oropolo

I have a side-hustle doing podcast production and hosting. Rather than charging a fixed fee I operate on the "value for value" model: if you got some value from the work I'm doing then please visit my website and return some value by sending in a donation, either a check in the mail or online using Stripe. This has worked very well for the past few years and I've been able to cover all of my expenses, upgrade my gear, and make people happy.

Now I've now been told by Stripe that my business is in violation of their rule; for more than two days I've been trying to get someone -- ANYONE -- at Stripe to tell me how I'm in violation and what I can do to remedy the situation but the only reply I've gotten is "Unfortunately, following an additional review of your account, we’re still unable to support your business as it falls under one of our restricted businesses categories" but no details are given beyond that. The only thing that seems to make sense as prohibited is "Transactions that provide compensation to creators without an underlying piece of digital content associated. Examples include subscriptions to free, public content or a tip button on a profile page." Okay, if that's the problem then I'll take down the donation button and sell actual swag (t-shirts, mugs, whatever) but give me a chance to comply instead of just saying you don't want to do business with me without ever giving me an unambiguous reason!

UPDATE: I finally got a reply from someone at Stripe who pointed me at this page -- https://stripe.com/legal/restricted-businesses -- but now I have to start this question cycle again because nothing on this page applies to what I am doing.