Substack passing the buck to Stripe etc.

I'm talking chargeback and dispute fees.

Starting on a positive note, I’ll be speaking about Humanoid Robots at SxSW in Sydney in October! And I’m looking forward to some more great events before then.

Thank you for all the positive feedback for these newsletters that I get from you face to face at events! And I appreciate that so many of you are willing to be paid subscribers. If you change your mind at any time and want to unsubscribe - I want to help you. Signing out should always be as easy as signing up is. The realities of modern digital online publishing are that there are many dependencies and service providers in any one product.

Re Robots and Startups:

• I’m responsible for the content.

• Substack is responsible for the publishing platform.

• Stripe is responsible for payment processing.

• Your credit card provider is responsible for honoring that payment.

• Silicon Valley Robotics bank account is responsible for payment processing.

That’s five potential problems already!

Sometimes people start a credit card charge dispute instead of unsubscribing. Maybe they don’t recognize the biller on your statement with a service you receive. Maybe they can’t find the unsubscribe button. Then what happens?

It takes up to 3 months to wind through the process - although hopefully you get your money back straight away. But along the way Substack authors get charged your full payment, all the fees that were deducted along the way by service providers AND we are hit with a dispute fee ($25) which can also lead to financial reputation damage. That’s just the Stripe dispute fee. Other providers (banks etc.) may institute their own additional fees.

It’s a terrible example of corporate penny grabbing, that might add up to a tidy profit for the service providers. It’s even possible, according to a thread for Substack authors that claims that there are two unsubscribe processes for Substack. In which case it’s not just Stripe or the bank or the credit card company.

In other words, it’s possible that unsubscribing from emails may not be the same as unsubscribing from a paid subscription! I really hope that’s wrong. I’m trying to find out more right now.

Anyway. This doesn’t happen to me more than once or twice a year but the process sucks and I’d like to fix it. If you ever want to unsubscribe, or think you already did and get hit with a charge, just let me know. I’ll remove you, and if I make a mistake I’ll fix it. And I’ll refund you myself.