide. Excellent business idea.
burnte 3y ago
My company can't use Stripe to collect payments for our Continuing Medical Education conferences because, as a psychiatry company, we offer in-office-only esketamine therapy to a small subset of patients. No amount of explaining that we do not SELL eskatamine or ANY pharmaceuticals seems to get through to the supposed humans I've talked to at stripe. Nowhere in anything we publish including the website says we sell anything, because we don't. We don't process (and won't/can't) process patient payment though Stripe, because we accept insurance as we are a psychiatry group. All we get back are two types of responses: "We've suspended your account because you sell pharma" and "We're investigating the information you have given us". Mind you all we've been ABLE to give them is email replies because our offers of meetings and documentation to prove what we're saying go ignored. Stripe is great, but something is going terribly wrong inside the company when it comes to customer vetting.
- froggit 3y ago
  I can see where Stripe is coming from. At best this lands in some kind of gray area, but really it seems pretty clear why this is getting a no go. On an extremely fundamental level, people give you money and you give them drugs. The fact you only administer the drugs in your office doesn't change the basic premise. I don't know your specifics, such as if the patient's money goes straight to a pharmacy to pay for the drugs which are then shipped to you for in-office administration (which would probably impossible to explain anyway). However, even if that's the case people are still giving you money (for appointments, treatment, etc.) and ending up with drugs in their body. You'd likely have to split the medical CE conferences off from your practice and run it as a seperate entity before Stripe would be willing to take payment.
rozap 3y ago
What's wrong with your existing payment processors? This type of existential thing seems to come up over and over again with stripe, I'm surprised people still want to use them.
- mitchdoogle 3y ago
  People want to use it because its very easy to sign up and very easy to use. Even compared to Paypal, its much easier in my experience. And the vast majority of users don't have any issues at all.

by Xixi 3y ago

Aeolun 3y ago

You can always contact them? I can’t say my experience with their support has been anything like good, but we did eventually resolve the problem. Apparently Stripe has great difficulty with non-Japanese people, living in Japan, owning a company overseas.

Xixi 3y ago
We tried, to no avail, just got the same unhelpful answer each time. Although we didn’t push too much, as we were still relying on the sole proprietorship account, and didn’t want to jeopardize that! Now that we’re 90% done with the migration to PayPal, I think we can try again…
- bombcar 3y ago
  It sounds like the real story is you need to keep two payment processing setups active and used at all times, because you never know when one is going to mysteriously disappear.
  - Xixi 3y ago
    Exactly why I’d like to get a Stripe account up and running again, while also keeping PayPal. I was very happy with Stripe all these years… but having a least two payment processors is probably safer.

Yizahi 3y ago

The so called AI is very infuriating indeed. I was once banned by such dumb script because I was trying to call my cell operator via a regular telephone number and there were some technical issues either at my phone or at the base station, and calls were dropping. After about 5 tries I got a robot answer that I'm now banned from ever using support line for "abuse". And to appeal the ban, I would have to use a support line. Ok, I thought, I'll try robochat at the website. No luck - banned there too. So I have resorted to searching the Facebook page and hoping that a human moderates it. Thankfully I got to a human support and they revoked this ban. I've stopped posting anything on the Facebook a few years ago and keep the account alive just to have a backup contact option with dumb corpos.

hartator 3y ago

> when I incorporated an LLC An LLC can’t be incorporated. If you say you had an Inc when you had an LLC is a good cause of rejection.

Xixi 3y ago
I didn’t know the nuance in English. Although in this case it’s neither an Inc. nor an LLC: it’s a 合同会社. That’s what I wrote on the form, obviously.

rurban 3y ago

Maybe their AI found https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/NEOBK-2635049 https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/NEOBK-2635049 Godo Kaisha Seigi Ya 1 (Young Animal Comics) and decided Japanese mangas are off-limits for stripe.

msie 3y ago

It may not be the sexy AI robots that get us in the end but this.

londons_explore 3y ago

> AIs and other opaque processes making decisions are incredibly frustrating. Simply better messaging would fix most of this. One approach is to be upfront and say: Our automated AI systems have decided that it probably isn't in our best interests to do business with you. We can't elaborate on why, because that would give clues to spammers to help evade our detection of them. However, if you are willing to pay us $15, we will have a human look at your case and make the decision instead. You will be able to send evidence to the human (for example evidence of legitimate sales, a registered company, etc.). The human will be able to ask for further information, but will not be able to tell you the reason for any rejection. Your $15 will not be refunded if your case is rejected. Before you do, double check that your use isn't borderline on our rules and T&C's - human review isn't an opportunity to push the boundaries of what is allowed.

gosub100 3y ago
> pay us $15, then some business-school asshat will say "wait! I have the most disruptive idea! let's tweak the algo to get 10% more rejections because analytics show 5% of rejectees result in a conversion!" As he proceeds to get a bonus for momentarily boosting revenue while permanently enshittifying the product.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 3y ago
  as sad as it is... I'd still prefer this. You'd think in 2023 we'd have figured out this whole identity thing by now. Crypto has some unique ideas, but they don't really get all the way there. Things just aren't "mandated", or ubiquitous enough.
- sigsergv 3y ago
  ...and still use AI not real humans to decide. Excellent business idea.

burnte 3y ago

My company can't use Stripe to collect payments for our Continuing Medical Education conferences because, as a psychiatry company, we offer in-office-only esketamine therapy to a small subset of patients. No amount of explaining that we do not SELL eskatamine or ANY pharmaceuticals seems to get through to the supposed humans I've talked to at stripe. Nowhere in anything we publish including the website says we sell anything, because we don't. We don't process (and won't/can't) process patient payment though Stripe, because we accept insurance as we are a psychiatry group. All we get back are two types of responses: "We've suspended your account because you sell pharma" and "We're investigating the information you have given us". Mind you all we've been ABLE to give them is email replies because our offers of meetings and documentation to prove what we're saying go ignored. Stripe is great, but something is going terribly wrong inside the company when it comes to customer vetting.

froggit 3y ago
I can see where Stripe is coming from. At best this lands in some kind of gray area, but really it seems pretty clear why this is getting a no go. On an extremely fundamental level, people give you money and you give them drugs. The fact you only administer the drugs in your office doesn't change the basic premise. I don't know your specifics, such as if the patient's money goes straight to a pharmacy to pay for the drugs which are then shipped to you for in-office administration (which would probably impossible to explain anyway). However, even if that's the case people are still giving you money (for appointments, treatment, etc.) and ending up with drugs in their body. You'd likely have to split the medical CE conferences off from your practice and run it as a seperate entity before Stripe would be willing to take payment.

rozap 3y ago

What's wrong with your existing payment processors? This type of existential thing seems to come up over and over again with stripe, I'm surprised people still want to use them.

mitchdoogle 3y ago
People want to use it because its very easy to sign up and very easy to use. Even compared to Paypal, its much easier in my experience. And the vast majority of users don't have any issues at all.