Stripe, Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/06/24) */
The complainant contacted us about this issue on 4th June.
We understand the user's frustrations, and take transfer delays very seriously. However, when users sign up to our Terms of Service, they agree that we can freeze funds in a Reserve...

fund in certain circumstances: https://stripe.com/us/terms#reserves.
The complainant's processing history triggered suspicion and, as a result, we exercised this discretion. After investigating this matter further and clearing any suspicion, we resumed the transfer of donations on 8th June.
For more information on the conditions in which Stripe may place reserves on accounts -- a right that we maintain, but exercise with careful discretion -- see the section in our Terms of Service: https://stripe.com/us/terms#reserves

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/08/04) */
As of August 4th, 2015, the complainant has not reached out to Stripe for help or information on this issue. After investigating the complainant's claims, I was unable to find any charge associated with the information provided in this Revdex.com...

complaint. Any disputed payments for user's accepting payments with Stripe are visible in their Stripe Dashboard, and I was still unable to locate the charge mentioned by the complainant after searching through thingCharger's disputed payments.
It appears this case was ultimately directed towards thingCharger and the complainant claims they have reached out to them to cancel their order. Additionally, the complainant claims they reached out to their bank to file a dispute for this case, which was the correct decision on their part.
To help clarify this process a bit, we don't make the determination of who gets to keep the funds in a chargeback dispute. The customer's bank doesthey consider evidence and decide to settle a dispute either in the merchant's favor or in the customer's favor. In this case, I could find no evidence that thingCharger had received a dispute from the complainant.
We would be happy to further assist the complainant if they reach out to us directly at [redacted]@stripe.com.

Stripe reached out to the complainant on [redacted] in order to get more information about their website after a large transaction was processed with no prior processing history. Stripe is legally required by the financial industry to complete what's called a KYC (Know Your Customer) survey for...

every account that's opened here at Stripe. This survey includes verifying several pieces of information, including each user's personal identity and their charge patterns. One thing Stripe has to verify specifically is whether or not a business fits within our Terms of Service, which requires us to look at websites, social media presences, and invoices.
Our banking partners require every one of our users to have some kind of web presence that we can manually review and use to verify that this user is acting within our Terms of Service. We need to be able to clearly see what our users are creating charges for and what kind of services they are offering. This is outlined in our Services Agreement under Validation and Underwriting -- https://stripe.com/us/legal. As the complainant's site did not clearly state what they were selling, we reached out to ask for a clear, itemized invoice that shows what kind of transactions they are doing through Stripe. 
The complainant provided the invoice as requested. The Stripe Supporter who was managing this case accidentally missed the attachment and requested a copy of the invoice again. At this point, the complainant began using foul language towards the Supporters attempting to help them, refunded their payments and deleted their account. The mistake of the previous Supporter was quickly caught and Stripe promptly apologized for the confusion. However, at this point, the complainant had already refunded the payments and closed their account so there was nothing further that Stripe could do. The last correspondence to the complainant wasn't responded to.

Complaint: [redacted]I am rejecting this response because:The complaint is different, and has different requests, but "Stripe's response is the same as submitted on January 16, 2018." Stripe's copy/paste response is inappropriate to the new complaint, and addresses NONE of the questions and requests of the complaint. Stripe should read the complaint carefully and address the questions and requests therein.Sincerely,[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]I am rejecting this response because:This is a copy and paste generic response. The dates ae wrong, I opened this account in december. 
This is what I mean by the company not even actually looking into the businesses. 
Sincerely,[redacted]

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2014/03/18) */
This complainant has an account with Shopify Payments (http://www.shopify.com/payments). Stripe provides some of the backend payment services for Shopify Payments, but does not communicate directly with Shopify Payments customers and is...

not responsible for providing direct customer service.
Stripe received an email from the complainant on March 13 stating that the user was not receiving payments. We referred the user to Shopify on March 14, since Shopify provides all customer service for Shopify Payments accounts.
The complainant subsequently followed up with Stripe stating they were told by Shopify to contact Stripe. Although Stripe is not the customer service provider for Shopify Payments accounts, Stripe reached out to Shopify to help resolve the situation. It was determined that the funds were not transferred because of a hold placed by Shopify. The complainant refused to complete the ID verification process, and the Shopify customer service team had explained this requirement to the complainant.
Shopify and Stripe have since closed the complainant's account and will transfer the remaining funds to the complainant, with payments expected to be deposited on March 19, 2014. Stripe also replied to the user's email, explaining that we had contacted Shopify, and that they would resolve the situation. Shopify has also followed up with the user as the provider of customer service for their account.
We believe this issue has been resolved, and would encourage the user to bring any further questions to Shopify, which provides customer support for all users of the Shopify Payments product.
Final Consumer Response /* (2000, 7, 2014/03/20) */
(The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.)
Since filing the complaint Shopify has refunded my account on 3/20. I will be canceling all accounts with both companies.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/06/29) */
On 29th May we notified the complainant that we had to pause transfers to their bank account as we could not verify the URL associated with their Stripe account application:...

https://stripe.com/us/terms#company-descriptions-and-site-url
Our right to pause transfers to a user's bank account is consented to upon signing up for a Stripe account: https://stripe.com/us/terms#payout-schedule
The complainant responded with the updated URL we required on 3rd June. We acknowledged receipt of this URL on 5th June and stated that a review to verify this URL would be required before we could resume transfers to the complainant's bank account. The manual review to verify this URL's validity took longer than expected. On 25th June we acknowledged this URL was valid and resumed transfers to the complainant's bank account. The complainant can now continue using their Stripe account.

Initial Business Response /* (4000, 7, 2015/04/30) */
I'm glad that we were able to get this issue worked out through our support channel. The balance of your account will be transferred to your bank account on May 1st.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (2000, 9, 2015/05/01) */
(The...

consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.)
I just wanted to let Revdex.com know that I just received my money back in my bank account from Stripe, Please close the case, And thank you Revdex.com for helping me with this situation, Stripe is a nightmare to deal with, They have no phone support and never answer email for any of their customers. A credit card company or any company for that matter should have phone support when you deal with peoples money. That is not right for a credit card company not to have phone support. Maybe that's the next step to happen, Thanks again Revdex.com We did it. Hope all other customers get their money back, Theirs allot out their Stripe is doing this too.Thanks again.
[redacted]

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/12/08) */
Stripe helps thousands of merchants accept payments online. We don't charge customers' cards directly and it's an unfortunate bug that sometimes our information shows up on cardholders' bank statements instead of the business's. The payment in...

question would have been made with one of the many online businesses using Stripe to accept payments, and would not have come from Stripe directly. If the complainant is unsure of how to contact the merchant they purchased from or who the merchant is, if they would like to write into us directly with information about this charge, we'd be happy to look up the charge information and let them know which of our merchants created the charge. They will then be able to follow up directly with the business that they purchased the flashlights from. Specifically, the following information would be useful:
last four digits of the card
expiration date
card type
name on the card
charge amount
charge date
If the complainant could provide the information they have already conveyed in the email as well, that would be useful as well.

Complaint: [redacted]I am rejecting this response because: 
In their response, the business states that all transactions have been refunded, but that is not true. Since my customer is also a close friend, I followed up with my friend and they informed me that as of today ([redacted]) the transaction has not been refunded. 
The business also states that a majority of the transactions processed by me were fraudulent. I only attempted to run  two transactions using Stripe, and exactly zero of them were fraudulent. There was never any thorough investigation by Stripe. There was not even as much as a phone call. This could have all been cleared up if they simply had called me, or if they had a customer service phone number that I could call. Or if they had responded to my emails to their support team. 
At this point, I would simply like to see the transaction refunded to my customer. If Stripe claims that the transaction was already refunded, I will need details as to when the refund occurred and when the funds will be back in my customer's account. 
Sincerely,[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]
I’m rejecting this response because Stripe is fully aware of what they’re doing. I will be filing a small claims court and expect to see them a court. I might even start a petition to have their company shut completely down seeing that I’m not the only person having their funds held. I have a 100k+ following on twitter and I’m pretty sure people are awaiting to take action. This is ridiculous and this company is shady as heck. I’m pretty sure they’re holding our funds, and storing them away in CD’s to use for their own personal convience and then giving us credit! No wonder they shut down our accounts so fast! I did nothing wrong and I got shut down for no reason. That high risk is a bunch of BS. I want my funds released ASAP and If I have to keep opening complaints until they agree to do so, I will.

As of [redacted], all charges have been refunded to the card holder. It can take 5–10 business days after the date on which the refund was initiated for the refund to reach the card holder. The Complainant is welcome to reach out at support.stripe.com/email for refund reference information.

Because the complainant the party with the most information about their customer -- if they're someone the complainant knows, if they've purchased from them before, if their order is a normal one for their shipping address -- they're best equipped to determine whether or not a purchase is fraudulent. They have a better sense of their customers than any algorithm we could write ever write. Identifying when a credit card is being used by someone other than the cardholder can be difficult, and if their ever suspicious about a purchase's validity going forward, we give the complainant the option to refund the charge and mark it as fraud.Stripe also helps users such as the complainant by supplying tools that allow our users to fight disputes through the guided submission of evidence. Once this evidence is submitted, we will send this to the card issuing bank. During the dispute process, the card issuing bank does not reach out to the merchant. The credit card processor is the party in which the card issuing bank reaches out to -- this is not a Stripe specific practice.

Below is Stripe's Response to the complaint submitted by [redacted] (herein referred to as the "Complainant") on [redacted] 28, [redacted].Stripe OverviewAs background, Stripe provides a technology platform that allows merchants selling permissible goods or services online, or through a mobile device, to...

quickly and simply accept credit card payments.[1] Merchants register for an account by providing contact information, some information about their business and its principals, and bank account information. This information is submitted through an electronic application process and additional information, such as ID scans, may be requested by Stripe after submission. Merchants have control over what information is provided to Stripe – for credit card charges, this must minimally contain the card number and expiration date. Most merchants also elect to provide the name, CVC, ZIP code as an anti-fraud measure, but are not required to. It is important to note that funds are briefly held in an aggregated clearing account at a bank before being deposited into the merchant's bank account.  It is important to note that merchants identify the account into which funds are ultimately deposited through the Stripe management interface. Merchants consent to Stripe’s Services Agreement when establishing their account. A current version of the Stripe Services Agreement is available at https://stripe.com/us/legal.[1] https://stripe.com/us/paymentsMerchant Account Overview The Complainant submitted an account with Stripe on [redacted] 13, [redacted] under the name "D&D Temporary Power Se" at https://merchants.2go.com/AccountDetails/DetailsForAccount?accountId=21841756&am...⇄ Stripe processed payments for the account owner until [redacted] 20, [redacted]. During a routine review, Stripe was unable to confirm information about what the Complainant was selling. On [redacted] 14, [redacted], Stripe reached to the Complainant to let them know about its concerns and to get additional information.The Complainant provided this information, as asked. Upon further investigation, Stripe determined that it is able to support the Complainant's business. At this point, the Complainant had already refunded their charges.For the reasons explained in detail above, Stripe acted in accordance with its terms of service in the handling of this merchant account and the Complainant's claim for damages is baseless.

My name is[redacted]. I'd like to withdraw Complaint #[redacted] against Stripe, Inc. in [redacted],[redacted] as they have finally resolved the issue. Thank you.

Stripe operates within a variety of constraints imposed by our banking partners, credit card networks and applicable law. As a result, Stripe must fully understand its users to ensure their businesses are consistent with Stripe's Terms of Service. All users agree to these terms when activating...

Stripe accounts, and the terms are posted here: https://stripe.com/terms Since Stripe bears financial responsibility for all accounts using Stripe to accept payments, Stripe needs to have a high degree of confidence about their legitimacy, and their likelihood of delivering promised goods and services. Stripe periodically reviews accounts to verify that they meet these standards, and reaches out to merchants should any issues arise.During a routine review, Stripe identified strong signals that the complainant's account was in violation of the Stripe Terms of Service. Stripe cannot process payments for any businesses that are closely related to the firearm industry. This includes businesses that are not directly selling firearms, but are instead providing parts and accessories used in direct relation to these products. On July 22, 20**, Stripe reached out to the complainant to advise them of our decision and the closing of the account. The closing of this account is in accordance with the following section of the Stripe Terms of Service. Our terms very clearly state that Stripe "may suspend your Stripe Account and your access to the Service and any funds in your Stripe Account, or terminate this Agreement, if we determine in our sole discretion that you are ineligible for the Service because of the risk associated with your Stripe Account, including without limitation significant credit or fraud risk, or for any other reason". https://stripe.com/us/terms#terminationWhile we will not be able to continue processing transactions on the account, this does not preclude the complainant from signing into Stripe and accessing any of the account's existing data.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 10, 2015/08/11) */
The transfers in the account were being held because we were unable to verify the URL to the website for the complainant's business. The URL we had on file did not exist. Our financial partners require us to thoroughly review accounts and...

verify the identity of every user on our platform. We instructed the account owner to give us an updated URL.
When the user did provide an updated URL on July 10th, it was under construction, so we could not verify it either. We encouraged the user to link their Linkedin profile on July 16th, however they did not do so, and in fact on July 26th they shut down their account.
This user also had an extremely high level of chargebacks in a short amount of time, leading us to begin shutting down their account as it presented a level of risk we are unable to accept.
The user claims that they took the necessary measures to combat fraud, however after routine review we see that for all charges marked as fraudulent, the user failed to account for the fact AVS and CVC checks failed -- very straightforward signs of fraudulent charges.
In the end, this user is accumulating a very large negative balance due to the number of chargeback's they are still receiving.

PADDING-RIGHT: 60px; opacity: 1">Funds in the amount as requested by the compliant have been initiated for return to their bank account.  These
 
funds should post within the next 2 business days.
Stripe temporarily disabled the login to this account on [redacted] as security measure since it had come to
 
our attention that the complainant's login credentials may have been obtained by a third party. In order to regain
 
access to this account, we asked the complainant to please contact us at [email protected] so we could verify
 
their identity over the phone. This is a security measure in place to protect the complainant's account.
 
Correspondence between the complainant and Stripe followed over the next two weeks to arrange a time to
 
speak on the phone. Stripe will continue to reach out to complainant until an arranged time to call is achieved.
 
Once contact is made and the account verified, the complainant will be able to close their Stripe account.

Stripe operates within a variety of constraints imposed by our banking partners, credit card networks and applicable law. As a result, Stripe must fully understand its users to ensure their businesses are consistent with Stripe's Terms of Service. All users agree to these terms when activating...

Stripe accounts, and the terms are posted here: https://stripe.com/terms Since Stripe bears financial responsibility for all accounts using Stripe to accept payments, Stripe needs to have a high degree of confidence about their legitimacy, and their likelihood of delivering promised goods and services. Stripe periodically reviews accounts to verify that they meet these standards, and reaches out to merchants should any issues arise.During a routine review, Stripe identified strong signals that the complainant's account was in violation of the Stripe Terms of Service. Stripe cannot process payments that appear to be unauthorized by the owner of the charged card. On DATE, Stripe reached out to the complainant to advise them of our decision and the closing of the account. The closing of this account is in accordance with the following section of the Stripe Terms of Service. Our terms very clearly state that Stripe "may suspend your Stripe Account and your access to the Service and any funds in your Stripe Account, or terminate this Agreement, if we determine in our sole discretion that you are ineligible for the Service because of the risk associated with your Stripe Account, including without limitation significant credit or fraud risk, or for any other reason". https://[redacted]While we will not be able to continue processing transactions on the account, this does not preclude the complainant from signing into Stripe and accessing any of the account's existing data.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/03/04) */
We reached out to our user on February 10, asking them to provide some additional information about a large charge that they had processed through our service. At this time, we placed transfers on hold pending a response from the user, in...

accordance with our terms:
Section C.3: Payout Schedule
https://stripe.com/us/terms#payout-schedule
"We reserve the right to change the Payout Schedule or suspend payouts to your Bank Account should we determine it is necessary due to pending disputes, excessive or anticipated excessive Chargebacks or refunds, or other suspicious activity associated with your use of the Service, or if required by law or court order."
We did not receive any emails in response until February 17, at which time the user contacted us and said they had attempted to email us several times.
In their follow-up communication on February 17, the user did not provide any additional information about the charge in question. We reached back out immediately to request the information again, but did not get a response.
Because of this, we delayed transfers of funds until March 3, on which date the user should have received them.
At this time, Stripe does not normally offer phone support. We are working to offer this in the near future. Currently, we offer personalized support by email. We strive to provide timely support, and in this case did respond promptly (on the same day) on those occasions when they did write in to us.
We would very much like to work with the user, to determine what may have gone wrong (i.e., why we may not have received emails that they tried to send between February 10 and 17).