24 hours ago I received some bad news.
Email came from Stripe stating in no uncertain terms that they are closing my account by the end of this month.
Their reasoning: my business falls under the 'restricted businesses list' which includes:
Pyramid schemes
Multi-level marketing
"Get rich quick" schemes
Because apparently, I am promising "unrealistic financial outcomes or quick monetary gains with minimal effort."
WTF?
Unrealistic financial outcomes?
My main promise, literally my headline, is "AI Client Factory: Build An AI Powered Client Acquisition System And Sign 8 New Clients In 16 Weeks."
How is that unrealistic?
If 2 new clients per MONTH is unrealistic, then what about all those gurus promising you that you're gonna be a millionaire in a year if you sign up for their mentoring?
Beyond that, clients have achieved that, AND MORE, from ACF, and I never even promised specific income claims.
What stupidity.
God knows how many marketers have pushed me to promise financial outcomes but instead I chose a conservative route.
And you all know that I'm not a believer in "easy."
So where the heck did "minimal effort" come from?
Do I SOUND like someone who preaches "easiness" as a way of living?
So I'm honestly insulted that Stripe made this sort of blanket judgement on my business.
But at the same time, not gonna lie, this is scary.
So scary, I didn't even send any emails yesterday.
This revealed to me a deep vulnerability I never through existed:
My entire business runs on Stripe.
This means that my income is also wholly reliant on Stripe.
Them threatening to shut my account down by the end of the month, ESPECIALLY when there's no probably cause, is stressful as hell.
So stressful, my carnivore diet completely went out the window.
I would have continued crashing out if not for a network of good friends and mentors around me.
I had a conversation with the AI Coach yesterday to recenter myself.
And it asked me two questions that solved everything.
Grateful.
So today whole day I was busy looking at options and alternatives to Stripe.
My research showed me that there's really no saving my account here.
I've submitted appeals, and done to the best extent of my abilities to SHOW that I am not what they described me as.
Every interaction with them shows that they are putting on a show of empathy, but I don't think they read any of my emails because they keep repeating the same old points without addressing mine.
Template rejections without engaging with any of my points.
Very...insulting.
So even though it was unfairly cancelled, I'm not gonna fight it.
If someone wants me out that badly, then so be it.
I've always told people that life has a funny way of testing us the moment we set our minds to something.
Every year, something big always happens to me, and I observed that among my AI Client Factory members too.
Looks like this year, this Stripe thing is it for me.
But unlike past years, I've a lot more support this year than before so I've regained my momentum sooner.
So right now, 24 hours after incident, I feel only one thing:
"Enough."
Enough grieving, fearing, anxiety, and all those negative emotions.
The only thing left to do is to take action, and learn from this.
I'll update you guys on my direction with payment gateways moving forward.
Apparently quite a number of you relate to this unfair (I might even say inhumane) treatment by Stripe.
So I'll share my decisions and why in the coming days on where I'm moving to.
But more importantly is my take home lesson.
I'm reminded about how life throws us curveballs and the importance of resilience and adaptability.
But beyond this reminder, I have gained a new lesson:
People are not obligated to be ethical or fair towards us.
There are corporations or entities out there whom our livelihoods are completely dependent upon.
But they can turn on us at any time, with honeyed words and contradictory actions.
They wouldn't even bat an eye for doing you dirty.
So my sense of independence and autonomy has been completely false. And I own that now.
I believed that Stripe would be fair to me as long as I am lawful.
No, they don't care.
No matter how much they insist otherwise.
(They wouldn't even tell me what made them draw these conclusions about me!)
Years ago, Facebook did the same thing to me when they canceled my ad account for "running ads that are against community guidelines"
...I wasn't even running ads in the first place...
No ads, so how can my "ads" be against community guidelines?
6 months and 20+ appeals later I kept getting fed the template response script of a promise to escalate to the "relevant departments."
This saga with Stripe is a complete deja vu of the incident with Facebook.
This incident has exposed to me a deep vulnerability that I have completely overlooked.
My business isn't as robust as I thought it was.
And systems, fallbacks, and redundancies will need to be installed into my business from now onwards so that I never again face such an issue.
So friends, remember this:
Our businesses are always dependent on some corporations and those corporations aren't obligated to treat us fairly, respectfully or even ethically (or humanely).
Even if their words are honeyed and polite.
I will remember this lesson vividly and carry it with me for the rest of my life.
This will factor into how I make my plans from now onwards.
That's all folks.
FELIX
P.S. Sometimes the best solutions come from the simplest questions.
Thanks to everyone who supported me, and/or helped me see that yesterday.