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Comment by ianhawes | Hacker News Reader

I will take the OP's story at face value, but I think a common theme in these sort of posts is the "Stripe not happy with my business model" angle which typically does not actually include any details about the business model.

For example, a few weeks ago the founder of Tailwind tweeted [0] about how Stripe had shut down their account when they were set to launch the Tailwind Job Board, despite many other job boards also using Stripe and there being no obvious increased risk. Any rational person would protest the fact that Stripe does not approve of this business.

Compare that to what I've seen on various Facebook groups about Stripe shutting down accounts. People aren't descriptive about what exactly they're selling and it usually boils down to "coaching" or some other gray area.

[0] https://twitter.com/adamwathan/status/1550092016242946049

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> Any rational person could see the issue with Stripe not approving of that business.

I think of myself as a fairly rational person, and I don't see the issue. Would you mind spelling out whatever you're trying to imply?

my thoughts exactly

The comment was phrased poorly and is difficult to parse. Better worded, same meaning: any rational person would protest the fact that Stripe does not approve of this business.

It sounded OK in my head :-)

I think they're saying Stripe thinks those businesses are scams, illegal, or otherwise in gray areas that Stripe would rather not support. There's probably some automated decision-making happening on the backend so there are edge cases where good business are getting shut down on accident.

If that is the case, that is fine.

Then Stripe can FORKING SAY SO UP FRONT.

And those businesses can grumble but go elsewhere

Implying that you are happy to take on responsibility for infrastructure of someone's business, then unilaterally and without notice or opportunity to cure any issue, is pretty much tantamount to theft. Stripe in this case appears to be accepting money, then failing to provide service, and in this case is even holding onto money paid to their customers. This causes a lot more damage to others than it does to Stripe.

I don't like externalizing problems to other parties as a business model.

> I don't like externalizing problems to other parties as a business model

You just described the entire gig economy

YES! I have no idea why you are being downvoted on that - while it wasn't in mind while I wrote it, it does indeed apply! All the problems are at placed on the gig worker and the Ubers/AirBnBs/Instacarts of the world provide the software and work to shed as much responsibility as possible onto the drivers/hosts/workers. Apparently, there's a fair number of ppl on here who either do not see that or whose salary depends on them not seeing it.

I think the author refers to "Stripe not approving the business" as an issue.

A Job Board not being approved, despite many other job boards also using Stripe and there being no obvious increased risk.

> Any rational person could see the issue with Stripe not approving of that business.

I guess I'm not rational. What's the issue with running a job board and charging for posts through Stripe?

> Any rational person could see the issue with Stripe not approving of that business.

Genuinely can't tell what you're suggesting the business model problem is with Tailwind Jobs?

According to the CEO at Stripe, the issue with the Tailwind example you listed was "a major uptick in attempted fraud over the first half of this year that necessitated making our systems stricter. But have an idea for a structural fix here. More soon." And then Tailwind Jobs was reactivated.

> Genuinely can't tell what you're suggesting the business model problem is with Tailwind Jobs?

They're saying the opposite. Paraphrased, "any rational person could see that Tailwind Jobs is a legit business and that it's wrong for Stripe to shut them down".

"The issue" in the sentence you quoted is referring to Stripe's behavior, not Tailwind Job's business model.

Stripe reactivated the Tailwind account the same day, which means something at Stripe was broken in that case.

How is "coaching" an obvious gray area?

When I bought the All-Access pass from Tailwind Labs last night it went through Paddle.

Looks like this erroneous holds/deactivations are costing Stripe real business.

No, it means the case got enough attention on social media.

Just like here. We have those "Stripe shut me down" posts on HN regularly.

Oh look! 49 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32263421

I'd imagine many "coaches" promise the world and deliver very little. They likely have very high chargebacks / returns / disputes that Stripe would rather not deal with.

There's no real product so they're easy to spin up and run a bunch of stolen CC numbers through.

ETA: Either the site all together or as an individual coach on the platform.

I'd wager if Adam didn't have over 100k followers on Twitter, and wasn't a big deal in the web development community (most have heard of either him, or at least TailwindCSS), he'd get the same treatment as the OP, which is "you did one or more things wrong that's listed on this huge page of conditions, go figure it out."

There's actually a response from Patrick Collison in that thread that may shed some light on OP's case.

https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1550136569482252289

""What is happening?" => basically, a major uptick in attempted fraud over the first half of this year that necessitated making our systems stricter. But have an idea for a structural fix here. More soon. (DM me if you've had problems on this front.)"

The DM part may only apply to the high profile person he's responding to. :-)

Making your systems stricter will have the obvious side effect of increasing false negatives. Not scaling support, or fixing what is clearly a fundamentally broken support system, is incompetent.

Exactly. Especially when your decision is hitting a business right where it hurts: Cutting off revenue and invalidating customer-facing payment links.

How can any founder rely on Stripe, much less recommend the platform, if you need to have a backup system in place “just in case”.

Yes, they almost always fail to mention it. Then it turns out they’re selling cannabis to Iran or something. And (rightly so) payment processors can’t tell us what the problem is. So I’m inclined to flag all such stories missing the obviously key information.

"rightly so"

What possible benefit could there be to anyone in "golly gee, who could possibly know?" vs. "It's because you're selling cannabis to Iran, stupid"?

My guess is that it's because most people aren't selling cannabis to Iran, and the Real Problem is the liability they [Stripe, et al] would be exposed to if they admitted their billion-dollar system (and/or call center employees) can't distinguish between Cuba and a cubano.

This really sounds like you're biased since your YC affiliation means you're invested in Stripe, and your statement essentially reads as "the (YC company) is always right, and the customer must prove otherwise." This mentality is largely the reason people hate tech/SV in the first place.

I'm not making that claim. I'm pointing out that a customer saying "X locked my account" without the relevant information for HN readers to decide whether or not X acted improperly doesn't make for a good HN submission.

If this company sells T-shirts or something, then Stripe may have acted improperly. If they sell cannabis, then Stripe would have acted as the law requires, as everyone in that industry knows perfectly well. So it's pretty relevant information, and HN readers deserve to have the information they need to make informed decisions. There are plenty of other places online for uninformed outrage bait.

> There are plenty of other places online for uninformed outrage bait.

There aren't though. People come to HN to complain about getting fucked over by YC companies because it's basically the only place people will get a response. I'm not saying all, or even most, complaints are valid. But your immediately siding with the YC company just shows your bias, which is expected since you're literally invested in the company.

Regardless of whether or not Stripe is legally in the right, their customer support is absolutely abysmal. And the problem is that this is clearly a trend with YC companies and the fact that people have to vent about it on HN so frequently, and with such fanfare, says a lot.

maybe I'm not a rational person but could you explain why they would not approve of that business?

What is wrong with a job board or a coaching business?

Nothing is wrong.

The risk profiles are different. That is only thing the payment processor cares about, same reason why adult services get shunned. Not because they are puritans, it is because of risk of frauds and chargebacks etc are much higher .

Coaching is a service unlike Tailwind the software that can varying success and satisfaction levels customers probably do higher chargebacks and stripe's automated systems or low level staff with a playbook likely rejected it until someone senior got to see the bad press and got it fixed.

Why would this be such a difficult thing to communicate to a customer?

"Hi, we've noticed an increase of frauds/chargebacks on your account so we have taken X action"

That also doesn't really explain why long-standing, established customer accounts were frozen with this particular business.

Unless you get a decision overridden by Edwin your pretty much stuck using an alternate payment process. I have been thankful Edwin was available here on HN, and Stripe definitely has a much more reliable product than competitors.

Who’s Edwin? Is that the username here? I’m having the same issue. Was hoping to resolve this using customer service rather than through social media. But I just can’t seem to talk to any real human at Stripe.

What issue are you seeing? Could you email me at edwin@stripe.com?

Thanks Edwin for reaching out. I’m on mobile right now, but I’ll email you tomorrow.

It'd be great if companies' support processes worked well, and there was no need to reach out to specific individuals on HN, etc, but ... those individuals, like Edwin, who end up being "the Stripe guy" on HN do such amazing value-add for their business.

It's incredible to me that despite the sheer size of these companies, and the enormous number of customers from all over the world, that there's a place you can go and get someone who will pay personal attention to your issue.

Kudos Edwin.

See this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32854831

Email Edwin and also reply to their comment on HN conveying the high level summary of what you think is going on with your account.

Normal Stripe support reps seem to stick to the script no matter what. Edwin has fixed edge cases for HN users in the past thankfully.

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