Stripe Account CLOSED for no reason and with no explanation

[Dalla_]

Hi to all.

My name is Luca and I’m writing this thread on behalf of my business for a problem we are currently facing with our Stripe account.

To sum up our story: - We created our business Stripe account months back…no complaints. - 2 weeks ago, we opened the payment gates and received the first 10 payments after 1 year of work…account disabled for no reason and with no explanation. - We went through multiple support tickets and emails with Stripe support and got the same answer every time from, what seems to be, a chatbot. - We contacted the "Specialist team" through LinkedIn and after thoroughly explaining how we do not fall under any Restricted Business written by Stripe, he still decided to close our account for no reason and with no explanation. - The Stripe team is ignoring the fact that we fall under the same category as our competitor, which literally offers our same exact service. In the end, they still decided to close our account...again, for no reason and with no explanation.

Now after 1 year of work and weeks of integrating Stripe services to our platform, clients’ money involved, what are we supposed to do? Does Stripe at least have a support to pass clients recurring payments to another platform? Or do we just lose all of our clients?

If there’s anything my team can do such as: changing the service, the platform or the landing page to become compliant to Stripe’s Policies please help us out.

If anyone knows someone we can hop on a call with or discuss this situation please leave details or contact me at:

[e-mail]

[smca]

What's your business? Is it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34278268?

Crypto businesses can pose an elevated financial risk so we require you to obtain prior written approval per our restricted businesses agreement: https://stripe.com/legal/restricted-businesses#:~:text=Busin....

[Dalla_]

We report metrics, performances and open/close trades on their behalf. We use API key connection with the Exchange and that's it. We aren't an exchange, We DO NOT hold any token, any money, or any weird currency for our users. Users DO NOT deposit on our platform.

We simply perform open/close actions and that is it. We aren't in the Restricted Business List.

Our competitor who is based in our same region and offers the same exact service, uses Stripe.

[danpalmer]

Is that clear to Stripe? They explicitly ask for crypto businesses with supported use-cases to go through additional verification, so perhaps your competitors have done this.

Like app review processes and other curation, the people reviewing these things have a tiny snapshot into what you're doing with almost no context, and in a world where most new actors are malicious. It's understandable that they act with caution in cases that look like they could breach terms.

[smachiz]

If your business is https://dipsway.com, I could see why a merchant provider might terminate your account.

You're broadly wading into dangerous waters and a lot of what's on your website would probably get you regulated by the SEC, but the language used on your website would be alarming to any risk analyst. "Pump and dump" schemes are illegal in the US (and I presume literally everywhere else), and you're using similar verbiage right on the main page of your site. It almost looks like you're advocating customers get in on the ground floor of the pump and dump scam, which is certainly illegal.

Separately, from a risk perspective, they're also asking themselves "If this algorithm is so good, why would they sell it for $70/mo and instead just using the algorithm to make all the money for themselves, this is going to be chargeback central when the algorithm doesn't deliver".

[Dalla_]

We aren't selling dreams or magic pills. We are selling a bot powered with AI that places good buy and sell orders. There are plenty of services that offer the same exact thing.

And to be realistic, it's full of fraud services who actually sell dreams and promises when in reality don't work at all.

It's not about selling something too good to be true, it's about selling something that can help and bring value to the average crypto trader.

[danpalmer]

From the Stripe docs: https://support.stripe.com/questions/crypto-supportability-a...

> Supported crypto use cases on Stripe > If you are interested in using Stripe for a supported use case, please get in touch. During the onboarding process you will be asked to provide additional documentation about your business and will need explicit approval before you can start using Stripe.

This seems pretty explicit to me, and it doesn't sound like this was something you did. It may be something that is allowed with that extra documentation, and that may be why the competitors you mention have managed to make it work.

[sanswork]

If your bot works so well why don't you just keep it internal and print money or raise a fund?

If you just want to help the average crypto trader why not make it free?

[Dalla_]

It's not a get rich quick scheme.

Really? Why not make it free?

Thanks for the insightful comment.

[sanswork]

If it is a bot that tells you when to trade profitably then it is a get rich quick scheme, just turn up the leverage and if it works you'll be rich quick.

If it doesn't actually work well enough for you to get rich yourself then you are selling false hope and little better than a scam.

If it's profitable but all you want is to help the common trader than give it away free.

There is zero possibility your product works as advertised and you're selling it though.

[Dalla_]

You should channel your energy in to something productive my friend. Have a great day! :)

[true_religion]

You guys literally say “Get in before the pump”.

It’s not errant to call your entire business a pump and dump scheme, even if it is “AI powered”.

[Dalla_]

I really appreciate you taking more time into formulating this random comment than doing the bare minimum of research on our product.

I kindly invite you to take a better look at what we offer. Have a great day!

[true_religion]

If your response to potential customers is this passive aggressive, you’re going to have trouble finding people to pay regardless of having a stripe account or not.

I’m literally reading the copy on your marketing page. If that’s nit enough to entice someone to do more research then the onus is on you to have more clearer and more appealing copy.

[smachiz]

Good luck!

[3np]

Now you learned the lesson that this can happen to anyone, at any time, for no apparent reason. Don't put all your eggs in a single external party if you can avoid it.

> Or do we just lose all of our clients?

I'm sorry but wha? How do all your clients depend on you utilizing Stripe?

Looking at your website dipsway.com, yeah I can see how Stripe would drop you like a potato with gems like:

> Position yourself before the rise, take advantage of the perfect chance to profit. The bot will automatically place buy/sell orders at the best time. It includes 16+ strategies optimized with a Walk Forward Optimization approach. Better than HODL: ^23 % (Promising much returns? I hope you're not under purview of the SEC)

> Bitcoin grew 15% and you missed it. Never miss another opportunity

> Your wallet is YOURS. DipSway cannot access your funds and cannot withdraw them. (If I understand the nature of your service right, this can only be true with a very unique take on "access", where you can still use the client funds from their exchange account to trade against yourself doesn't require access)

> Q: What's the algorithm behind DipSway? A: You can join DipSway and see our CEO's wallet performance on the bot for free in which you will get all the detailed performances info about the bot in the last 6 months. To get the bot working on your wallet you can choose the plan that is tailored to your needs. (WAT)

If you want to be in crypto business, you gotta decentralize your and your clients risk. Run your own servers (with more than one ISP and location).

Separately, if your don't want to be shut off from US service providers, avoid broadcasting what would likely get scrutinized as unlicensed security offerings on your website.

It boggles my mind how you ran for a year without preparing for this exact scenario... I hope you prepare better for when AWS and Cloudflare block access to your DNS and servers next round or, black swan, Telegram stops being an option for whatever reason.

[3np]

Oh, your treatment of website visitor data seems in violation of the GDPR.

I see outgoing requests to multiple third parties (the chat widget looks like a source) without any form of notice, let alone the actually mandated informed and active consent prior to any of that.

Writing "By using this Site, you signify your acceptance of this Policy. If you do not agree to this Policy, please don't use our site. Your continued use of the Site will be deemed as your acceptance of those changes" does not fly. That this statement can only be found in a PDF link scurried away in the page footer does not make things better.

"Everyone's doing it and bigger guys are getting away with worse" is not a justification here either.

[sanswork]

>what are we supposed to do

Eat the loss on the 10 payments, find another payment processor and move on. Anything else is a waste of time, even if they reactivate you are you going to trust that they don't just drop you again? Move on.

[DANmode]

> The Stripe team is ignoring the fact that we fall under the same category as our competitor,

...are you sure?

[freedrock87]

Looks like its being used for a crypto site. Dipsway.com

[Dalla_]

Yes, by simply entering the developer tools you can see the code and the Stripe requests.

[DANmode]

...huh?

[leros]

The danger of being a small client. Companies like Stripe and many others are perfectly content with having a few false positives in their algorithms. So what if they accidentally ban 0.1% of their customers if they're stopping 99% of the fraud? They're happy with that. If they mess up with a large client, they'll have the account manager fix it. If they mess up with a small client, the lost revenue is small. They just don't have the incentive to do a better job. I've seen this mentality at a few companies and I don't see much hope for changing it.

[lopkeny12ko]

HN is not a customer support forum.

[alberth]

Suggestion:

- it might help to list what your business is, and

- to provide your work email as contact (not your person gmail).

[mytailorisrich]

Stripe's T&Cs state that you may not use them for financial services without their prior written approval.

[chipgap98]

It's awful that this is the only way to get the attention of companies these days

I hope you are able to resolve this issue!

[danpalmer]

Hi Luca, I'd get in touch with your account manager. They'll be interested in solving this for you, they want your business, and assuming everything is above board, they'll be able to sort it.

If you don't have an account manager, as it sounds like maybe you don't... why? Payments are a critical part of most businesses, so I would advise against just putting a few details into a web form, getting an API key, and then depending on it in production, as that behaviour looks dodgy – there's little trust in the relationship on either side, and understandably companies with a reputation to uphold will be eager to cut off potentially bad actors at the earliest sign.

[mikece]

Does every Stripe customer have an account manager or is that something where, like AWS, you only get one of those if you have enough volume/spend on the platform?

[danpalmer]

You certainly don't need to be big, even with AWS. I worked for a startup that was putting low volume through Stripe for a long time and we had one. You might have to "sell" yourself a bit, talk about plans, roadmap, future growth, but I think it's entirely reasonable for a pre-revenue company to get one.

Even if you don't get an account manager in some formal sense, going through a sales call and having them be aware of you is only going to help the process and increase the trust.

[lindig]

What does your business do? Stripe might not have listed your business model explicitly but could still prefer to not have you as a customer if it is an edge case.

[jacknews]

IMHO payment processing is an 'essential service', and processors should be required to provide service to any lawful customer, regardless of their preferences.

[pulse7]

Maybe they are doing some shady crypto stuff... (Maybe they participate in selling "numbers with certain properties" which are called Bitcoins, but are just numbers in reality...)

[jacknews]

is it legal?

Not to get into that debate, but your bank account is just numbers too.

[pulse7]

It may be illegal in some jurisdictions and the payment provider may decide to not deal with it because of legal risk...

[jacknews]

That's my point, the provider should not be making that decision. Either it's legal or not, and if it is they should be required to provide service.

[Dalla_]

We have a traditional SaaS business model. We aren't an edge case with a complex structure. We looked up their Restricted Businesses List and we are clean.

[piva00]

You have a SaaS that promises:

> Capture every crypto opportunity with a bot.

> Helping you towards a profitable crypto journey with the power of AI.

Which are not signs of a "traditional SaaS business model", yes, it is a service but you are leaving out the context of your service: cryptocurrencies. Which is enough to probably trigger some alarms inside Stripe, I've worked in fintech before and it's much better for the company to be risk-averse and blocking first, asking later than the opposite.

Given this context you should get in touch with Stripe and somehow explain how your business model isn't a risk to Stripe, unfortunately you are working in a domain with a lot of scams, and other fraudulent activities. You might not be doing it but Stripe has no way to know that, and won't be investing man-hours of cost trying to investigate your whole company to see if you aren't being sneaky and defrauding people with a seemingly legitimate business.

Edit: In fintech I worked on fraud detection, analysis, reporting and tooling for fraud agents to run their investigations, another red flag that a fraud agent would encounter when investigating your company is that the company is registered in Estonia, my best guess would be through the e-Residency scheme that allows for online business registering.

Neither of the co-founders (you included) seems to be from Estonia, or residents in Estonia. If I were a fraud agent looking at this case I'd flag it for further review based on all of these factors: company working in an industry primed with scams and frauds, using the e-Residency scheme from Estonia, while neither founders appears to be citizens or residents of Estonia. At the company I worked for (pretty big fintech in the EU) this would be put under a "manual review" and immediately block further transactions until the fraud review was done.

[redeeman]

is this for dipsway? did you take something other than stripe before?

anyway, I cant comment on your case, but I will say, as I have said before, using stripe is a gamble, DO NOT DO IT! when the problem hits, they are impressive in their ability to simply have totally nonexistant support. they will even go so far as to totally stop replying.

Use a competitor, if you dont want this huge risk.

Now you know, praise yourself lucky it was only 2 weeks worth.

[mikece]

I switched to Stripe.com for a pair of non-profits for whom I do I/T work after the rate at which PayPal cancelled people without explanation or recourse went up.

Is there any chance that these "We're firing you and that's final" cases are prompted by some sort of regulation or legislation that also prohibits the fintech provider from telling the former client why they were cancelled?

[wackget]

Worrying. I see too many of these complaints about Stripe on HN. It makes me really question my company's decision to integrate with Stripe. We may have to re-think our integration.

[danpalmer]

Stripe's problem is that they make it look like anyone can accept payments with just an API integration, but the financial system does not work like that for many complicated reasons. As long as you call them up, get an account manager, and build that trust like any business relationship, you'll be fine. The issues come if you sign up in the same way that a bad actor would, in the lowest-touch way.

[redeeman]

I have no involvement with stripe, or OP, but I will strongly advise you: DO IT! Im sure many people who complain about stripe are probably slightly unsavory (not saying OP is), but seriously, the day shit hits the fan, you are simply out of luck unless you somehow have a gazillion twitter followers, or enough luck/clout to get the attention of some strip guys here.

Consider your options carefully!

[eli]

I'm not sure Square or Braintree or anyone else is much different in this regard

[CoastalCoder]

What jurisdiction are you in?

That might affect the advice you get.

[mfontani]

From https://stripe.com/legal/restricted-businesses

Looks like there's a bunch of stuff that might opinably fit, depending on who those 10 clients were or what your company does.

- Regulated industries such as: Financial products and services / Investment and brokerage services - Money transmitters, currency exchange services and other money services businesses - Neobanks / challenger banks - Other financial institutions - Credit card and identity theft protection services - Other age restricted goods or services - Virtual and cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and mining services - Sale of stored value or credits maintained, accepted and issued by anyone other than the seller - Businesses where sellers get their revenue both from selling items and from signing up new sellers - When you sign up for Stripe Issuing, you share with Stripe the location of your business, the physical address of your beneficial owners, and the jurisdiction in which your business is registered. Stripe requires that the physical location of your business, its jurisdiction of registration, and the physical address of at least one of your beneficial owners all match. Furthermore, you must use Issuing cards primarily in the same jurisdiction - Use of Stripe's services for any dealings, engagement, or sale of goods/services linked directly or indirectly with jurisdictions Stripe has deemed high risk, such as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk Regions, or persons Stripe has deemed high risk, such as those individuals or entities named to a restricted person or party list of the U.S., United Kingdom, European Union or United Nations, including the sanctions lists maintained by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control or the Denied Persons List or Entity List maintained by the U.S. Department of Commerce, is prohibited. Additionally, it is prohibited to use Stripe's products and services to directly or indirectly export, reexport, sell, or supply accounting, trust and corporate formation, management consulting services, architecture services or engineering services to any person located in Russia. Further, it is prohibited to use Stripe’s products and services directly or indirectly related to any goods prohibited by law (e.g. luxury goods) from Russia.

From a cursory search of email, name, company... I find it plausible that something above might've matched. Or maybe it's a matter of who those 10 clients were, and where they're located. Iran? Cuba? Crimea? Russia? That might do it.

Maybe your competitor also matches, which might be ground for -- if Stripe doesn't want that kind of business on their platform -- for shooting them off, too.

Or maybe it's not a matter of the business type, but of where the clients reside.

Unfortunately only Stripe could help here. :/

[ChrisArchitect]

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