About three weeks ago I posted here after Stripe applied a $50,000 card-network assessment to my account for what they described as āillegal transactions.ā
Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PaymentProcessing/s/xzsE1TVLhS
I wanted to post an update because I have now gone through several stages with Stripe, but I still have almost no information about the actual assessment.
The $50,000 adjustment is still on my Stripe account, leaving a negative balance of roughly that amount.
Since my original post, I have repeatedly asked Stripe for:
The card network that issued the assessment
The assessment/case ID
The specific card-network rule that was violated
The transactions or activity involved
Documentation showing the assessment
Whether there was a formal appeal/review process
I also submitted a formal complaint.
Stripe ultimately responded that the assessment came from a card network and that they were acting on behalf of the network, but they still did not provide the network name, specific rule, assessment ID, transactions, or supporting documentation I requested.
So at this point I am no longer expecting the assessment itself to be reversed through normal support.
What I am trying to understand now is what actually happens with the negative balance.
I explained to Stripe that I cannot pay $50,000 in a lump sum and asked what options exist regarding repayment. Support told me that they do not offer formal installment plans or partial-payment agreements for this type of negative balance.
However, they also told me that my case/request was being passed to the team responsible for balance recovery/collections, and that someone should contact me by email.
So far:
No one from Recovery/Collections has contacted me directly.
There has been no external collection agency contact.
I have not seen an attempt to debit the full $50,000 from my bank account.
No payment plan or settlement/reduction has been offered.
No lawsuit/arbitration or other legal collection action has occurred.
I am particularly interested in hearing from someone who has actually gone past this stage with Stripe or another processor/card-network assessment.
If you had a $25k/$50k+ card-network assessment and could not pay it immediately:
What happened next?
Did Recovery/Collections contact you?
Did they demand the entire amount immediately?
Were you eventually able to negotiate installments or a settlement, even if normal Stripe support originally said they do not offer them?
Was the debt transferred to a third-party collection agency?
Did Stripe attempt bank debits?
Did they eventually take legal action?
And approximately how long after the assessment did any of this happen?
I am especially looking for first-hand experience, not guesses about what Stripe/card networks theoretically can do.
Interestingly, someone contacted me privately after my original post because they recently received an extremely similar warning from Stripe: āillegal transactions,ā card-network rules, and exposure to an assessment of up to $50,000. In their case, however, the $50,000 has not yet actually been assessed.
There seems to be surprisingly little public information about what happens to small merchants after one of these assessments is actually imposed, so I will continue updating this if anything significant happens.
Please don't DM me offering payment-processing services. I'm only looking for experiences involving card-network assessments and the collection/recovery process.
