Scammers hitting Stripe, be careful!

After seeing https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/is-dropshipping-really-working-im-jsut-losing-money-due-chargebacks.1005935 and realizing that more and more people get scam chargebacks on Stripe, I thought I'd warn people about using Stripe as a card checkout.

One week my ecommerce got several high priced orders, all well and good. A week later, all of the customers do a chargeback and claim "fraud".

Customer places order > Tells Stripe/bank "I haven't ordered this" > Stripe refunds customer + charges an extra $25 fee.
In the end the customer got the products, the money back, and I lost the product price + $25 extra for each scam order. I lost -$600 that week. Even when sending in proof like invoices, shipping and everything else, they rejected my claim. Support don't have a phone, only an email they don't like to respond on.

Someone on BHW said:
"High chargeback rate = something is wrong with your store
e.g. delivery/bad reviews/not trustworthy enough/not satisfied or could be a bad market with higher than usual chargebacks"

Unfortunately, that's not true.

I thought I was alone getting hit by scammers, but NOPE!

Check out this page: https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/stripe-review/ and scroll down all the way to the comments. 90% 1/5 stars and complaints.

Some reviews:
"Okay so I’ve been using stripe 2 years now.. And all of a sudden I was hit with 6 different fraudulent disputes through stripe. Most orders $2,000-3,000 each. So now I am in something like $16,000 in debit and they keep trying to charge my card and I do not have those funds. I sell aftermarket car parts for much larger companies, so that money has been sent up and products shipped out! They were zero help. No idea what to even do now. May lose the business. Thanks stripe!"

"Horrible horrible HORRIBLE merchant protection. Almost no communication throughout the process. No phone, weeks for a email response and then you lose charge back even though you followed their terms in the first place. You’re better off throwing your money out the window then using stripe."

"GARBAGE. No phone support. If you get a charge back, no COMMUNICATION. just submit your dispute and and you get no other responses, so basically if the person initiating the chargeback submits another piece of evidence you DONT get a reply. It’s a sham, they dont give to shits about merchants!!!!!"

"Stripe cannot be used for international transactions – well it can , but you will end up with many , many chargebacks. Take my word for it.Currently – I am based in Australia and offer Stripe to Australians ONLY – All Stripe transactions we verify with phone calls and 1-2 other verifying methods before shipping any Stripe orders. This is because Stripe do not screen for fraud , and let all payments through – whether legitimate or 100% fraudulent. If you are using Stripe.com – process transactions in your own country and do NOT ship internationally."

"Ok , so Stripe.com – what is going on here?We have used Paypal for 5 years , not a single dime lost in disputed charges etc. We have Stripe.com for a significantly shorter time and within weeks of using them we receive “Disputes” for goods shipped with tracking. Then it was ok , and now recently disputes have arrived again.When Stripe email us about a “DISPUTE” – we respond with tracking details , at which point they take back all of the money + $25 dispute fee , and they keep all of the fees also?"

"We will like to take Storenvy and Stripe to court. We are sellers and someone bought $8,000 in our storenvy. After 3 days Stripe answer that we where ok with the payment and we should ship the item. Hours later we got a chargeback. "

"OMG.. STRIPE STRIPE STRIPE…These guys say they have proven fraud protection, that they actively work to protect our businesses from fraudulent charges and monitor suspicious transactions BUT they are far from this.After having over 50% of my orders a charge back disputes, I ask many questions, I wondered what the hell is going on."

"I am a seller with XXXXX.xxx I had a customer purchase about $5000 worth computers and Stripe returned the money to customers for the claim of unauthorized transactions, I clearly proved that the customer purchased the items but stripe did what they wanted. The customer never returned the computers and they made the first claim while they were purchasing another set of computers. The items were delivered by Fedex and the transaction was approved for the address to which the items were sent. These people are insane ."

I'd Suggest staying away from Stripe, as scammers are sniffing out eCommerces using Stripe and make a living doing chargebacks. Anyone else here been through this? I sold my eCommerce yesterday, I went from good profits to just losing money.

Be careful guys!

So sorry to hear that you've been ripped off $600+ in the past week alone. A very sad story for us entrepreneurs trying to get ahead.

Keep in mind though that I don't believe that the issue lies with Stripe as even if you were using an alternative payment gateway such as PP the client(s) still have the ability to chargeback the transaction thru their bank.

ContentExpert said:

So sorry to hear that you've been ripped off $600+ in the past week alone. A very sad story for us entrepreneurs trying to get ahead.

Keep in mind though that I don't believe that the issue lies with Stripe as even if you were using an alternative payment gateway such as PP the client(s) still have the ability to chargeback the transaction thru their bank.

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Thank you. Yea, it's not fun. Not as bad as some of the other people though, losing thousands and thousands.

Did you check the comments? There's a FLOOD of 1/5 star reviews. Stripe is not like any other card gateway when it comes to scams.

Like somebody else said,verify big orders yourself? Ask face holding credit card in hand,then if you are so not satisfied with stripe who gives free account and approves without any flaying fuk why dont you register at more reputable cc merchant who actually gets you throu days of bs to get approved?? You get stripe acc literaly like creating skype account or email what do you expect???

Samething happens at paypal but atleast they have customer service

What radar settings are you using for blocking/reviewing?

The problem is not Stripe. People do a chargeback through their credit card company or bank. It doesn’t matter who you use to accept credit cards. You can’t stop chargebacks because you’re using a different credit card processor.

Think the problem is with Stripe? Show me ONE major credit card processor without bad reviews.

https://www.merchantmaverick.com/reviews/square-review/#comments

I actually think Stripe is the best credit card processor to use. I’m using Stripe right now and the past two credit card processors I’ve used withheld thousands of dollars in funds from me for months and done so without any warning so I was still charging customers while not getting any funds. Always check to make sure CC deposits are actually made to your bank account.

Also if someone is ordering a couple hundred dollars worth of product it’s a good idea to do research. Try to call the person who ordered and check the ip address on arin.net. Check the time spent on the website and what pages the customer went to and how fast they did it. If you have Stripe.js on all your website pages it gives Stripe additional data to for radar.

tglr said:

In the end the customer got the products, the money back, and I lost the product price + $25 extra for each scam order. I lost -$600 that week. Even when sending in proof like invoices, shipping and everything else, they rejected my claim. Support don't have a phone, only an email they don't like to respond on.

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Holy shit that's nasty.

That's how any real payment processor works though.
It's completely up to the banks.
PayPal has limited protection provided you follow their protocols but they are not really in the same field as direct credit card processors like Stripe, authorize.net, etc. Authorize.net or any other direct processor won't stop banks from stealing your money either.

FYI if you don't follow PayPal's protection policies, and you get a charge-back, they will charge you a fee (I believe $15) for meditating it as well.

Stripe and Paypal have very strong consumers protection. In case of fraud (either real or friendly), merchant's bottom line is being impacted.

Have you performed any 3rd party fraud screening such as FraudLabs Pro for your orders prior to processing the order? It highlights all orders required your attention and the best of all is free for small business with less than 500 orders per month.

iAtom said:

Like somebody else said,verify big orders yourself? Ask face holding credit card in hand,then if you are so not satisfied with stripe who gives free account and approves without any flaying fuk why dont you register at more reputable cc merchant who
actually gets you throu days of bs to get approved?? You get stripe acc literaly like creating skype account or email what do you expect???

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I expect a fucking card provider to GIVE MY MONEY BACK WHEN I HAVE SENT THE ITEMS? Why the "fuk" are they even asking for evidence then, if they're not checking it anyway?

What am I supposed to do, go through an extensive scam filtering for each order? It wouldn't even be worth it in the end.

It doesn't matter if you force people to register a fucking account for each order (I wonder how much your conversion rate would drop), they can still simply DO AN ORDER, THEN DO A CHARGEBACK. Registering an account isn't exactly hard, is it?

It's like me registering on your Shopify, creating an account, order a few items, tell my bank that it wasn't authorized > get my products, and money back. How the fuck are you going to avoid that? Magic? Unless scam filters can read your mind, I don't see what you're supposed to do.

The orders are sent to the same adress as the card. There's no actual "scam" as in stolen cards, it's simply a standard order but the customer decides to chargeback a few hours/days later. Tell me how a "scam filter" is going to block that?

nes22 said:

The problem is not Stripe. People do a chargeback through their credit card company or bank.

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So people can just go online, order whatever they want, tell their bank "Oh I didn't order anything" and get their money back? Even when the seller providers evidence? That's fucking ridiculous, I'll never accept cards again then.

nes22 said:

Also if someone is ordering a couple hundred dollars worth of product it’s a good idea to do research. Try to call the person who ordered and check the ip address on arin.net. .

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The thing is, my customers are from all over the world, how am I going to call everyone? It just doesn't work, it would take too much time and fuck my profit margins even more (time=money). And also, calling wouldn't matter .The customer can say whatever they want, they will still get the money back regardless of my clear evidence.

Stripes own "scam filter" said it was all good to go.

Soucha said:

That's how any real payment processor works though.
It's completely up to the banks.
FYI if you don't follow PayPal's protection policies, and you get a charge-back, they will charge you a fee (I believe $15) for meditating it as well.

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So if I send evidence to Stripe, it's the bank that has the final offer? What's stopping me from just going online, ordering whatever I want, then chargeback and get products + money? New method guys, get on it!

I've had one chargeback on PayPal once, and they only took what I got, no extra fee.

I'll add some more reviews, seriously, if 90% gives the company 1/5 stars, something is seriously fucking wrong.

"I have lost two disputes with STRIPE. I know it´s nothing but their legal processes are deficient. I had all the evidence regarding my disputes. One of the clients who presented a dispute even wrote me an email saying that it had been her mistake. This is the answer that I receive from Stripe: “If you refuse to cover the cost of this dispute, you are violating our Terms of Service. I’ve included a link to this below. It does mention that we have the right to debit funds to cover Chargeback fees. "


"I have an online clothing store and I recently made the switch from PayPal to Stripe and so far I haven’t been impressed. In fact, this company is going to bankrupt mine if I continue to do business with them. Stripe accepts fraudulent payments, transfers it into your account, and then takes the money back plus a $15 fee, and will no longer assist you with the chargeback. "

"Stripe.com definately are unique in their customer support. We shipped an item , weeks later “item received chargeback” , we then give Stripe/NAB the tracking details showing delivered.Stripe.com then email us saying “sorry , you have lost this case”.

"GARBAGE. No phone support. If you get a charge back, no COMMUNICATION. just submit your dispute and you get no other responses"

"Scammers are now targeting Stripe and they have no fraud prevention, so they make the companies pay for their mistakes. PayPal doesn’t charge its sellers $25 for its mistakes."


So you guys are are telling me, that this is normal? How does any eCommerce survive then, when people can claim chargeback and always win? Oh well, whatever.

MMmmmm... I miss my earningsselling online, but reading this i remenber why i did quit.

You can see in hackers forums how to buy for free in ebay amazon and i am sure now is stripe... well , this people who do fraud is always the same is a pity and hard to solve.

Any of you would think that paying with cryptos will solve this?

Maybe we need to start asking for bank transfers or cryoto transer with theter ICO.


Sorry for you OP, i know how you feel, i did quit many yearas ago due to a few like this cheaters.

Go and complain on indiehackers.com ; the stripe co founders actively read all forum posts and usually reply to your case.

I didn't get a charge back, stripe so far have blocked payments of people that wanted to fuck with us. Some of them are on this forum.

tglr said:

I expect a fucking card provider to GIVE MY MONEY BACK WHEN I HAVE SENT THE ITEMS? Why the "fuk" are they even asking for evidence then, if they're not checking it anyway?

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Like all payment processors, the onus is on you to prove that you sent whatever goods were purchased from your site.

tglr said:

What am I supposed to do, go through an extensive scam filtering for each order? It wouldn't even be worth it in the end.

Click to expand...

This is why there are various tools and different levels of security to ensure that fraudulent transactions are kept to a minimum. A high level of security might mean that you reject some legitimate transactions, but in the long run it protects you more from fraudulent transactions.

Did you set up automated rules? Did you collect full billing information? Did you use verification checks? Did you reject transactions that did not pass the CVC or address checks?

Startrick said:

MMmmmm... I miss my earningsselling online, but reading this i remenber why i did quit.

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Yeah, it's not fun. Before I got hit with the chargebacks, it was all going really well. However, if people can jsut say"I didn't orcder this" and that's it, how are you supposed to make a profit? Of ourse people will take advantage.

Yep, I just found a forum selling "methods" for these things.

wiso4151 said:

Go and complain on indiehackers.com ; the stripe co founders actively read all forum posts and usually reply to your case.

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Interesting. I might hire $2/hour VAs for a few days to go spread some information on forums. It would be worth it.

Billy Batts said:

I didn't get a charge back, stripe so far have blocked payments of people that wanted to fuck with us. Some of them are on this forum.

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What do you mean by "Some of them are on this forum", as in buying your services then trying to chargeback?

Interesting, mine never got blocked. Not sure how Stripe can now if someone is going to scam or not, since chargebacks are done after transaction. Unless CCV code is "red flagged" or something like that.. however that would be an easy workaround anyway. I expected Shopify & Stripe to be quite good at this, but for me it didn't help. Do you have any "extra scam filters" like veryone seems to be talking about in this thread? Never even seen a discussion about that before.

Sephrata said:

Like all payment processors, the onus is on you to prove that you sent whatever goods were purchased from your site.

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I literally just said I sent in evidence confirming I have sent items, accepted payments and everything else you need. 6-7 pages of documents if I remember correctly. Did I get my money back? No, they side with the customer, which is completely baffling to me considering the evidence.

Sephrata said:

This is why there are various tools and different levels of security to ensure that fraudulent transactions are kept to a minimum. A high level of security might mean that you reject some legitimate transactions, but in the long run it protects you more from fraudulent transactions.

Did you set up automated rules? Did you collect full billing information? Did you use verification checks? Did you reject transactions that did not pass the CVC or address checks?

Click to expand...

Verification check was done, you can see some sort of verification in the Shopify dashboard somewhere when an order has been made. CVC & Address verification. All orders went through their (built in) "verification check" and said it was all good to go.

I have Shopify and I used Stripe, that's it. I have never, EVER, seen a discussion on this forum about taking extra services against scammers, and I've read a lot of ecommerce/dropshipping threads here.

And also, let's say I right now decide to do the exact same thing to your store. How is a scam filter going to now that I will do a chargeback after my order? The order is legit, I've never done this before, and I've never in my life been blocked from ordering online. Is it going to read my mind?

They will give me my money back, even with the sellers proof of shipment etc. < THAT'S THE ISSUE.

Good to know, but what are the (worthwhile) alternatives?
Using Paypal (ew) and Stripe and had 1 chargeback through PP and 4 refund requests. Stripe nothing.
That's approx 2k orders. (Majority on PP though tbf).

tglr said:

Yeah, it's not fun. Before I got hit with the chargebacks, it was all going really well. However, if people can jsut say"I didn't orcder this" and that's it, how are you supposed to make a profit? Of ourse people will take advantage.

Yep, I just found a forum selling "methods" for these things.



Interesting. I might hire $2/hour VAs for a few days to go spread some information on forums. It would be worth it.



What do you mean by "Some of them are on this forum", as in buying your services then trying to chargeback?

Interesting, mine never got blocked. Not sure how Stripe can now if someone is going to scam or not, since chargebacks are done after transaction. Unless CCV code is "red flagged" or something like that.. however that would be an easy workaround anyway. I expected Shopify & Stripe to be quite good at this, but for me it didn't help. Do you have any "extra scam filters" like veryone seems to be talking about in this thread? Never even seen a discussion about that before.


I literally just said I sent in evidence confirming I have sent items, accepted payments and everything else you need. 6-7 pages of documents if I remember correctly. Did I get my money back? No, they side with the customer, which is completely baffling to me considering the evidence.



Verification check was done, you can see some sort of verification in the Shopify dashboard somewhere when an order has been made. CVC & Address verification. All orders went through their (built in) "verification check" and said it was all good to go.

I have Shopify and I used Stripe, that's it. I have never, EVER, seen a discussion on this forum about taking extra services against scammers, and I've read a lot of ecommerce/dropshipping threads here.

And also, let's say I right now decide to do the exact same thing to your store. How is a scam filter going to now that I will do a chargeback after my order? The order is legit, I've never done this before, and I've never in my life been blocked from ordering online. Is it going to read my mind?

They will give me my money back, even with the sellers proof of shipment etc. < THAT'S THE ISSUE.

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Some people on this forum tried to buy our services but got red flagged on stripe as on PP.

Society Girl said:

Good to know, but what are the (worthwhile) alternatives?

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I'm not sure, but I would sure like to know. I think "2Checkout" also takes extra chargeback fees, however I don't know if they're better in the department of accepting proof and for once standing with the seller.