So do you or do you not have separate merchant accounts per customer?

And if they're not separate do you have multiple merchant accounts or just a single one?

> I can assure you that the situation you described would not apply to any of our users. All Stripe accounts are independent of each other, and the actions of one user do not affect anyone else.

If one stripe account maps onto one merchant account then I can see how that would work, but if that's not the case then I really fail to comprehend how you could make that claim.

In fact, thinking about merchant accounts for your Stripe account is like thinking about the physical address of one of your AWS instances - it doesn't really matter.

> it doesn't apply to Stripe users.

But it does presumably apply to stripe.

I like stripe - a lot - but I really wished that you would separate marketing from fact here and make it plain whether or not transactions for multiple stripe account holders are passed through the same merchant account or not. If no merchant accounts are involved at all then that is also a valid answer but again, I fail to see how this is possible.

My direct experience is limited to:

  - DMR (gone out of business)
  - CCBill (barely survived after a buy-out but left 
    1000's of merchants stranded with their funds
    confiscated by the card companies)
  - Virtual Access
  - PaySquare
  - paypal
  - and quite a few others besides on behalf of customers
  - PayBuyNet (since gone out of business)

Thinking about merchant accounts matters because payments are the lifeblood of a company and not understanding how service provider implements such details can be the difference between surviving and getting caught up in something beyond your control.

Your AWS suggestion implies 'merchant account hopping' where transactions are processed through a variety of merchant accounts, is that what you are getting at?

That's fair (and thanks!)

Depending on the context, we use both individual merchant accounts as well as shared accounts with unique merchant identifiers. I should add that this model isn't unique to Stripe, but it's still a relatively new model in the industry.

A Stripe account is perhaps best thought of in terms of its properties rather than as a traditional, segregated merchant account or a shared account. The typical benefits of a traditional merchant account are:

1. Your name shows up on customers' statements.

2. Your funds are clearly segregated from those belonging to other users (and from the payment provider's as well).

3. Your account's reputation is independent of other users.

Let me know if I've missed any properties that you think are important. Stripe gives you all of these properties, with the added bonus of not requiring a lengthy form faxed in with a copy of your driver's license.

I completely agree with the concerns around merchant accounts. It's probably worthwhile noting that even with a segregated merchant account, it's important to make sure you're actually getting all the properties mentioned above.

I've shot John an email reply outlining some new fraud developments (new to me, that is) which might impact this particular model in a negative way.

For now I'll be keeping my recurring income in my known-to-be-good merchant account(s) with standard IPSP hookup, we'll see how this plays out in the mid term and at some point I'll probably switch a portion of my volume over to stripe to see how it goes.

I'm fully aware of the model you are employing and its possible consequences, it has a lot of the benefits of segregation but not all of them, and it is still very much dependent on one important single variable, which is how many merchant accounts you have. Keep in mind that from the financial institutions point of view (even if you have multiple banks in multiple countries) Stripe is still a single entity and that if transactions from Stripe taken as a group carry too much risk then Stripe as a whole can be cut off from their processing ability. All it takes is one directive from VISA/MC and you will find it very hard to open new accounts or maintain existing ones. There are a lot of people that were the subject of such directives racking up huge amounts of air miles flying to exotic places (Cyprus, Antiqua and a whole bunch of others) trying to stay one step ahead of the grim reaper.

The bigger you are the more you'll be a target for fraudulent merchants, and the harder it will be to spot the fraud or money laundering before it hurts.

The best ways to mitigate those risks are to grow your merchant base slowly (somewhat contradictory to most business goals), to be absolutely top notch in your fraud detection and to review your existing customers as well as the new ones periodically to spot any abrupt changes in account activity.

I'm sure that's all old hat to you but just in case it isn't it might save you some grief.

Best of luck, and thanks for the candor.

Feature suggestion: allow large merchants to 'bring their own' to offset any or all of these worries.