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Comment by newlyretired | Hacker News Reader

According to your own site[0], it sounds like Stripe declined to continue to serve you because of an association with a cannabis business. (That's a sub-optimal reality, but I think it's disingenuous to state that it was because they didn't like the name.)

[0] http://edoceo.com/blog/2017/04/stripe-rubbing-salt-in-the-wo...

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They did, then after I raised that issue, they invited me back, thanked me for being a poineer and said I should proceed and likely wouldn't get caught this time.

I told them to check first, cause I don't want to move platforms then have an issue.

So, weeks later they told me that underwriting doesn't like my new name and I won't get to use their platform.

Bad names include the terms "weed" or "the". Acceptable words are "GrowFlow" or "Mister Kraken" - direct competitors who basically sneak through.

Even when everyone knows what's going on everywhere.

Bureaucracies are inherently risk averse; that is what it sounds to me like you ran into. You have my sympathy for it. I think it's wrong and a net loss to society, but I also have no impetus to criticize a banking/finance company from staying away from anything that even smells possibly grey.

You didn't understand. They have accepted 2/3rds of they grey, and booted me - twice - based on name alone, even after lengthy phone calls and email threads spanning weeks.

It is regulatory compliance software. It’s not like they’re selling weed.

Even if they were selling, I would think it's a net loss for society that they cannot fully participate in banking.

My point was more about OP's presentation of why they could not participate. It's pretty clear they're an edge case in an edge case industry -- I cannot judge a large company being risk averse when there is no incentive for them to take on the risk.

(That said, if anyone solves cannabis banking, they are going to be a unicorn.)

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