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I think this negativity is uncalled for. They said that they do their best, sometimes there are mistakes on their end that they try to fix, and sometimes the person complaining is lying or leaving out details that would explain the situation. If you've ever dealt with people, you would know that they often "forget" things or downplay things that would make them look bad.

I think this criticism is called for. The customer tried asking them nicely and it sounds like they did not try very hard to fix it -- which is an experience I can empathize with 100 times over. If you've ever dealt with companies, you know that they often have policies and procedures that intentionally screw customers and they only back off if it blows up publicly. Because they can. Our accountability mechanisms suck.

I don't think you - or many of the people commenting here - read through the thread. The customer personally sold a "cheap" van and accepted a credit card as a payment, which is super, super sketchy. Of course Stripe flagged it. They were smart to do so.

I read OP’s reply as a generic criticism about companies that scale beyond their ability to provide sufficient customer support, not a specific criticism of patio11. Silicon Valley is full of companies that scale beyond their competence and ability to operate properly: it’s practically a requirement of the “growth at all costs” mentality. I would argue that if you cannot handle dealing with customers without AI and automation with many false positives, then you have no business scaling further until you can. I don’t know if this is the particular case for Stripe since I’m not a customer, but we can all see this behavior across the industry.

That's an incredibly charitable interpretation in favour of Stripe. The aggrieved party has been emailing their support repeatedly only when this gained traction on both Reddit and Hackernews are they actually replying. How is this acceptable?

I don't see how you can assume bad faith on the user. Have you ever dealt with corporations? If so, you would know that they often lie and downplay things that make them look bad.

When so much money is at stake, the negativity is called for. Stripe is not neutral here. They have leverage and power over their merchants in these situations.

You're bringing negativity as well. Just applying it to the smaller, weaker party.

Also: Stripe publicly emphasized the possibility that their customer might be a dirty rotten liar.

I feel it is only fair to point out that Stripe might be a dirty rotten liar, too.

It turns out the poster did, in fact, omit extremely material info from their original post. They sold a used company van via credit card via their stripe account: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32264886

This is not something the business sells, and a huge chargeback risk

Isn't the obviously correct behavior by Stripe to suspend that transaction, without interrupting others? Clearly they are able to identify transactions on a case-by-case basis.

I read their account. They only complain of Stripe holding "the" money, from the car. Did they say Stripe locked their account or did any other restrictions?

https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/wa1zob/dont_...

I read a few of their comments their complain seems to be about the $3000 and needing to wait 120 days to get it.

They also say you can't call, but at least for me I'm able to call Stripe here: https://support.stripe.com/?contact=true

I don't see any phone number there.

If you have an account, you click "call me" and they call you

OP said the options to "call me" is greyed out: https://old.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/wa230m/tifu_by_using_...

First, that seems to be what happened to OP. They suspended the transaction and are holding funds associated with that transaction.

Second, I posit that having even one (confirmed) suspicious or fraudulent transaction increases the likelihood of having others.

From elsewhere in this page:

> I used Stripe for about a year to run a small cell phone store in Denver, CO area. [1]

> We sold a cheap van in the company name. [2]

Yeah, that explains how they arrived in Stripe jail.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32261868#32264335

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/wa1zob/comme...

Should’ve used Zelle or cash. At least with your bank, you can apply regulatory pressures. With Stripe, you have little recourse.

> Corporate process improvement is not an excuse for treating people badly. An individual human who treats people badly is not allowed to say "well I deal with a lot of people and I need algorithms and sometimes my algorithms don't work so I'm doing my best to improve them".

I don't think you're disagreeing with patio11 here. To wit:

> Sometimes situations which result in external complaints are the result of a process failure, and *in those cases we try to fix the instant case and improve processes in the future*.

I read that as: they prioritize satisfying the immediate, dissatisfied customer first and address process improvement second, which is exactly the priority that you're suggesting. Especially combined with patio11's other suggestion of personally contacting the upper management of the company.

Disagree but a morally commendable position.

Perfect