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After using Stripe for our subscription service for over 1year with 100'000euro+ monthly transcation we got a 10day notice that they would shut us down. Also th

by Danski0 11y ago

After using Stripe for our subscription service for over 1year with 100'000euro+ monthly transcation we got a 10day notice that they would shut us down. Also the mail was send late on friday before a long weekend, yeah! =) No warnings, no chance to appeal, no heads up and absolutly no possiblity to call them. Lost around half a million euros before we could get our customers exported to another payment processor. Thanks Stripe! It's a great service when it works, not so great at customer service.

kawsper 11y ago
Did you break their rules? Their terms say that they can cancel your agreement, but only with a 2 months notice: > We can terminate this agreement for any reason on two months’ notice and immediately in certain circumstances Source: https://stripe.com/gb/terms https://stripe.com/gb/terms
- krisdol 11y ago
  >certain circumstances (such as where you breach this Agreement) It concerns me, as this still gives them full power to terminate the agreement immediately anytime they want. They never define what "certain circumstances" are, rather, they just provide one example. EDIT: I would just like to say that I was mistaken. See the reply to my comment. That said, the US terms differ in an important way.
  - Justsignedup 11y ago
    I wonder if they could be sued for that. IANAL but afaik US contract law states that vagueness in contracts always benefits the party who did not write the contract. The vagueness may be used to your advantage to indicate that they didn't give you the two months you expected.
  - grabeh 11y ago
    If you click 'Complete details' just below you will be provided with a full list of the circumstances in which they can terminate with immediate effect (although I acknowledge that the ability to terminate simply because a card network/issuer requests this is not particularly transparent (but understandable)): - we determine in our sole discretion that you are ineligible for the Service because of the risk associated with your use of Stripe, including without limitation significant credit or fraud risk, or for any other reason; - you do not comply with any of the provisions of this Agreement, or - upon request of a Card Network or a card issuer.
    - krisdol 11y ago
      I see. I was mistaken. I didn't follow the Details link. I did notice something equally concerning on US one On the US terms, I see the following sentence: "We may terminate this Agreement and close your Stripe Account at any time for any reason effective upon providing you notice in accordance with Section A.15 above". It goes on to copy what the UK agreement had, but that one didn't include this sentence.
- wfunction 11y ago
  That says UK.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    - wfunction 11y ago
      > Is that what the /gb/ folder in the path means? ;) It's what "United Kingdom" in the page title means.
- hrbrtglm 11y ago
  Is it against the TOS to route half of the payments to stripe and the other half to another payment processor in order to mitigate the problem of being shut down ? With paymill looking like a stripe clone, it may be a good solution to split the revenues stream.
mattfrommars 11y ago
off topic but can you link me the business/company you are involved in?
- skwirl 11y ago
  It wasn't too hard to find. It doesn't look like the company is in business anymore.
- Danski0 11y ago
  It was a SaaS subscription with mostly companies as customers. We didn't brake any ToS, Stripe refered to a high chargeback rate (1-2%) and that was it. Something about SaaS being high risk and getting close to 2% chargeback could loose Stripe their contracts with MC/VISA. In reality no fucking risk as we had a 100% refund policy, no questions asked, no time limit.
  - dangrossman 11y ago
    This is confusing, so apologies if I'm misreading. Your policies are irrelevant if you're getting chargebacks despite them. Stripe was not lying: they are mandated by Visa/MC and whatever processors they work with to keep their chargeback ratio lower than that. If large customers like you can't keep your ratio below ~1%, then they have to drop you to preserve their own business. Having a high chargeback rate is itself a violation of the TOS. If you really were getting 2% of your payments reversed despite a 100% refund guarantee, there's really something wrong with that business that needed fixing. Perhaps uninentional, but people were being misled in some way, or claiming that refund was too difficult, or contacting you and getting a prompt response too hard. I run several SaaS businesses, with $MM total revenue, and had 3 chargebacks total last year adding up to less than $500.
    - codexon 11y ago
      I have trouble believing even a 2% chargeback rate would endanger Visa/MC. It seems like they hardly spend any time investigating chargebacks and most disputes seem to be won by the buyer by default unless they have a habit of filing chargebacks.
jliptzin 11y ago
We were booted from stripe when a couple of customers just decided to chargeback all of their previous transactions, each of which was pretty small, without first contacting us, so it was too late to issue refunds. That pushed our chargeback rate over the 2% threshold, so we were booted. Unfortunately the chargeback rate is measured as % of transactions and not volume. Seems like a great way to screw with a competitor would be to get a few cards with different names (on one of my cards alone I can assign up to 100 authorized users with new names and addresses), make a bunch of small transactions, charge them back a couple months later, then watch your competition get booted from stripe.
- georgerobinson 11y ago
  Is there anything that makes this sort of practice unlawful?
  - jliptzin 11y ago
    Not that I know of, plus it would be extremely difficult to detect as each chargeback would appear to be coming from a completely different customer (different name, different address, different card number). I'd imagine this kind of attack would be especially stressful to SaaS businesses or subscription businesses in general.
    - gregpilling 11y ago
      every business actually. If credit cards represent a xx% of your business, then you would be pretty screwed to lose that. Brick and Mortar would have it worse because of lower net margins.
pbreit 11y ago
Payment processing is hard and I don't know your exact situation but I'm a little surprised Stripe leaves itself so wide open to such complaints considering how much money it has raised and how deleterious such stories can be as they add up.

by Danski0 11y ago

kawsper 11y ago

Did you break their rules? Their terms say that they can cancel your agreement, but only with a 2 months notice: > We can terminate this agreement for any reason on two months’ notice and immediately in certain circumstances Source: https://stripe.com/gb/terms https://stripe.com/gb/terms

krisdol 11y ago
>certain circumstances (such as where you breach this Agreement) It concerns me, as this still gives them full power to terminate the agreement immediately anytime they want. They never define what "certain circumstances" are, rather, they just provide one example. EDIT: I would just like to say that I was mistaken. See the reply to my comment. That said, the US terms differ in an important way.
- Justsignedup 11y ago
  I wonder if they could be sued for that. IANAL but afaik US contract law states that vagueness in contracts always benefits the party who did not write the contract. The vagueness may be used to your advantage to indicate that they didn't give you the two months you expected.
- grabeh 11y ago
  If you click 'Complete details' just below you will be provided with a full list of the circumstances in which they can terminate with immediate effect (although I acknowledge that the ability to terminate simply because a card network/issuer requests this is not particularly transparent (but understandable)): - we determine in our sole discretion that you are ineligible for the Service because of the risk associated with your use of Stripe, including without limitation significant credit or fraud risk, or for any other reason; - you do not comply with any of the provisions of this Agreement, or - upon request of a Card Network or a card issuer.
  - krisdol 11y ago
    I see. I was mistaken. I didn't follow the Details link. I did notice something equally concerning on US one On the US terms, I see the following sentence: "We may terminate this Agreement and close your Stripe Account at any time for any reason effective upon providing you notice in accordance with Section A.15 above". It goes on to copy what the UK agreement had, but that one didn't include this sentence.
wfunction 11y ago
That says UK.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - wfunction 11y ago
    > Is that what the /gb/ folder in the path means? ;) It's what "United Kingdom" in the page title means.
hrbrtglm 11y ago
Is it against the TOS to route half of the payments to stripe and the other half to another payment processor in order to mitigate the problem of being shut down ? With paymill looking like a stripe clone, it may be a good solution to split the revenues stream.

mattfrommars 11y ago

off topic but can you link me the business/company you are involved in?

skwirl 11y ago
It wasn't too hard to find. It doesn't look like the company is in business anymore.
Danski0 11y ago
It was a SaaS subscription with mostly companies as customers. We didn't brake any ToS, Stripe refered to a high chargeback rate (1-2%) and that was it. Something about SaaS being high risk and getting close to 2% chargeback could loose Stripe their contracts with MC/VISA. In reality no fucking risk as we had a 100% refund policy, no questions asked, no time limit.
- dangrossman 11y ago
  This is confusing, so apologies if I'm misreading. Your policies are irrelevant if you're getting chargebacks despite them. Stripe was not lying: they are mandated by Visa/MC and whatever processors they work with to keep their chargeback ratio lower than that. If large customers like you can't keep your ratio below ~1%, then they have to drop you to preserve their own business. Having a high chargeback rate is itself a violation of the TOS. If you really were getting 2% of your payments reversed despite a 100% refund guarantee, there's really something wrong with that business that needed fixing. Perhaps uninentional, but people were being misled in some way, or claiming that refund was too difficult, or contacting you and getting a prompt response too hard. I run several SaaS businesses, with $MM total revenue, and had 3 chargebacks total last year adding up to less than $500.
  - codexon 11y ago
    I have trouble believing even a 2% chargeback rate would endanger Visa/MC. It seems like they hardly spend any time investigating chargebacks and most disputes seem to be won by the buyer by default unless they have a habit of filing chargebacks.

jliptzin 11y ago

We were booted from stripe when a couple of customers just decided to chargeback all of their previous transactions, each of which was pretty small, without first contacting us, so it was too late to issue refunds. That pushed our chargeback rate over the 2% threshold, so we were booted. Unfortunately the chargeback rate is measured as % of transactions and not volume. Seems like a great way to screw with a competitor would be to get a few cards with different names (on one of my cards alone I can assign up to 100 authorized users with new names and addresses), make a bunch of small transactions, charge them back a couple months later, then watch your competition get booted from stripe.

georgerobinson 11y ago
Is there anything that makes this sort of practice unlawful?
- jliptzin 11y ago
  Not that I know of, plus it would be extremely difficult to detect as each chargeback would appear to be coming from a completely different customer (different name, different address, different card number). I'd imagine this kind of attack would be especially stressful to SaaS businesses or subscription businesses in general.
  - gregpilling 11y ago
    every business actually. If credit cards represent a xx% of your business, then you would be pretty screwed to lose that. Brick and Mortar would have it worse because of lower net margins.

pbreit 11y ago

Payment processing is hard and I don't know your exact situation but I'm a little surprised Stripe leaves itself so wide open to such complaints considering how much money it has raised and how deleterious such stories can be as they add up.