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0 pointspatio116y ago0 comments

You're welcome to do your own risk scoring on any signals you want prior to directing us to charge a credit card for you. You're also welcome to do post-charge processing using our risk scores. Some companies will e.g. do post-transaction reviews prior to shipping; some write their own workflow SaaS into their admins to do this.

If you don't choose to write your own software using your own data, that's cool; you can buy that software from us, for two cents a transaction (or less).

We're a software company selling to software developers. We're cool with you writing your own software with your own data if you think your engineers are sufficiently efficient at this to make that the best possible use of their time. (The businessman in me suggests that it is extremely unlikely you can profitably employ engineers to write this software at most likely scales of your business and, contingent on being able to do that, it is quite likely there are a hundred better projects not upper bounded at 2 cents a transaction, but you are a project away from constructively disproving this if you strongly disagree.)

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freeone30006y ago

The issue is there's no hook between when the transaction is sent and the risk score is analyzed, and when the transaction is processed - after the risk score is returned, the transaction is already processed, and it's too late to deny!

nickjj6y ago

> You're also welcome to do post-charge processing using our risk scores.

But if it's a post-charge operation, then the transaction already took place and it's too late.

If I need to refund a transaction after the fact because the transaction looks risky, then I lose out on the non-refundable processing fee that you now take, so I lose there.

Can you lay out a 100% exact work flow of how I can implement what Radar for teams does without losing money to extra transaction fees through either paying insurance on each transaction, or losing refund / dispute fees?

patio11OP6y ago

I understand that you are contemplating a build-or-buy decision and do not want to purchase the software which we sell. You can ask the engineering teams that you want to dedicate to this to scope out the build option; there are likely tradeoffs you can make which would make this a 3 engineer-year project or 30 engineer-year project. It is implausible that their design document for the build option will conveniently fit into an HN comment. I cannot write that design document for you as I do not have a good understanding of what data you believe you possess at the moment or e.g. the margin characteristics of your business, which would likely determine your tolerances with respect to some tradeoffs to make at design stage.

I wish your teams the best of luck and skill in this project. If in the alternative you would like to dedicate their time and attention to more pressing concerns in your business, our software is available for 2 cents a transaction.

nickjj6y ago

> I wish your teams the best of luck and skill in this project. If in the alternative you would like to dedicate their time and attention to more pressing concerns in your business, our software is available for 2 cents a transaction.

Do you happen to work for Stripe support?

I'm just asking because your response reminds me of how they addressed my questions in email. It's very dismissive of my original questions, and then tries to guide the conversation away from my question into some type of "hey, good luck with whatever you do" response.

I'm not asking for an evaluation of whether or not it's a good use of engineering time for me to implement this feature. I'm just asking how I can do risk score assessment on my own without paying your extra transaction fees, or be forced into doing a post-transaction refund (and then lose the transaction fee on the refund).

You mentioned I'm free to do my own risk assessment, but I'm trying to say that's not possible to do in such a way that doesn't involve me paying extra money to Stripe since your API purposely goes out of its way to remove critical information unless you pay extra for Radar for teams (in which case using your API for this info wouldn't be necessary since your platform would provide that functionality in your dashboard).

commoner6y ago

> Do you happen to work for Stripe support?

He does work for Stripe. There are at least 4 Stripe employees in this discussion performing damage control: pc, patio11, nkohari, edwinwee, and anyone who has not yet self-disclosed.

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freeone30006y ago

nickjj6y ago

> You're also welcome to do post-charge processing using our risk scores.

But if it's a post-charge operation, then the transaction already took place and it's too late.

If I need to refund a transaction after the fact because the transaction looks risky, then I lose out on the non-refundable processing fee that you now take, so I lose there.

patio11OP6y ago

nickjj6y ago

Do you happen to work for Stripe support?

commoner6y ago

> Do you happen to work for Stripe support?

He does work for Stripe. There are at least 4 Stripe employees in this discussion performing damage control: pc, patio11, nkohari, edwinwee, and anyone who has not yet self-disclosed.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse