I got banned from Stripe so you don’t have to.

It took 5 years and $50,000 in revenue to learn this:

New Stripe accounts are vulnerable and can get permanently banned for 1 dispute. Let’s talk about what you can do now to avoid a nightmare.

Estimated reading time: 4 min 08 sec

What’s a dispute?

1. A dispute (or chargeback) occurs when your customer tells their bank they didn’t make/authorize the payment on your site.

2. The payment amount along with a $15 dispute fee is deducted from your Stripe account.

3. There is a dispute resolution process through which you have to prove the payment was valid. A dispute rate above 0.75% is punishable by Visa & MasterCard. Stripe will react before that.

My deluded success story

I launched a habit tracker in March 2022 and I woke up to 5 sales, hoorah!

But joy turned to shock: -$75 in dispute fees & my account was being closed. Fraudulent transactions spiked my dispute rate while I slept...

I fought back. But despite 5 years with Stripe and $50K+ in earnings, the decision remained the same:

Getting banned from Stripe means:

• All accounts are frozen

• You can't open new accounts

My dream became a nightmare... Luckily, I was building in public on Twitter and complained. Someone re-investigated and un-banned my account.

But many solopreneurs didn’t get lucky and got permanently banned. An overnight dispute can get you out of the Stripe game. Here is how you can prevent them.

5 rules to make your Stripe account more secure

Every Stripe account comes with Radar’s machine learning (free for standard accounts, like yours probably). It blocks a good chunk of fraudulent payments but it’s not enough.

1. Request 3DS

There’s a Stripe Radar rule that lets you request 3DS if the card recommends it. Turn it on.

2. Block if CVC fails

In 2022, the default Stripe configuration allowed anyone with a card number to pay on a Stripe Checkout, even without the correct CVC. It looks like it has changed, but make sure you block transactions if CVC verification fails.

3. Refund aggressively

Duplicate payments, payments with suspicious emails, a stolen credit card (Early Fraud Warning webhook event), or anything else that looks suspicious: refund it. It hurts, especially when you start, but it’s much better than getting banned. Better be safe than sorry.

4. Make your customer’s life easier

Add a refund link on your landing page and in your FAQ. Add your refund link to your statement descriptor so customers can find it on their credit card statement. Be responsive to customer support, that’s where customers will go first.

5. If a dispute arises… 

Contact your customer and offer a freebie and a full refund if they withdraw the dispute. If the issue persists, you’ll go through the standard dispute resolution process to prove the payment was valid. Show anything that proves you’ve been responsive to customer inquiries and the user utilized the product (logs from your API, or records in your database).

I was tired of stressing over getting banned from Stripe overnight…

So I built ByeDispute. It’s a no-code tool that detects fraudulent activity on your Stripe account and automatically prevents disputes.

Domino disputes, duplicate payments, payments with suspicious emails, stolen credit cards… It takes 1 minute to get rid of all these headaches.