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Anyone else had a Stripe account closed?
I thought I should put this out there in search of advice and also to warn people about Stripe.
We started using Stripe a few months back and took a handful of payments - most of our customers pay by bank transfer or Paypal. One customer, who I know personally, wanted to pay by credit card, so I obviously let him use the Stripe gateway. He made the payment from his own credit card which went through.
However, he was connected to his personal VPN. Later that night (just after midnight - I'm sure they have a cron that does this), I got an automated email through from Stripe saying that they didn't want my business any more and all unsettled payments had been refunded.
I've tried to contact them a few times about this - because we are a legitimate company doing legitimate business - nothing funny at all. I haven't heard back on any of these counts, although there is a small possibility that it's been picked up by our email spam filter which is quite stringent.
Has anyone else had this happen to them? We would like to continue using Stripe if at all possible, so I'd like to know what my chances are of convincing them that we're doing legitimate business.
For those who are thinking about Stripe, the phrase "worse than Paypal" comes to mind, which is a shame as I really wanted to like Stripe.
Comments
I started to look at alternatives for Stripe as soon as I noticed they never verify address, I was fairly some people had false addresses and it still went through so that was a no no. I'm quite happy with Gocardless now, I think the fees are lower even, although not entirely sure but it's certainly reasonable. Their support has been brilliant actually to be honest.
Never had any issues with Stripe, we've been using it since the Beta.
As always, have you tried contacting them first?
https://support.stripe.com/email
Yeah, GoCardless is great. The only trouble is it's not as easy for certain large businesses or people outside their catchments areas.
Yes, as I said in my post, several times.
Oh, what sort of issues does it pose then? I guess I was lucky to be in their 'catchment area'?
For example, those in a non-GoCardless country can't pay with it. There was also an instance where I had to invoice a very large institution and the person who had to pay had a corporate charge card, but no control over the bank account and wasn't allowed to use Paypal, so it was Stripe or wait 30 days for a transfer that would then take a week or more...
Edit: there's also another issue with GoCardless which is that people can enter any account info they like, true or false, good for the payment or not, and it takes a few days to find out if I'll get the money.
High rate of chargebacks probably is the reason why account was closed ?
Absolutely zero chargebacks.
well, then it's not normal for a stripe to close your account. Have you tried calling them if they've phone support?
No phone number I can find.
They don't have an official number although I got through to their DNS Team, if you call them they may be able to transfer you to another department.
+1.8772544179
We had tons of issues with Stripe. Wasn't happy with them at all. Swapped to BrainTree. Haven't had any issues with them at all. May be worth taking a look.
Funny - as soon as Stripe sent me their nonsense, I started looking at Braintree. Their setup process is a little convoluted, but I'm trying to go through it now.
@Nick_A you've been using Stripe for a while, any issues?
Initial app is a touch weird, but good people. Actual phone support, real web interface. Works well for me.
Thanks for your feedback. Hopefully there won't be any problems with them.
I had a technical problem with Stripe a while back where they refused to accept a charge had been successful, (stating they'd just taken a payment hold), but after several days - the clients bank were insistent that it was a charge and not a hold.
Needless to say, it took a lot of "shouting" in their old chat room to finally get someone to call me.
I have some contacts for direct email I can PM over, and I'll see if I can dredge the phone number out of my logs if you'd like.
Alternatively, Braintree has some really good feedback, and if you're looking for a secondary solution without an API (but with mobile Chip and PIN, and manual card entry), I'd give Intuit Pay (UK) a go - never had a problem with them, and they're great for charging physically present clients, or for emergency use if Stripe/Other processor is having issues.
You can go into settings and tick a box to force zip code verification of the card and decline if false.
braintree was purchased by paypal, so if you're looking for redundancy in processors that could be an issue.
We are using paypal for credit card processing, and no issues with that.
Start use non chargeback payment providers and everything be fine and safe. People just not learn lessons..
Just had the same problem with stripe today, same zero charge back before had them for 6 months and gotten an email today closing the account.. Luckly for us we have three other active gateways for backups but sadly i liked them until now
Necro bump, lol.
FYI both Stripe and PayPal aren't setting up proper merchant accounts for your businesses, hence why they will close your account at the drop of a hat and offer no support. Find a good First Data ISO and get set up with a normal merchant account (they'll underwrite you for processing CC & Debit cards), and you'll be able to take cards without worrying about your credit card processing disappearing on you without warning.
Technically there is a lag between when you send a credit card for authorization, settle the total amount out, and when the bank backing the credit card funds the transaction. The additonal wrinkle to this is the chargeback risk in this industry. The second PayPal or Stripe realizes your industry and clientele (or if you do any decent volume), they view you as extremely high risk, and they don't underwrite your account for risk (say with Wells Fargo or another bank), so they are on the hook for any chargebacks or fraud that occurs.
Get a real merchant account, you'll pay a percent or two less (if you do any reasonable volume, over a few grand a month), and you will be underwritten for risk, so that your account won't get closed over a chargeback or two or a high risk transaction or customer. BTW you can integrate your merchant account into PayPal pretty easily, so that you get the cheaper rates and avoid PayPal's shenanigans, its what Newegg, BestBuy and all the larger companies do.
They closed ours for been a VPS company, just a warning to others that may have gotten too comfortable with stripe.
Stripe re-opened our account after 18 months. We're using Braintree now - you do get a real merchant account included in that although there's no monthly fee and it works like Stripe. Oh and your first £30k is free and the support is excellent.
We do same here, I vote for Braintree as a replacement for your current CC processing company with my both hands!
I like braintree as well kinda sucks that all cards outside of the owners country are charged with a higher 3.9% fee. I'll probably have most of my transactions from the USA, and probably just a few from the Netherlands.
Spent a while setting up stripe to replace authorize.net for a friend's laser engraving website, did 6 test charges on my own cards and they closed the account a few days later with the above message...
Could be because I didn't enter an address? Zip verification and CV2 both passed, quite funny as stripe also allows you to accept charges with just a card number and expiry!
Or because you're not supposed to charge your own cards?
I've used stripe for 2 years, with no issues. I am 100% happy.
However, it does seem google is full of people complaining their account was closed, due to suspected fraud, whereas the same search for Braintree doesn't bring up anything!
I have some sympathy for all 'new generation' online payment providers as while they have made it much easier and faster to accept payments online for everyone, by doing so they have also made it easier for fraudsters to sign up and accept payments....