What relevance does any of that have when OP has supporting documents for this specific transaction, which is the only transaction Stripe has issue with and the only issue that OP is trying to resolve?
We don't know what relevance it might have, but it shows the OP participates in risky ventures in a sector with a lot of fraud. There could certainly be some part of the story that is important that OP chose to leave out because it makes him look bad.
Seriously? It has absolutely no bearing on the transaction in question.
Hashcat? OpenDNS? A question about Elon? I mean I know HN hates cryptocurrency with a fiery passion... But that has no influence whatsoever on this specific transaction for which OP claims to have all the documentation for (it wasn't a cryptocurrency transaction, so why would interest in BTC be relevant to the transaction?)
This has to be one of the worst sides of the internet. User posts issue X, and other users spend all of their time looking through post history so they can shame them and come up with some twisted reasoning that X is justified.
I'm sure the alternative would go over well too. "This guy used a throwaway account to report a problem! Seems a little suspicious. What are they trying to hide?"
Having watched a lot of these stories go down one thread in many of them is Stripe was required by some combination of regulators/banks to freeze funds of someone who has been selling cannabis, and because of privacy cannot openly say that such is the case.
The person proceeds to escalate and escalate through every customer service option (including Reddit, HN) not necessarily because they’re not getting a response, but because it’s not the response they want.
I don’t know if that’s true here, but I’ve seen it happen internally with YC companies many times.
If parent only posted the cannabis one, with the framing that you did (cannabis can be troublesome in some areas, federal regulations, etc.), I wouldn't have made my original comment.
Instead they went on a smear campaign, in some righteous attempt to label OP as deserving of not being able to reach support because they have posted about gambling/cryptocurrency/etc. Gross.
If the transaction OP did through stripe was for a product(s) containing CBD/THC (EDIT: They sold a van. > We sold a cheap van in the company name. ) then I can understand why Stripe closed the account as it’s on their restricted businesses list (often not because stripe disagree with the product, but the providers stripe use disallow them and stripe have to do so otherwise risk losing access to the provider for everyone). And once the account is closed there won’t be any more transactions on the account to recoup the cost if transaction’s get reversed down the road.
But that doesn’t excuse Stripes lack of communication / canned replies. Even if you are parting ways with a customer it’s not wise to burn bridges, who knows maybe CBD/THC products won’t be shit listed later down the road and you would welcome the customer back. But leaving a nasty taste in the customers mouth will make them much more hesitant to return.
They might have some automated system that does it. With the amount of money going around and the ease of deploying such a technology (single digit false positives don't really matter to the modern megacorp) I'd somewhat expect it to be standard right now.
The really gross but unsurprising part is their sheer unwillingness to talk about this instance and actually work with the customer to clear things up.
It's possible that the van sale was what triggered the fraud team to take a closer look at the account. I don't know if Stripe bans weed sales but if they've been selling normal quantities I doubt the algorithms would have them pop up as suspicious.
Then a huge sale goes through (company van) and an actual human of the fraud team looks into the normal products sold through the account. If they then find that the products sold violate the terms and conditions, they've got a reason to lock the account.
They don't have a good reason to block the sale of the van, though, especially if their ex customer has provided the necessary paperwork. They can lock future transactions and even all pending transactions if they have to (and demand proof that they don't violate the TOC for them to go through), but after filing all that paperwork the $3300 transaction should just go through.
If you access Ebay through an VPN from another country all your auctions will get canceled and your account will get locked. That's why I included this post.
This account is weird. Joined months ago, rarely posts and suddenly decides to become a forensic analyst to dig through someone criticizing Stripe?
I am seeing this weird behavior more and more on HN. Inactive accounts suddenly seem to come out of the woodwork to defend, attack critics when a YC company gets involved.
Even asking innocent questions like: is there an alternative to what this YC company is offering is grounds for flagging and downvotes.
I think the readers can make the call as to what is happening. I don't buy that these are just lurkers suddenly logging in after months of inactivity to focus on one thread, and I've counted roughly about 3 to 4 HN accounts that are doing it on this thread alone.
