Stripe is holding over $200k of mine with no explanation | Hacker News Reader

Stripe is holding over $200k of mine with no explanation

43 pointsRE8818 comments

Posted this before and didn't have anyone comment, hoping someone sees this and can assist.

Stripe is holding over $200,000 in deposits on my account and I have spent hours trying to get a hold of someone higher up to release the funds. If I don't receive a large portion of the funds back by next week, I will not be able to make payroll for the employees and contractors that work for me and they will not be able to feed their families and pay rent. I've tried numerous emails and contacts at Stripe but NO ONE has been responsive or willing to let me speak to someone higher up who has the authority to release the funds. This is criminal as my business will have to shut down unless I receive a large portion of those funds, asap.

View on HN

Ah another one of these posts where OP is deliberately vague about what their business does and why it may violate a payment processor's terms of service. I wonder what they do and how cryptocurrency is involved.

(I work at Stripe and don’t want to publicly provide specifics for privacy reasons, but, yes, we’ve been in touch with OP already about their business model. If we assess customers are requesting refunds and filing disputes, funds are reserved so that all customers can receive refunds in a timely manner.)

Edwin, neither you, nor any individual from your team we’ve asked to speak to directly has responded.

Having general support briefly respond and then stop responding, is absolutely criminal considering the amount being withheld and the livelihood of my employees and contractors who depend on me to pay them being left to suffer.

I’ve send multiple emails to yourself and other individuals requesting to speak to someone on the phone, yet no one has responded.

Can you please respond to the email I sent you directly, as this is extremely urgent.

I can assure no cryptocurrency is involved and no violation have occurred.

In fact, we have a reputable business and this incident should never have occurred in the first place and I’m doing my best to rectify it

Let's see whether hn works again as the support channel for Stripe just like it did yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36403607

Good luck.

It's hard for anyone to help without knowing much about your circumstance. What you've said so far seems too vague for even Stripe employees to look up your account. What industry are you serving? How are they holding your money (i.e. what's preventing it from being transferred when you try)? What reasons have they given?

It seems insane that money transmitters have so little oversight, it’s pretty much conventional wisdom at this point: “their API is nice, but you’re playing Russian roulette with your money by using them”

What's the alternative? I'm building an app and I'm just about to connect up stripe.

I don't want to play the roulette

I cannot guide you to alternatives, but I can only give you my absolute honest advice: DO NOT USE STRIPE.

I have personal experience with stripe just withholding money, citing "risk", and then just not responding to support emails. The money was eventually released, about 5 months later, it did however kill the business.

Everyone is always thinking (and to be honest I probably would have myself aswell) that "those guys did something shady" "if you just run an honest business, this wont happen to you". But I can say that no, there was NO shady business involved, nothing even remotely close, we used them for a long time, and boom one day they email saying they are halting payouts due to "risks", and then theres nothing you can do. You cannot talk to a human, you can mail, and then after a bit of that, they just stop aswering, maybe answering one of the daily mails every few weeks or month, just saying "we will look into it" and such.

I am sure most people use stripe without any issues, but it is a roulette, and my advice to you (and anyone else) is: avoid it even if it costs some money. How much will it cost you if you eventually hit the wrong barrel in the revolver? This is a game you play every single day when using stripe, and there simply is no recourse unless you are big enough to funnel endless money into lawyers. We were not.

Again, I cannot recommend any solution in particular, but I know that for my sake, and this is not just stripe at this point, if I cannot call up a human with ability to escalate to someone in authority(even if its paid support), Its simply too risky to deal with. Ideally i'd like to be able to show up in person, though I understand that thats not always possible

Seriously, take it from someone who drew the short straw, YOU DO NOT WANT THAT

100%

This is why businesses need to transition to stable coins as a means to sell their services.

... You're joking, right?

Nope, the whole point of stable coins is that no one can arbitrarily freeze your funds.

Except Tether, the largest stablecoin, can freeze and blacklist addresses, they have total control and can arbitrarily freeze your funds.

Which stablecoin doesn't allow anyone to freeze your funds? USDT and USDC both certainly do.

Dai, LUSD, RAI

Mullvad’s approach of mailing cash also seems pretty attractive.

Is your business criminal?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com