Ask HN: How do you appeal a Stripe decision not to open an account?
I'm in a bit of a tricky spot. I'm a developer, and one aspect of my software is a web-store add-on. (So, I don't run a web store, but my software is used in my clients' web stores.) Anyhow, I integrated with Stripe because it's an easy and beautiful integration, and I personally bill my clients using Stripe, so I was already comfortable with it. Anyhow, my soon-to-be client attempts to sign up with Stripe, and they promptly decline to activate their account. They follow up with an email, and they very promptly get back a "this decision is final" message. ("Thank you for reaching out about this. Unfortunately, we still won't be able to accept payments for [redacted] moving forward.")
Anyhow, I'm 99.99% confident that their decision was made in error. The organization is a local franchise of a well-known nationwide non-profit organization, and is about as non-risky as they come. However, while Stripe has a lot in its favor, talking to humans doesn't seem to be a point in its favor. So, after that long introduction, here's the question:
Is there a secret path to get to a higher up at Stripe to get a real human to manually review a decision that was almost certainly made in error? I know lots of you have worked with Stripe, so perhaps some of you have found this path. Real human here. Could you forward that email to me at edwin@stripe.com and we can take another look? Edwin - 5 stars on being a real human! I just shot you an email. Also, I love your job title. Did Stripe issue that title to you? Or did you get to make up the title? Either way, it gave me a chuckle. A better question is why would you want too? If Stripe won't take your clients money plenty of other places will. The main reason is that I'd have to program another integration post-haste, and I don't want sloppy code out in the world because I was rushed. I have an existing relationship with Worldpay Integrated Payments by FIS, and so I'm getting in touch with their developer relations team again so I can start an integration for card-not-present. But that'll probably take a couple of weeks to test and get approved. My Stripe code has been battled-tested. Anyhow, Stripe's decision on this account has left me scrambling, because the client's web store was built and ready-to-go, just waiting for the client's API keys, and now it's dead in the water.