[jonahbenton]

Your orthodontist is probably using an ass (term of art) specialized medical practice billing system. Not uncommon for smaller practices. Some of these are made by the dude down the block, kind of thing. Total shit. That will be the thing that is issuing the debit. It might be querying for the balance beforehand. The thing to do is find out what ass billing system they are using, might be associated with their ass practice management system, and then talk to those people. It might be stripe under the hood but stripe is not making this mistake.

[gushogg-blake]

That was another possibility I asked about but the bank said it's absolutely not possible to query the balance. Could have been misunderstanding what I meant, I guess, or just wrong - do you know for sure that it is possible?

[jonahbenton]

Traditionally under ACH I don't believe balance inquiry is available. But if you did a Plaid like thing to "connect" your card, your balance is available to payees.

https://docs.stripe.com/payments/ach-direct-debit/accept-a-p...

[gushogg-blake]

Right - I don't have any open banking connections with them.