Hello

Just for context. We are in fashion industry. Selling handcrafted pieces online. We have been in business for 2 years, using Stripe as our primary method for Apply pay, as it is a comfortable payment method for clients.

Recently, last week we have become viral and our sales sky-rocketed, piling up hundreds of orders and about 100k in account. 4 days later, our account payout is frozen by Stripe. All payout blocked. No notice. Nothing.

Bear in mind our businesss is legitimate and all clients are legitimate.

We reach out to Stripe through chat and we are responded by the template responses. That it is under review and that they can take 24-48 hours.

We then ask to speak to a Manager, and after a hassle and going forth and and back a nanager calls after 2 hours, who doesnt even want to state his full name, only his First name, which we dont even know if its true, and then wheh we insisted he said he cant say their full name.

He then says that he will review the account and then come back with follow up on email, and nothing happens in the 48 hours elapsed, so ..

We contact stripe again through chat and aftwr a round of another hour we ask to speak to the Manager,

3 hours later, another lady calls, which also just states only her first Name, and gives us the same useless pretext that the account is under review and that someone is looking into it and that she escalated our case, but now she says that the timeline is 2-3 business days is the general period, but it can take more than that in extensive cases.

Here i get frustrated, and ask her, you are withholding our money, our clients money, on what terms? What us under review? We are legitimate. Clients are legitimate. She respons that she can not tell me that right now, it is not in her power, and that she can not tell me a maximum deadline.

If it takes longer it will affect our brand identity since it financially blocks us.

Now, I would like to know and am open to suggestions on what to do next.

Lawsuit? Go to the news and make them public for this scrutiny? Is it legal what they are doing? Is there a contact on HN that can solve this over Stripe please?

I read some old reviews and some comments stated that there are quite some contacts from Stripe here, so i thought to give it a chance.

You are doing it right. Publicly shaming them on HN is the only way to get a real customer service.

These things would be much easier if stripe were willing to actually explain what the issue is.

We can come up with all sorts of reasons - anti money laundering, concerns around charge back etc…

Why can’t stripe just say the reason?

This Stripe behavior has become an epidemic these years...they have fully automated their infrastructure, especially now with AI and they false positively flag the wrong companies and then they complain that people label them as the "baddies".

I have wrote a public post on LinkedIn addressing this issue of yours and hopefully someone will get notified and help you out.

Now we wait...

Update: I'm in discussion with their Stripe Support department right now.

Update2: ..and now, we wait!

Final Update: They told me, if you have a LinkedIn account, go there and contact "Stripe" account and tell them your issue; "Stripe Support" account will contact you within 5 to 10 minutes and verify your business data so they can help you.

Good luck!

What to do next wait for the review to finish (or some longer timeframe has passed) if you are unhappy with the results then you can bring this to a lawyer.

Is it legal, yes it's in your terms? They are verifying its not a scam and not money laundering.

"If it takes longer it will affect our brand identity since it financially blocks us."

Look into additional payment providers you should at least have paypal checkout already on your site.

Only giving out a first name is entirely normal to protect staff from malicious activity, eg doxxing and harassment, and if you have recorded the times of your calls should be entirely enough to legally identify those staff members in court if required. (You are noting the times of your calls to them and their approximate content?)

At this stage with an unusual flow of money of that order into your account Stripe is likely obliged to consider Anti Money Laundering and similar investigations for a start, and delay to handing on the cash is likely its main risk reduction tool at this moment.

If payout is stuck for "2-3 business days," you still have account access, and you're still capable of accepting funds, you should probably just relax. Odds are that everything will be fine by Tues or Weds. If the transactions are legitimate and you can prove it, then the odds that they'll confiscate your money or hold onto it for an extended period of time are very, very low.

Not a bad idea to set up a secondary payment processor for growth, though!

If your revenue pattern grows quickly, money will be held for longer in expectation of chargebacks. If none happen during this period, and all checks pass it will be released. This happens because if they release the funds they will be on the hook for the 100k + charback fees, which depending on the size/number of your transactions, could be higher than your entire 100k.

Their docs explain this.

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