Comment by ThaddeusQuay2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ThaddeusQuay2 | Hacker News Reader

It seems great, until you read the fine print, which I did, in its entirety, and what I saw is quite chilling, in terms of fees, fines, and other undefined costs incurred when things go horribly wrong.

"When a Chargeback is issued, you are immediately liable to Stripe for the full amount of payment of the Chargeback plus any associated Fees, fines, expenses or penalties (including those assessed by the Networks or our payment processors). You agree that Stripe may recover these amounts by debiting by means of ACH debit of your Bank Account associated with your Stripe Service Account, debiting your Reserve Account, or setting off any amounts owed to you by us. If we are unable to recover funds related to a Chargeback for which you are liable, you will pay us the full amount of the Chargeback immediately upon demand. You agree to pay all costs and expenses, including without limitation attorneys’ fees and other legal expenses, incurred by or on behalf of us in connection with the collection of any unpaid Chargebacks unpaid by you."

https://stripe.com/tos

I >do< like the positives of Stripe, but I'd feel more comfortable if I knew how Stripe would handle specific extremes, such as the one about which I had recently asked.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3039782

As you noted in your post, these terms are standard (and, essentially, required of us) in this industry. And as people suggested, chargebacks are not a big deal. They are far less common than people think, and usually they are resolved quite easily; all it takes is good communication.

I appreciate the answers given to my question from several days ago. I appreciate that all of the loopholes need to be covered, using >standard< legalese, most of which will never be needed, but when it is, the situation will be resolved entirely in Stripe's favor, not mine. I appreciate that chargebacks are >usually< not a big deal. My concern is about extremes, particularly those which come out of malicious intent, perpetrated against me, through no fault of my own. With the way that these "one-sided" agreements are structured, it appears to be quite easy for me to launch an attack against a small startup's credit processing account, with the likely result being termination of said account, mostly due to the perception of risk which I will have created in the minds of the people who implement the TOS to which the startup agreed. If I can do this to someone's startup, then someone can do it to mine, and I can't be the only person who has thought of this kind of stuff.

And yet, have you ever heard of this happening? I don't mean to minimize your questions; I think there is some amount of trust involved. We're able to tell the difference between someone running a fraudulent business and someone who is being essentially DOSd. Simply having chargebacks is never going to automatically cause your account to be terminated.

"Simply having chargebacks is never going to automatically cause your account to be terminated."

False: "WePay reserves the right to close or put a hold on any account that has generated a ["a", as in "single"] chargeback." - https://www.wepay.com/about/terms

No one talks about the ugly fine print. It's always "just a formality", until they need to use it against you, and that's exactly the kind of leverage a competitor or an enemy will seek out.

Well, to be clear, I'm only speaking about our own service, not WePay. Anyway, I think we've covered the issue here but if you feel like you need further discussion I suggest reaching out to support@stripe.com.

"I'm only speaking about our own service, not WePay."

Really? See: "We can terminate this agreement at any time (especially if you do something bad). Termination is effective immediately. Termination does not alter your liability for processed payments or related chargebacks." at the top of https://stripe.com/tos.

I won't bother with support, because you have not given me any real answer to the scenario which I presented. Your system thus appears to be just as easy to defraud as any other, possibly even easier, so I have no reason to trust an entity which can, and likely will, dip into my bank account to extract all sorts of fees and fines when things do go bad.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com