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I think you may have misinterpreted my comment (you know I don't work for Square right?). > Hard problems should be challenges, not excuses. Which is precisel
by pyduan 13y ago
I think you may have misinterpreted my comment (you know I don't work for Square right?).
> Hard problems should be challenges, not excuses.
Which is precisely why I mentioned in my original post that my preference (and Eventbrite's) goes towards doing the opposite and trying hard to give the user the benefit of the doubt. By doing this we expose ourselves to more risk because we want to transact with everyone -- without risking to disclose too much about our policies, you'll notice our system is very tolerant for mistakes and missing inputs, and in case something does go wrong we have a dedicated support team to deal with these issues. This makes building and training our algorithms that much more complicated if we want to keep our risk profile in check but it is a trade-off I'm happy to make, so I'd like to think I'm not guilty of what you're accusing me of.
Overall, my point was just to provide some context on where Square comes from since OP seemed confused about what they perceived as a ridiculous policy. The comparisons you picked (Comcast, Google) are a good example of why it's interesting to talk about fraud (which is a topic we rarely have in mind when building or using payment services): fraud is not a simple inconvenience for startups -- it's something that can potentially put the entire business at risk, so you have to have both the ability and the willingness to take on that risk. In the absence of controls I can think of many ways to defraud Square out of millions of dollars in the matter of hours. They're strong enough to take the hit it now, but one single such attack while they were younger could have put their success in considerable danger had they not taken some precautions.
Of course this is no excuse for not having a friendlier or more reactive support, but Square or not Square I just felt this is a topic worth bringing to the spotlight.
- nathanb 13y agoI realize you don't work for Square... I took exception to your comment not because I thought you were representing Square but because it seemed like your comment was using "fraud prevention is hard" as an excuse to defend Square's treatment of OP. > I just felt this is a topic worth bringing to the spotlight It's always good to have an experienced, rational explanation of why a company might have engaged in some seemingly-ridiculous behavior. Thanks for providing that. Unfortunately, such an explanation often gets used as a crutch or an excuse for not aiming higher. How many years did individuals and small businesses have no recourse from PayPal before Stripe, Square, et al. came along? Do we really want to have that long of a gap again just because the new incumbents can hide behind the same "it's hard" mentality as the old? So while I'm sorry that I interpreted your comment incorrectly as defending the "fraud prevention is hard so let's marginalize the minority" argument, I wanted to make sure that I expressed my dislike for that mindset before it took hold.
- aptwebapps 13y agoSo while I'm sorry that I interpreted your comment incorrectly as defending the "fraud prevention is hard so let's marginalize the minority" argument, I wanted to make sure that I expressed my dislike for that mindset before it took hold. So you're saying you were in too much of a hurry to jump on his back to read what he wrote? At least put the apology at the top of your comment rather than at the end of all the excuses.
- the_watcher 13y ago>> Unfortunately, such an explanation often gets used as a crutch or an excuse for not aiming higher. How many years did individuals and small businesses have no recourse from PayPal before Stripe, Square, et al. came along? Do we really want to have that long of a gap again just because the new incumbents can hide behind the same "it's hard" mentality as the old? What's the solution here? If I assume you aren't advocating legal requirements for how easy companies have to make verification (which, let's be honest, is a non-starter since laws generally make it harder to verify than easier), the only real solution is to call out companies that do this, which should in turn spur competition from those who think they can do better. It's unfortunate that it takes as long as it does, but I'm not sure if there is a better system. That said, writing this post is exactly the type of response that should encourage improvement and competition.
- nathanb 13y agoI'm not sure, at an implementation level, what the solution is. But I know the only way to get there is to not view the problem of fraud prevention without alienating the minority to be an insoluble problem. And that's the response my comment was intended to provoke.