[mikepechadotcom]

Sorry to say that, but the fact that founders have to post on Hacker News to get necessary support from Stripe in case something like this happens, gives the impression that your reply is just reputation damage control, and nothing will actually change.

[pc]

I would estimate that roughly 99%–99.9% of cases get resolved without anything on HN. (Per the GP comment, things have already improved 50% since earlier this year and will, I think, improve tenfold by the end of the year.)

[teachrdan]

What's your definition of "resolved"?

If a Strip user appeals unsuccessfully through your official channels and then gives up, do you consider that "resolved"?

It seems like you exhaust those unfortunate users who banned due to Stripe's errors and then call it a success because they've stopped complaining. Or does your definition of "resolved" account for that?

[sombremesa]

It is just reputation damage control (i.e. this type of mistake will continue to happen - to err is human anyway), but communication is seen pretty favorably and it’s the sensible course of action.

[albrewer]

> and nothing will actually change

If nothing changes, people will move away from Stripe on to something else. I'd say stuff like this is exactly how a business that wants to stay alive needs to react to swiftly and figure out the root cause for.

The communication from the founder or representative needs to reflect the commitment to change and show the plan they intend to execute. The GP didn't do so well on the second point (vague plan, at best).

If we see stuff like this still happening in 3-6 months, I think it's time to bring out the pitchforks.

[m11a]

Not really. Stripe has a better platform than competitors, and even though its support isn’t a strong point it’s still better than competitors (which admittedly is not a very high bar). It’s probably much better for large businesses who have their own contact/account manager at Stripe etc.

Last time I contacted Stripe I was given a round circle between departments, the department responsible denying the issue and/or sending me to an unrelated department (who had a good agent but, as expected, admitted she couldn’t fix the issue even though she recognised its existence). In the end it turned out to be a bug in Billing that was eventually fixed (per the dev IRC) but support denied there was any bug and kept giving bot-like responses. It was ridiculous. Stripe should probably improve its support, but even if it doesn’t it’ll probably do just fine.

Big tech and developed ‘startups’ are famous for bad support. Consider Coinbase, which barely responds, PayPal, which is useless, or Google/FB, which don’t even provide a contact option except in limited cases (eg GSuite for Business issues).

[noasaservice]

> Stripe has a better platform than competitors

.... If you weren't disabled by an automated system, and "customer support" (probably another level of shitty ML) continues to double down.

I concur with mikepechadotcom that this is simply a one-off damage control via "Social Media Escalation".

[m11a]

Right. I meant in terms of its APIs, Stripe’s product is solid. I’m not saying their user service/CS is great, although it’s probably average for the payment processing industry for non-large companies.

I had almost exactly the same issue as OP but with Braintree. The support was equally as useless. Stripe isn’t unique here, most tech companies just don’t know how to build good support.

[atatatat]

People "moved on" from PayPal, too.

You can't take back the entrenched market position gained, and the millions in dickswinging power now accessible.