Stripe is an evil company. I have first hand experience.
Recently someone hacked their site and we started getting 1000s of receipts for transactions all less than a dollar. Stripe put the money in our account and we needed to tell them to block the Bangladesh website that had hacked their site. We opened a trouble ticket with them and they refused to refund the money. None of this used our site, only stripe servers. Stripe didn't detect this attack coming from another country. They still refuse to discuss it with us to this day. We are not the only business that has had this problem. Others are on the hook for transaction charges totaling over $70,000 and stripe is suing them for those charges.
This was inevitable...however, if for some reason they're able to implement these evil measures, there are many other ways we can support you financially..there are banks who don't play these games. You can drop the pay wall on Substack to continue writing and informing and we can financially support you through other means.
Mar 18·edited Mar 18Liked by Robert W Malone MD, MS
You know what really sucks, as a conservative, any little pleasantry that you seem to get from anything in this country, turns into a war on your first amendment rights. You Dr. Malone have built this platform which has taken an extreme amount of time, effort, and heart to get it to this point of success. In one swoop a communist totalitarian company, Stripe, that knows they are going to cause huge waves with their new tyrannical rules, are forcing people to make a decision. Do I want to submit to their bullshit or live without this great platform. I have to give it to the communist tyrants, they relentlessly just can’t leave people alone. They push and push and poke and poke. From the beginning of Covid I have used this platform as therapy. I must be honest with all of you, you have all become like family to me, I have found that I like to write, I like to read!!! I’m not saying I write well but I do enjoy it!!! One of the problems I see with finding an alternative, again I will be honest, and maybe there is one, but sub stack as a platform is really set up well to promote interesting people with ideas that people want to hear and write about. The great negative to sub stack for doing this is they will force people to create alternatives, I just don’t think that will happen quickly. But as they say where there is a demand there will be someone bright enough to come up with a new solution. So I am in with you, fight to stay as anonymous as possible to Stripe and I have donated to your defense fund. I pray for your success. J.Goodrich
Stripe reached out to our BHRT clinic a week ago and did a full review of our workflow for telemedicine encounters including an ask for all of our providers credentials and licenses, including DEA registration info. They also wanted to know details regarding any relationships we have with pharmacies, a sampling of any questionnaire’s we utilize as part of telemedicine consultations, details regarding our HIPAA compliance, Synchronous video capabilities, how quickly we are able to schedule patients, our plans to expand, details of how scripts are filled, etc.
We are cognizant of telemedicine’s potential to be abused by unscrupulous clinicians or pharmacies, but it did feel like it was a bit of an over reach for our payment facilitator to be gathering information that seems more appropriate for review by our State’s Board of Medicine. Under who’s guidance did they receive the parameters to evaluate our answers and documentation? They are a payment facilitator, not a medical regulator!
The only two questions of the 15 required that seemed appropriate for their role in our business was the questions on our refund policy and our transaction fraud protection processes.
Like Dr. Malone, we can’t afford to lose the only electronic payment provider that is fully integrated with our EHR. Since we have 5 years of good relations with them, we proceeded and everything went fine with our “review”. However, we are in the alternative medicine space and with all that has transpired the last 4 years and now with Dr. Malone’s report above, we think this is likely the first of many future intrusions by private firms on behalf of public regulators.
Having your income potentially cut off while you mount an expensive defense of a dubious civil matter is a potentially devastating tool for self censorship or outright destruction of competing thoughts, ideas, or medical therapies.
Would it make sense to move to Locals, which is owned by Rumble? I'm already paid-subscribing on Locals for Bret Weinstein and Kim Iversen, so maybe that's the new dissident Substack.
Thank you for sharing this alarming news. I have not heard this from any other Substack author.
I was not aware of the monopoly agreement between Substack and Stripe, and cannot imagine why such an arrangement should exist.
In return for their 10%, I cannot think of any reason why Substack cannot just pay their authors directly instead of via an intermediary.
It is also alarming that Substack is emplying a "Head of Politics". Why? This is beginning to sound like the extra luggage type staff that cleared out of Twitter when Elon Musk moved in.
And it is alarming that Stripe is demanding past transaction history. This is highly intrusive and cannot be justified on any KYC basis.
As a paying subscriber, I am happy to divert my subscription fee to your legal defence fund.
This is just another harbinger of more to come...the Feds are learning to love the electronic payments systems as they have companies willing to work in conjunction with them to target certain citizens that don't support the narrative of the ruling party (communists aka democrats). I'm not a writer, never heard of Substack until I started following Dr. Malone on his journey of discovery of the corruption in the big pharma arena and as he expanded his knowledge to all the other corruption that is rampant. Short story is he is doing the right thing of; 1) notifying us his reader base, 2) hiring a good experienced attorney, 3) asking for help, and 4) reality is that we need a parallel economy/platforms. For now I suspect Stripe is in pause, trying to determine what to do with Dr. Malone...corruption works best in the dark, and Dr.RM is putting light on it, so they are figuring out what to do. I've invested millions in legal fees over the years on intellectual property/business issues. Delicate balance right now, if he drops substack, then they win without a fight, and they go to the next person and do the same thing. The issue with fighting stripe/substack, is it costs a lot of money/time/stress. My gut read is a leopard doesn't change its spots, correct...even if you get a reprieve from substack/stripe, it is temporary...evil is patient...they just keep grinding away. One way or another, we all need better truthful platforms, and sooner or later even they may get compromised as they dance with the devil to grow their business, or, they unwittingly bring in an investment partner that starts taking them in a new direction. Very clandestine. The fight is not hopeless, if we give up, then it is over...it is never over when we continue to fight. The left provides the illusion of freedom. A great movie is The Illusionist.
Looks to me like an alternative to substack is in order
This is outrageous.
Back to the future.....please arrange a PO Box to which checks can be sent.
Stripe is an evil company. I have first hand experience.
Recently someone hacked their site and we started getting 1000s of receipts for transactions all less than a dollar. Stripe put the money in our account and we needed to tell them to block the Bangladesh website that had hacked their site. We opened a trouble ticket with them and they refused to refund the money. None of this used our site, only stripe servers. Stripe didn't detect this attack coming from another country. They still refuse to discuss it with us to this day. We are not the only business that has had this problem. Others are on the hook for transaction charges totaling over $70,000 and stripe is suing them for those charges.
DocM: Berenson raised this issue last week.
Collaboration?
Julie Kelly
Any number of free speech content providers on SubStack - class action.
This was inevitable...however, if for some reason they're able to implement these evil measures, there are many other ways we can support you financially..there are banks who don't play these games. You can drop the pay wall on Substack to continue writing and informing and we can financially support you through other means.
You know what really sucks, as a conservative, any little pleasantry that you seem to get from anything in this country, turns into a war on your first amendment rights. You Dr. Malone have built this platform which has taken an extreme amount of time, effort, and heart to get it to this point of success. In one swoop a communist totalitarian company, Stripe, that knows they are going to cause huge waves with their new tyrannical rules, are forcing people to make a decision. Do I want to submit to their bullshit or live without this great platform. I have to give it to the communist tyrants, they relentlessly just can’t leave people alone. They push and push and poke and poke. From the beginning of Covid I have used this platform as therapy. I must be honest with all of you, you have all become like family to me, I have found that I like to write, I like to read!!! I’m not saying I write well but I do enjoy it!!! One of the problems I see with finding an alternative, again I will be honest, and maybe there is one, but sub stack as a platform is really set up well to promote interesting people with ideas that people want to hear and write about. The great negative to sub stack for doing this is they will force people to create alternatives, I just don’t think that will happen quickly. But as they say where there is a demand there will be someone bright enough to come up with a new solution. So I am in with you, fight to stay as anonymous as possible to Stripe and I have donated to your defense fund. I pray for your success. J.Goodrich
Et tu, Substack?
Interesting, but sadly not a surprise…
Stripe reached out to our BHRT clinic a week ago and did a full review of our workflow for telemedicine encounters including an ask for all of our providers credentials and licenses, including DEA registration info. They also wanted to know details regarding any relationships we have with pharmacies, a sampling of any questionnaire’s we utilize as part of telemedicine consultations, details regarding our HIPAA compliance, Synchronous video capabilities, how quickly we are able to schedule patients, our plans to expand, details of how scripts are filled, etc.
We are cognizant of telemedicine’s potential to be abused by unscrupulous clinicians or pharmacies, but it did feel like it was a bit of an over reach for our payment facilitator to be gathering information that seems more appropriate for review by our State’s Board of Medicine. Under who’s guidance did they receive the parameters to evaluate our answers and documentation? They are a payment facilitator, not a medical regulator!
The only two questions of the 15 required that seemed appropriate for their role in our business was the questions on our refund policy and our transaction fraud protection processes.
Like Dr. Malone, we can’t afford to lose the only electronic payment provider that is fully integrated with our EHR. Since we have 5 years of good relations with them, we proceeded and everything went fine with our “review”. However, we are in the alternative medicine space and with all that has transpired the last 4 years and now with Dr. Malone’s report above, we think this is likely the first of many future intrusions by private firms on behalf of public regulators.
Having your income potentially cut off while you mount an expensive defense of a dubious civil matter is a potentially devastating tool for self censorship or outright destruction of competing thoughts, ideas, or medical therapies.
God Bless Dr. Malone!
Doctor Malone, I'm like the sandpiper. I usually test the waters before I participate in any group, venue or organization.
That being said, this is the ONLY SUBSTACK that I am a paid subscriber.
I'm now worried about how this TERMS OF SERVICE will affect the sharing of my personal financial purchases and information?
If the information of your subscribers will be impacted, then IMHO, I think 🤔 that a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT is in order!!!
Looks like it’s time to find a new home. I believe that many have already departed sub-stack (I didn’t know why but perhaps i now have the answer)
Hey doc.
If you stay on substack, email me your address, and ill mail you a check or cash direct.
If you dont take cash, how about some bags of emu or horse feed? Or i can swing by and clean out a few stalls of horse poop.
I have no issue going back to bartering, should it be necessary
Would it make sense to move to Locals, which is owned by Rumble? I'm already paid-subscribing on Locals for Bret Weinstein and Kim Iversen, so maybe that's the new dissident Substack.
Substack is done; it's over. Time for a rethink that learns from the magic that made Substack successful.
There needs to be a dedicated medical science and policy forum to replace it.
Start thinking about what that looks like.
Thank you for sharing this alarming news. I have not heard this from any other Substack author.
I was not aware of the monopoly agreement between Substack and Stripe, and cannot imagine why such an arrangement should exist.
In return for their 10%, I cannot think of any reason why Substack cannot just pay their authors directly instead of via an intermediary.
It is also alarming that Substack is emplying a "Head of Politics". Why? This is beginning to sound like the extra luggage type staff that cleared out of Twitter when Elon Musk moved in.
And it is alarming that Stripe is demanding past transaction history. This is highly intrusive and cannot be justified on any KYC basis.
As a paying subscriber, I am happy to divert my subscription fee to your legal defence fund.
This is just another harbinger of more to come...the Feds are learning to love the electronic payments systems as they have companies willing to work in conjunction with them to target certain citizens that don't support the narrative of the ruling party (communists aka democrats). I'm not a writer, never heard of Substack until I started following Dr. Malone on his journey of discovery of the corruption in the big pharma arena and as he expanded his knowledge to all the other corruption that is rampant. Short story is he is doing the right thing of; 1) notifying us his reader base, 2) hiring a good experienced attorney, 3) asking for help, and 4) reality is that we need a parallel economy/platforms. For now I suspect Stripe is in pause, trying to determine what to do with Dr. Malone...corruption works best in the dark, and Dr.RM is putting light on it, so they are figuring out what to do. I've invested millions in legal fees over the years on intellectual property/business issues. Delicate balance right now, if he drops substack, then they win without a fight, and they go to the next person and do the same thing. The issue with fighting stripe/substack, is it costs a lot of money/time/stress. My gut read is a leopard doesn't change its spots, correct...even if you get a reprieve from substack/stripe, it is temporary...evil is patient...they just keep grinding away. One way or another, we all need better truthful platforms, and sooner or later even they may get compromised as they dance with the devil to grow their business, or, they unwittingly bring in an investment partner that starts taking them in a new direction. Very clandestine. The fight is not hopeless, if we give up, then it is over...it is never over when we continue to fight. The left provides the illusion of freedom. A great movie is The Illusionist.
Damn, I was just starting to like this place. I chipped in Doc. Hope it helps