Stripe employee accused of abusing position, caught threatening customer

jarland · September 2020

Let's say an employee of one of your payment processors signs up for your service. Then, shortly after doing so, they write to you claiming that you're too small of a business for them to trust and ask for a refund.

In this scenario you specifically warn customers twice on signup that there are no refunds because you're tired of people using refund requests as free trials and would rather them just not sign up. Just to build some foundation for "why" you decline their request.

Then they file chargeback with their credit card stating "Product unacceptable."

Now me, I'm thinking that after the purchase they found our account with the payment processor and used it to judge a small portion of our financials, then used whatever chargeback reason they know is statistically likely to win for them based on their inside info.

This seem shady to you or no?

ehab · September 2020

Hi jar, i can understand one can be pissed off from the charge-backs. You have been long enough to know some apples are just rotten and move on. You are better off not having such customers in first place.

hopefully not many rotten apples per year.

AlwaysSkint · September 2020

@jarland said:

Let's say an employee of one of your payment processors

Report the shady employee to your payment processor, if not already. Mention their misuse of chargeback; I'm sure that will go down well.

wdmg · September 2020

Then, shortly after doing so, they write to you claiming that you're too small of a business for them to trust and ask for a refund.

They must want to put their job at risk,

deank · September 2020

Nothing you can do.

Happens, which is why it's important to have a healthy profit margin for fuckups like that.

poppz · September 2020

This all seem extremely shady, who is the payment processor?
Personally, if I had enough evidence of them being an employee of said payment processor, I would instantly stop using their services.

jarland · September 2020

@poppz said: who is the payment processor?

Stripe. I took the details to them to see what they say. If they'd cover their own chargeback fee I'd consider it a win.

wdmg · September 2020

@jarland said:

@poppz said: who is the payment processor?

Stripe. I took the details to them to see what they say. If they'd cover their own chargeback fee I'd consider it a win.

Ouch. Stripe can also turn it around and close your account pretty easily... but let's hope they're reasonable and enjoy their payment processor fees.

seriesn · September 2020

@AlwaysSkint said:

@jarland said:

Let's say an employee of one of your payment processors

Report the shady employee to your payment processor, if not already. Mention their misuse of chargeback; I'm sure that will go down well.

+1. This is a super unprofessional behavior.

Curious to know, how were you able to figure out that he/she/they are/were a stripe employee?

jarland · September 2020

@seriesn said: Curious to know, how were you able to figure out that he/she/they are/were a stripe employee?

Signup email went to a personal domain that when visited had resume and social profile links.

ehab · September 2020

@seriesn if you didn't know jar has many ways to track anyone down.

havoc · September 2020

@jarland said: you're too small of a business for them to trust and ask for a refund.

uhm what?

I'm sorry Mr Craiglist seller. You're too small for me....and because of that I'll need a refund.

Ignoring the sexual subtext WTF kind of logic is that?

Like if you need a big supplier for risk management purposes presumably you evaluated that when selecting a supplier. Because that is uhm apparently a core requirement for you? Or did that core requirement just sneak up on them?

Unrelated...Jar..you marketing to the reddit selfhosted crowd? I regularly see "how do I host my own mail" stuff there and always respond with a you mad bro.

jarland · September 2020

@havoc said: you marketing to the reddit selfhosted crowd?

Been getting a lot of customers from Reddit lately, interestingly

jarland · September 2020

Indeed it does look like he wants to lose his job.

seriesn · September 2020

@jarland said:

Indeed it does look like he wants to lose his job.

O lala. Guy who disputes $20 CC charge has his own lawyer, to sue a corporation, that he said is too “small”?

If I were you, I would just respond with: Since you have threatened us with legal claims and lawsuits, from this point onwards, I won’t be responding to any of your communications and once your lawyer serves me with the paper, I will have my attorney respond to it.

If he sends a legal notice, you gotta get an attorney anyways. So whatever ?

deank · September 2020

Just for the record, how much are we talking about here?

jarland · September 2020

@deank said:
Just for the record, how much are we talking about here?

$99. I don't much care about that, but my insistence is that I will no pay out of pocket for someone to try the service. In this case, chargeback fees.

deank · September 2020

So, a hundred bucks and the dude is going PMS?

Makes me wonder whether he has actually hired an attorney before.

poppz · September 2020

Good luck, @jarland . Super unprofessional by that individual, hope everything goes your way, you seem to have the right instinct already.

K4Y5 · September 2020

@AlwaysSkint said:

@jarland said:

Let's say an employee of one of your payment processors

Report the shady employee to your payment processor, if not already. Mention their misuse of chargeback; I'm sure that will go down well.

That, and misusing privileged information which most financial data falls under, unless publicly disclosed. The tosser would certainly learn a lesson of a lifetime

seriesn · September 2020

@K4Y5 said:

@AlwaysSkint said:

@jarland said:

Let's say an employee of one of your payment processors

Report the shady employee to your payment processor, if not already. Mention their misuse of chargeback; I'm sure that will go down well.

That, and misusing privileged information which most financial data falls under, unless publicly disclosed. The tosser would certainly learn a lesson of a lifetime

Let’s not forget, he violated is own companies privacy policy.

K4Y5 · September 2020

@seriesn said:

@K4Y5 said:

@AlwaysSkint said:

@jarland said:

Let's say an employee of one of your payment processors

Report the shady employee to your payment processor, if not already. Mention their misuse of chargeback; I'm sure that will go down well.

That, and misusing privileged information which most financial data falls under, unless publicly disclosed. The tosser would certainly learn a lesson of a lifetime

Let’s not forget, he violated is own companies privacy policy.

Precisely what I was implying. His employer is in deep shit, if you report his ass. Wouldn't be surprising if he gets fired within the week.

vpsgeek3333 · September 2020

You should report that idiot to his employer. Absolutely pathetic guy

elliotc · September 2020

@deank said:
So, a hundred bucks and the dude is going PMS?

Makes me wonder whether he has actually hired an attorney before.

In fact, pre-suit letters are cheap and great for intimidation. Some law firms offer package prices of pre-suit letters.
However, you have no obligation to respond to a pre-suit letter. A lawyer does not have any power to compel a person to answer, admit fault, pay money or kowtow in apology. Once the legal process is underway, the price will be astronomical, so legal intimidation usually stops at this stage.

KamalW · September 2020

@jarland said:
What would you think about this?

I think you need to use a descriptive title for the post.

chocolateshirt · September 2020

I think it is a good way reporting him/her to FraudRecord..

My suggestion to avoid this issue in the future is by adding tickbox/checkbox that mentioned your services is not eligible for refund on order page, before adding it to the cart.

jarland · September 2020

@KamalW said: I think you need to use a descriptive title for the post.

Aye. I think I'll get just a bit louder every few hours until a resolution is reached. As a Friday night rolls on, I've no reason to believe this individual doesn't have access to my customer's information.

BlaZe · September 2020

Yikes! Reporting this threatening situation to Stripe is a must and should be done immediately.

In his email he has mentioned this:

"So, you provide service under illegal guarantees that are contradicting country and credit card network requirements and you blame customers for this?"

LOL? what exactly did he find "illegal guarantees" with MXRoute? seriously?

Ympker · September 2020

Ouch! Premium agent.

Janevski · September 2020

@jarland said: Indeed it does look like he wants to lose his job.

This person signed up with malicious intent in the first place.
He wanted to cause you problems.

His reasoning is totally flawed.
First of all, you are not a "small provider", you are a veteran here, on the market.
Second (of all), even if you are, even if you just started and he is your first custommer, that does not mean you are going to scam him or provide bad service for him.
His behaviour is very fishy.
This person came to you to cause problems.
Now why, perhaps he is related to competors, perhaps he is someone who got banned because of spam now wants to cause trouble, perhaps he is a parasite who lives off blackmailing and suing people, perhaps Stripe is in on it and they sent him, but i doubt it...

Or if malicious intent in the first place was not the case, just perhaps he is an idiot, just a service abuser, signed up for something did what he did and changed his mind, now wants to get the money he paid for service which he got, back.

InceptionHosting · September 2020

WOW.

You know in the UK it is actually illegal the threaten legal action in writing unless you have actual intent, so for example if you were this stripe guy and sent that to me then nothing was forthcoming within say 30 days I can then take legal action against you for intimidation and you have to be able to prove that before you made the threat of legal action you had engaged legal services to verify you had a legitimate claim.

Stripe employee accused of abusing position, caught threatening customer

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