We're going to automatically refund the transactions and fees, but also support any write-ins if you feel we missed any. (We have some ways to identify the transactions after they happen).
I agree with you, it's very counter-intuitive why these transactions are getting through Radar. We're iterating on some fixes right now that should stop this going forward by addressing this type of attack.
Really sorry to hear about that experience — we need to do better here. If you want to shoot me an email (wmegson [at] stripe [dot] com) I can take a closer look at those specific charges. We are identifying those charges and are going to automatically refund any impacted transactions and waive the fees for those payments. We'll also waive the dispute fee (if a payment has been disputed).
The team is digging into why the risk score is low. In general, the types of signals you describe weigh pretty heavily in Radar’s risk assessment, and should result in higher risk scores. In this particular attack, fraudulent actors are using some pretty sophisticated scripts to try and obtain lower risk scores. We’re iterating quickly to address and stop these types of attacks and score them correctly going forward.
[I lead Radar at Stripe] We're still investigating but have blocked the majority of this attack from the Stripe network. We're going to refund any impacted transactions and waive the fees for those payments. We'll also waive the dispute fee (if a payment has been disputed).
More broadly, we’ve seen an uptick in card testing attempts across Stripe. While the absolute rate of successful card testing across the Stripe network is flat-to-somewhat-down, it’s not evenly spread—some businesses are seeing more than others. For these new testing attacks, we’re deploying mitigants in real time.
Hi! I work on card testing at Stripe and would love to help. Sorry to hear about this experience, would be great to dig in and see how we can fix it and improve our system.
If you could, shoot me an email and we can dig in? I'm at wmegson [at] stripe.com (will DM you as well).
Congratulations!! Love the philosophy around the product and the dynamic treatment of higher risk transactions with Checkout routing to 3DS.
It must feel great to be able to support such a "simple" product, as I know there must be a ton of complexity under the hood enabling the simple form factor.
It’s an investment trade off around commitment (in person is better for connecting and relationship building but is more expensive as a time investment). If it’s more transactional a phone call is better (eg, quick question or advice about something specific). If it’s something more potentially meaningful, in person Coffee makes more sense (eg, if I’m looking to network with someone or trying to hire them / get them to hire me).
The defaults you set could make a big difference in the user experience. Maybe every first touch is chat/phone, then move to real world? Dunno if there’s a right answer but feels like something to be thoughtful about.
1) bug report: your input on describe yourself is set to email, which messes with my keyboard on my phone. Have that be text input, the other to email as it is.
2) like the idea, connecting influencers can be relevant for sales referrals, recruiting, or networking. All seem like good monetization opportunities.
3) it feels tricky to get the balance right between in person vs phone call contact. Looking forward to seeing how you’re going to handle that.
Great advice, thank you! We'll make sure the date stuff works.
For EU cards, one experience I'm excited about supporting is the "tap to add" flow which may be even easier than OCR. Unfortunately only Android supports it for now, but love that experience when it's possible.
Our goal for the experience is the Apple Pay OCR experience, but it's embeddable directly in apps (so users don't have to already have it set up, if they prefer to use cards, or navigate to apple pay and come back). I agree this would be for the users not using Apple Pay.
Long term, I agree the trend is moving toward apple pay and digitized payments, but I found lots of people still like / prefer credit cards (so trend is that direction, but slope isn't super high and it'll take a while). I'm also excited about the fraud benefit of this kind of solution for bigger orgs that deal with fraud.
Gotcha, didn't realize. We're several weeks away from fully working product (tried to be transparent on the page about timing), but have figured out the hardest part (generic OCR algo to read the numbers). Was hoping to get some feedback on the direction / interest level in advance of full completion, but this may not be the right forum.
Unfortunately what we have isn't really sharable yet, but we're planning to update as soon as it is - but I get this isn't that helpful when you want to play around with it. We figured out the hard part (OCR algo is pulling the card info) and were hoping to get some feedback on the direction / interest level / use case before completing all the rest of it which will take us several more weeks. We'll journey on.
Hey HN, I loved the experience of card scan products, but found they don't work well with more recent card designs. We're re-implementing the OCR algorithms from the ground up to work on a much broader range of card types, and also doing some checks to make sure the cards are real (which will help a lot with fraud).
Would love to answer any questions and hear thoughts!
I agree with you the current versions I've seen feel this way. But I like to think of it as programmable money: it can be whatever we want it to be.
Imagine an ICO that gives more reward when users provide a proof-of-income, and more tokens go to those worse off (sort of like a graduated income tax, but for ICOs). Not saying it's a good idea, just that it's programable so we can make it do whatever we think is best, it's up to us to determine what's best. The right model would require some iteration and experimentation.
There are hard challenges I don't have an answer for -- eg, the less well off probably overlap with those less likely to be engaged with weird internet experiments -- but they feel surmountable, if we want to solve it.
I think super asymmetric societies are less just. I'm not sure I'm a Utilitarian in all things, but I think we should try to make as many people as happy and content as possible, not the 1% or 0.1% of society. I'm OK with there being unhappy or less privileged people, but a just world should be closer to a normal distribution (and your outcome should be based on the content of your character, not your birthright).
Maybe something closer to the Star Trek vision of the future (vs. the other two sci fi visions I mentioned).
I see this as one of the most fundamental problems the next generation will need to face. How do we build better models to give access to wealth creation outside a small number of highly leveraged technology companies to a wider group of society? Recent trends in the gig economy, AI, and medicine make me worry more we are slipping toward a super asymmetrical world like Gattica or Altered Carbon -- which is not the world we should want to live in. We should want to preserve a strong path to the American middle class for everyone.
Despite the hype, I'm bullish on cryptocurrency tokens on potentially being a model of a more equitable design for firm returns. If done correctly, the returns of firms could go to the early participants in the network, instead of the VCs and early accredited investors that have special access. The ICO world today isn't there yet (a lot of pre-sale discount tokens to those privileged VCs; lots of ICOs aimed at the larger public are scams, and it's hard to tell the difference between them) but I think we have the tools to create more equitable models, if we only have the will.
I doubt it, as they will be enforced by Stripe / PayPal on the payout end.
The laws regulate once you hit certain thresholds, like $100-$500 but it's aggregate not individual contributions (and this service is geared toward more mass market crowd funding).
No problem, happy to help. Feel free to email me directly (email in HN profile) if you want more thoughts at a later date, I enjoy giving feedback on new projects.
I missed the "skip" button, but I think you get the underlying point. You'll want to accelerate the "magic moment" as much as possible, which is the moment your users grok the value your service provides (and you'll see this in your data as you look at user retention rates for the cohort that hit this moment in your funnel vs. those that did not). You should try to figure out what this is, then obsessively try to remove as much friction as possible to getting to that point.
My guess is that for you it's either a) seeing your coffee page; or b) getting your first coffee donation (probably the second). Either way, remove as much setup as possible to create the coffee page, sharing it to their network, and get money coming in the door.
1. During sign up, I'm super confused why you have to set up anything related to payout before setting up your coffee page -- this is inverted to the way it should be. Get them the page as soon as possible and let them share and accept donations, then IF (big if, I bet the median amount raised is $0) they have a literal financial incentive to set up their friction-filled payout form process. If you're too worried about things going viral, then set a limit (e.g., if after $600 raised they don't have payout set up, e-mail them saying the page will stop being public until they set up payout).
2. You should curate your "creators we love" page. I hit explore and found a softcore instagram BDSM model as the first hit, and a page with a lot of comments about foot fetishes. Probably not the content you want to call out as one of the companies favorites. I would actually look at all the ones you rotate on that page and make sure they are on brand.
There are some tactical things (eg, the dropdown for country should have USA at the top, assuming thats where most of your users are) but those micro optimizations won't matter if you just re-arrange the info gathering to after the delivery of value.
#1 is will going to totally change your funnel in an important way -- I'd try it out!