Are Startups avoid Stripe? How We Recovered Our Account Back

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Version 1.0: This post was initially written in the year 2014. Within a couple of hours after the post was published we were approached by several employees from Stripe and we were able to get our account returned. The account is maintained in good standing, and we've not had any issues in the time since. Go for the next stage.

The Motives for Us to Choose Stripe

We've heard a lot about Stripe recently, but, as an European company we weren't able to join for a long duration. Then they began accepting UK companies with their headquarters based in the UK. We've been a huge volume PayPal customer, both in a transactional mode and the buyer in 2007 onwards, and we've had more than one million dollars of transactions on the platform. There have been plenty of disputes along with lengthy chats with PayPal support team, but there was nothing that couldn't be resolved.

1. Their reputation, a lot of their customers say they'd rather not pay through PayPal in any way.

The process is easy, however you'll need to submit several pieces of forms, and this is understandable. While you're waiting to receive confirmation of your account. you're able to begin creating your own client using their API and have libraries available for the most used languages. These have been written on the basis of contemporary programming standards, and as a consequence it's a breeze to use. There's no reason to be surprised, since Stripe was built because of the anger of their creators about the payments processors that were available back in the days, they were determined to shake up the market.

The result was that The API doesn't feel as though it's just an added feature as it is when using PayPal It's absolutely enjoyable to utilize. Setting up and starting to take payments through Stripe is easy.

After that, the issues begin.

As the number of our transactions grew as did the amount of illegal activity. It's also odd that there was just one instance of fraud (who tried to use an account to spam email which was discovered and taken down quickly) every stolen criminal using credit cards were trying to steal our money and then do nothing which seems absurd to me. If they'd wanted to check a bunch of cards, they could do it employing a process that would cost about $1. If they wanted to use it for spamming or for other reasons, why they couldn't try it?

Unfortunately, Stripe charges a chargeback price of $15. So we were required to pay for every transaction that, in my opinion, should be prevented by Stripe prior to when they occurred. For instance one, we had a customer who used the same email address and tested cards from three different countries in only 15 minutes. If he's not an individual with the Flash card, it's not an option. It's a huge warning to every processor I've ever heard of However, Stripe isn't blinkered at all.

As we had been losing money as well as Stripe wasn't providing any help in stopping these losses, we chose to look for an organization that is specialized in preventing online fraud. Below are three we've heard good things about, but we haven't had a opportunity to test these yet: minFraud by MaxMind, Sift Science and Signifyd. They are priced very reasonably, even for small-sized businesses. I'm really not exactly sure what the reason is. Stripe isn't a signatory with any of these companies That seems to be a simple decision for me.

As we worked on the creation of these services that I mentioned earlier, one evening (and I'd like to underline this night portion) we received an email that was sent out by Stripe from out of the blue, that stated:

Hi,

Thank you for registering with Stripe!

We are sorry that, at the moment, we will be unable to provide assistance to .com. Currently, Stripe can only support customers who have a lesser chance of disputes with customers. If you review your submissions as well as your site this could be a sign that your site is higher risk than sites we currently support. We're not able to take any further payment on behalf of your site.

And that was it.

I'd like to stress we haven't had any real customers ever complained about anything except for the owners of credit cards demanded to receive a reimbursement from their banks. That's the normal thing to do. But what I did not, however expect to hear from Stripe regardless of the circumstances was the possibility of shutting off our account early hours of the night without any notice at all. They'd also be in no position to provide help us. This is in face of everything that we had to go through in the past with Stripe prior to this.

They could've provided us with suggestions on how to minimize frauds or what we should do differently with the application process or in any other thing. Additionally, a warning like "if the issue gets worse your account will be closed close your account" for a few weeks prior to making a final decision been nice, too. And, of course there's no response to queries about the issue. This is a fantastic case study of how not to respond to customer complaints.

Is there problems? In searching through Google for a bit it seems like this is an common way of doing business at Stripe currently. Check out the following: here, here, here and here. If you're looking for more info, make an Google search and pay close pay attention to the comments section.

The truth is that we're blessed as we're able to be able to employ skilled developers, and can move to another API quickly. If ordinary people selling or ship physical products get harmed, it could affect their entire business and sometimes even the lives of their customers also (as we've seen in the linked articles). The thought that having an effective fraud detection system could solve the problem but they are unable to act on it is mind-boggling.

Takeaway

In the past, Stripe was just a startup that was happy to welcome new customers. They determined to change how PayPal handled customer support and business in general. A few years in and it's the same company but without a face. Although it's difficult when you expand, it's important to never lose sight of the initial objectives so that you're able to stay in line with your objectives and provide the same level of service to your clients that they have signed up to in the first place. This is the most important lesson for all those who deal with clients, including .

If you're starting a business which you'd like to run for an extended duration, you should not forget that your current tiny clients (and I'm definitely not convinced enough to think that we're any other way that Stripe would consider us to be) are able to grow massively within a matter of minutes. And, after all is because it's the Internet we're talking about! We live in an period of hyperscaling.

Furthermore, it is crucial to make sure that before you launch your business, you provide different payment options to your customers. There are many who do not prefer PayPal but not everyone trusts online merchants with their credit debit cards. There are also those who prefer the use of Bitcoin. If you're planning to start a new enterprise in this day and age, you should plan for the "next greatest trend". Bitcoin might be among those.

We're hoping Bitcoin (or other cryptocurrency which is built on the foundation set by Bitcoin) is welcomed by the mainstream within the coming years. It makes everything easy (no disputes, no chargebacks and extremely low fees). For now though we'll talk about a couple other companies that process credit cards (but we're leaning towards Braintree) also well. This post will be updated as soon as we've come up with a solution. We can, for now, advise you to avoid Stripe and their ilk. great startup they once were.

The Next Follow-Up, A Few Hours Later

Everybody makes mistakes. The fact is that we're only a modest hosting service, and there are times when we make mistakes. I'm sure how challenging it is to manage hundreds of thousands of clients. This, however, is not a reason to give excuses and you must remain vigilant when you do fail to acknowledge the mistake and then be able to learn from the experience.

This is exactly that Stripe performed and I'm glad to announce that we have had the account reinstated and a number of people who are friendly from the business have reached out to us and ensured that we won't be thrown without a chance to get our money back. I was even able to talk to Patrick Collison, the co-founder of Stripe as along with Andy Young, director of the company's UK division. They're building a business that is valued around one billion dollars and yet they've taken the time to reach out personally. this is a first. this is outstanding customer service.

If you're handling lots of customers, it's essential to keep the (high) degree of automation. Alternatively, you'll have to have a support department which is so big that it can fill a city. Automated systems aren't perfect, and, as someone who worked for 5 years in the search engine optimization (SEO) company, I'm accustomed to being sucked by algorithms.

As for Google's situation it was a matter of not being able connect to anybody and our only option was to wake up and go over the process. But, I wouldn't think of the same for an organization that's an entity we are a part of. That's what hurts me most to me: having trouble getting help with your concerns or absence of communication from your business partners.

Takeaway

When you're dealing directly with clients directly, customer care is vital, and even more important in the modern days of social media. It's not the only payment processor that is available online, and just as they were once under the shadow of PayPal (which was not able to offer sufficient customer service which made it difficult for developers to integrate their services) They could be wiped out by a new competitor, which may offer more assistance or provide a better product that is priced at the same level. In today's world of connectivity The giants are increasing and decreasing every day.

There is a proven fact that reports of negative nature and information tend to be disseminated more quickly than positive ones. You must be aware of social media platforms as much as you are able to. Discussions about your company is going to continue whether you want it or you do not. The only way you can stay within the conversation is to either be part of it, or in the opposite direction by pretending that social media does not exist. In the event that you want to create a lasting company, it's hardly a choice to take.

In order to a startup to succeed my opinion I believe that you must have three factors: outstanding assistance, one of the best items (or services) in your niche and a cost that is competitive.

Customer support is vital, however. It's possible that the founders and leadership were not aware of the issues customers encounter when trying to reach the help desk. Additionally, it's likely that the company's founders did not realize this and accounts are closed without warning. It's important to directly ask your customers to provide opinions frequently and collaborate with them in order to increase the value of your products.

The industry is in (web hosting) has been criticized for a lack of customer service. It appears that in past, it was relatively easy to build an okay(ish) server, then put as many clients onto the server as you could, then take their money, and after they complained, you weren't interested, they felt like they didn't have the right to assist due to the cost.

Summary

Like I said earlier We really like Stripe. Being the head of development for our team, I'd be inclined to claim that it's the most amazing incident that has occurred to online payments in the last ten years, since PayPal. They made a mistake. made. It was a small mistake for them, however an important one for us. And when I brought it up to them, they acknowledged it and backed for it and took all they could to rectify the issue. I'm grateful to be my business partners.

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