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Comment by rbritton | Hacker News Reader

I have no affiliation with Stripe aside from developing on their API. One of the explanations I've heard in regards to this is a scenario something like the following:

1. Merchant sets up Stripe account.

2. Merchant begins processing credit cards.

3. Stripe's vetting process kicks in and takes a look at Merchant, finding that Merchant is operating a business type that is prohibited by Stripe's TOS.

4. Stripe cancels all transactions and locks the account.

From what I can tell Stripe allows you to start charging immediately and only some time later does the vetting process kick in where a human takes a look at the merchant. When the merchant is operating a business that is prohibited[0], this happens.

[0]: https://stripe.com/prohibited_businesses

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Thanks for bringing this up. A couple of clarifications (I work on risk at Stripe):

1. This failure mode existed up until a few months ago, but has since been fixed. In order to avoid anyone wasting time, we have systems that alert us to potential ToS violations as soon as someone sets up their account. We review these alerts right away, and reach out to users well before they've started accepting payments.

2. We never cancel or refund transactions that have even a remote chance of being legitimate. For cases where we have to stop accepting payments for a website because of ToS issues, we're always happy to give users as much time as they need to transition off of Stripe if they've already started accepting payments through us.

If you're aware of recent cases where we haven't done this, I'd really appreciate knowing about them. You can reach me at anurag@stripe.com.

Good to know. Thanks for an official answer.

I can see that happening. My business is allowed (custom app development) but I'm not sure I want to take the gamble on possibly not getting paid for a week of work. One of the scenarios I read stated that Stripe said the reversals were because their automated system believed that the person behind the account was the same as one that had already been canceled, but that the detection system wasn't 100% accurate and they were awful sorry if the decision had been made in error. It offered no appeals process. That story made me particularly nervous since ISP's recycle IPs etc.

I've been using Stripe for just over a year now to take payments for a 6-figure-a-year business. We've had no reversals whatsoever. The only time Stripe has removed payments have been in the case of the occasional chargeback, which we typically win; payments seem to get docked the moment you file your response to the dispute, and get credited back the moment you're notified the dispute has been won.

I was a little nervous when first setting up with Stripe too, so we enabled it for a few hours and let a few sales go through, then switched back to our old merchant account and payment gateway while we waited to make absolutely sure the sales went through with Stripe. 7 days later, the payments hit our bank account, and we switched everything over to them - been happy ever since. They have a great dashboard, and everything's far easier to deal with and manage than it was with our old merchant account. Only downside is the pay delay - merchant account deposited most funds in our accounts within 2 days; Stripe takes 7. But if you're doing pretty consistent numbers, this isn't too much of a burden to cash flow, since you've got the funds from a week ago coming in every day.

I've run 30-40K through Stripe over the last several months for a couple consulting clients with no issues whatsoever.

Stripe does what it says on the tin.

These guys are a dream to deal with versus my old set up (Authorize.net and First Data). Those guys are thieves who nickel and dime you to death with cryptically-named mystery fees.

I'm in the US FWIW.....

I'm not familiar with the details here (feel free to email me -- anurag@stripe.com), but I can say with confidence that you should never have to worry about not being paid for a week of work with Stripe. If there was a bug like this, we'd do everything possible to make things right, including (of course) transferring funds to your account to cover any reversals that were made in error.

I'm wondering which of these came from the card networks and, most importantly, what's the actual rationale for including them?

* Virtual currency that can be monetized, re-sold or converted to physical or

* digital products or services or otherwise exit the virtual world

* Sexually-oriented or pornographic products or services

* Airlines

* Cruise lines

* Flea markets

* Drug paraphernalia

* Psychic services

* Prepaid phone cards, phone services or cell phones

* Telecommunications equipment and telephone sales

* Personal computer technical support

As it happens, I posted a comment that tries to explain some of this a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6188987.

4. Sexually-oriented or pornographic products or services

Would you constitute software development for the adult industry as one of those? I'm a freelance software developer.. Most of my clients are in the adult realm. I build sites for them, and software they buy from me. I'd love to use Stripe for processing their invoices (currently use PayPal) but that worries me that I'm gonna get canned because I wrote a CMS that is used on a porn site.

I'm not from Stripe, but I think I can answer: you're fine. Porn businesses are avoided mainly due to high fraud rates (including friendly fraud, when the cardholder buys the website services and later falsely claims their card number was stolen). It's not out of morality. After all, many brick-and-mortar shops have no problem accepting card payments for porn magazines. Your business isn't porn, and you're unlikely to get chargebacks, so you're good.

Judging from previous companies I've talked to, it doesn't matter. Porn is porn. They want no association with it period. Even if it's just code.

Can you explain the telecommunications equipment one? We're an electronic design company setting up Stripe (Australian Beta), and while we don't have any products in this category currently, we've been thinking of doing some networking/telecoms products...

It'd be good to hear more specifically what's not allowed.

You should probably reach out to them directly.

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