I've had a few Stripe disputes in my ten years as a digital creator, but recently had one that was super concerning, and I'm hoping it's not the start of something that becomes commonplace.
A reader signed up for my founding-level subscription at $529 per year, but when I went to check out his Substack publication so I could support his work I discovered that he didn't have a publication. He also didn't have a profile pic and had no other visible activity on the platform.
Why would anyone pay me for help with their Substack publication if they didn't have one?
I reached out 4 times to the person via DM and email, but got no response.
Then, exactly one week later, bam, a Stripe dispute. From that person.
The user also deleted their Substack account.
I think this was probably a bot created to access paywalled resources, classes, templates etc., to steal them, and then vanish, also getting their money back with a Stripe chargeback.
Yes it’s a real problem! And the solutions are very limited from the purely legal side! But this experienced lawyer has some tricks in my back-pocket. See the suggestions I made in the article.
Theoretically the parties can both act unreasonably as you have presented! But that scenario is really unlikely! This is where looking at the full business dynamics really helps. Stipe is not happy to penalise its own customers! They don’t want to lose business!
And on the Subscriber side? Also there it’s a really unlikely scenario! They claim fraud once -> then the subscription ends. They can’t cause trouble to the same person twice (unless they have multiple publications)
A Subscriber doesn’t stand to gain any money from filing multiple claims… they stand to lose precious time getting involved with this … for little gain except access to premium content. And such an account would be immediately flagged with Substack.
Stripe chargebacks ergh.
I've had a few Stripe disputes in my ten years as a digital creator, but recently had one that was super concerning, and I'm hoping it's not the start of something that becomes commonplace.
A reader signed up for my founding-level subscription at $529 per year, but when I went to check out his Substack publication so I could support his work I discovered that he didn't have a publication. He also didn't have a profile pic and had no other visible activity on the platform.
Why would anyone pay me for help with their Substack publication if they didn't have one?
I reached out 4 times to the person via DM and email, but got no response.
Then, exactly one week later, bam, a Stripe dispute. From that person.
The user also deleted their Substack account.
I think this was probably a bot created to access paywalled resources, classes, templates etc., to steal them, and then vanish, also getting their money back with a Stripe chargeback.
It's super concerning.
Has anyone else had this?
Yes it’s a real problem! And the solutions are very limited from the purely legal side! But this experienced lawyer has some tricks in my back-pocket. See the suggestions I made in the article.
Theoretically the parties can both act unreasonably as you have presented! But that scenario is really unlikely! This is where looking at the full business dynamics really helps. Stipe is not happy to penalise its own customers! They don’t want to lose business!
And on the Subscriber side? Also there it’s a really unlikely scenario! They claim fraud once -> then the subscription ends. They can’t cause trouble to the same person twice (unless they have multiple publications)
A Subscriber doesn’t stand to gain any money from filing multiple claims… they stand to lose precious time getting involved with this … for little gain except access to premium content. And such an account would be immediately flagged with Substack.