There are more and more Stripe horror stories like this, and from an outsider perspective it looks awfully like PayPal behaved back in the day (probably still does but I'd never touch it again as a merchant).
I have positive experiences with using Stripe in my last startup and we're currently building Stripe integration on another, which will process about 50% of our revenue (the other payment method being direct wire transfer).
There might be just a tiny minority of people that end up treated like this, but with every story, I'm less confident about our move.
I have personal knowledge of more than one instance where stripe totally screwed over small companies and simply decided to ignore any contact for more than half a year, withholding the money and putting everyone in limbo.
yeah, im sure its a minority of accounts at stripe, but seriously, do not take the chance!
Not to mention the several instances where pc will come into threads like this and outright lie about reaching out to customers, or will ask them to reach out then ghost them again, etc.
In the contract with stripe I can guarantee there's a "we can do anything we want" clause. The solution to these issues is functional government so we can regulate out that language and hold entities responsible.
yeah.. in the real world people cut their losses rather than sue the company a gazillion times larger than themselves, in foreign juristictions etc.
But I seriously ask anyone, how important is processing payments to you? what do you suspect the chances are? would you prefer to go through a bit more hoops upfront with a non-stripe alternative, or roll a 1/100 or even 1/10000 dice that one day you're just gonna be royally screwed over?
I have seen it happen very close, so I know my choice. It always "only" happens to other people... until it happens to you. Its easy to say "yeah.. they were doing shady things, I dont", but when the algorithmic gods determine you to be shady, no mere mortal, except perhaps a couple of very influential people lurking HN(cough edwin cough) will do anything. Will you catch his eye? is it worth the risk?
ANYTHING you depend on, spend serious serious time doing vetting, making sure its proper, and I would say, for the love of god, make it someone you could go visit physically.
It could be called the fintech compliance cycle. They start out with a single compliance officer (who is equipped with not much more than the OFAC list) and no identification requirements other than name and email. Then they get lots of customers due to how easy they are to use and how they don't arbitrarily steal your stuff like Paypal. Eventually they get a letter from some government agency telling them to implement "best practices" because one of their customers did something bad. Then in order to make the government happy they go and buy fancy screening software and hire a bunch of compliance monkeys who go around causing trouble like that described in the OP. At this point they are just a smaller version of Paypal and have very little reason to exist.
There are more and more Stripe horror stories like this, and from an outsider perspective it looks awfully like PayPal behaved back in the day (probably still does but I'd never touch it again as a merchant).
I have positive experiences with using Stripe in my last startup and we're currently building Stripe integration on another, which will process about 50% of our revenue (the other payment method being direct wire transfer).
There might be just a tiny minority of people that end up treated like this, but with every story, I'm less confident about our move.