Today, my saga with Stripe continues.
What a day.
And I am learning a lot.
Started the morning with a great suggestion from my VA - a payment processor called HitPay.
Don't know where she found it, but it looked promising.
Then a thought hit me.
What if they have the same "restricted business list"? What if I go through this whole application process just to get banned again?
So I spent 3 hours wrestling with ChatGPT.
Asked it to crawl through my website. Check HitPay's terms. Cross-reference everything.
ChatGPT kept forgetting instructions, losing context, giving me half-answers.
My whole morning disappeared into this frustration.
Then I remembered I had Manus.
One request. Comprehensive report in minutes. Nice.
And the verdict was clear: Don't apply to HitPay with your current website. You'll get flagged immediately.
But the report showed me something else that was disturbing.
It's not just Stripe that's the issue here, it's a matter of regulations and compliance.
Payment processors want your business, but they don't want a level of risk or liability more than what they are prepared to cater to.
When I first started this business, I positioned myself as a generic consultant. Vague promises. No specific outcomes. Stripe approved me instantly. And for four years I never had any issue.
But as I got better at marketing, clearer with my messaging, more specific with results I became a target.
My promise of "8 clients in 16 weeks" isn't unrealistic. Come on. my clients regularly achieve more.
Most folks in the bizopp makes bigger claims than I do.
But to payment processors, ANY business coaching or client acquisition training automatically gets lumped in with "get rich quick schemes."
It doesn't matter that you're legit. They won't spend the time to find out.
They would simply copy + paste a template response to your requests and move on to other accounts that are flagged by the algo and do that to them too.
These are probably overworked employees who hates their job, who have quotas to fill. They need to resolve as many cases as their KPI demands.
So when they say they evaluate each business in a comprehensive way, all they do is keyword scanning.
Trigger word = instant ban.
No real human review or consideration of context.
Corporate zombies and algorithms making decisions about your livelihood.
Like I said, disturbing.
I saved these thoughts and went to lunch with a friend visiting from Singapore. I'll do more research when I come back.
I suspect I'd learn a lot from this friend.
This guy runs multiple 7-figure businesses. One of them on track to hitting 8-figures this year. Also in business coaching and affiliate marketing.
Basically, 'guru' industry.
They make much bolder promises than I do. Much higher risk in my opinion. But they survived this long.
He told me they have the same Stripe story about 2 years ago. Same type of termination story and vague evasive reasons given by Stripe employees.
They just hit 7-figures at the time, but they already had a few shell companies and multiple payment processors to tide them over while they find a more permanent solution.
In the end, the solution came in the form of a boring website.
Zero personality. No compelling copy. Just corporate buzzwords that mean nothing.
Main site converts at nothing.
All traffic is sent to hidden sales pages that aren't indexed in search engines.
Have redundancies upon redundancies: More shell companies. More payment processor accounts. Back up everything.
The way he described his business made me feel like I'm watching a documentary on space flight.
The solution was both stupid and smart. A combination of brute force and elegance.
Give the gatekeepers what they want: bland corporate speak.
Give your customers what they need: clear transformation promises.
Never mix the two.
"Better to learn this at six figures than seven," I recall another friend said the day before.
On the way back, I reflected on how grateful I am for my foundations.
I only need 1-2 hours daily for marketing because I've built systems that work.
If I needed 4-6 hours of marketing daily just to survive, this Stripe situation could've crushed me.
But thanks to strong foundations, I can pivot quickly.
Back home, I fed all the emails I got from Stripe to Manus.
Including from one of the support rep who kept rejecting me by repeating the same phrases while somehow offering to "review my account one more time" and welcome me to ask questions.
I felt weird about that one. So I asked it to analyze if there's anything that this rep actually wants to tell me but rules say they cannot.
Don't know if I'm overthinking it, but Manus said: They might be leaving me some clues.
1. Change your business category.
2. Remove trigger words.
3. Become "low risk."
This validated what my friend told me over lunch.
My website was the problem.
So I spent the afternoon building the world's most boring website.
felixtay.com now reads like a corporate compliance manual.
"Professional consulting services."
"Strategic implementation."
"Business development solutions."
Every specific result deleted. Transformation stories removed. No compelling promises.
It physically hurt to write such bland copy.
But I asked Manus to search up ALL the documentation by both HitPay and Stripe, learn all their ToS and assess my new boring website to see if this will finally pass.
95% confidence score.
I click submit to HitPay and asked Stripe to review me again.
I'll update you guys on the results when I get it.
But meanwhile, I got another feeling I want to share with you guys.
Beyond being grateful that I am learning this at early 6-figures, a thought was suggested by the AI Coach while I am writing this reflection.
What if this is an opportunity to build a different kind of business?
A business that, instead of being loud, is sophisticated and quiet. Because true power never shouts.
Not just multiple payment processors. But multiple positioning strategies. Multiple ways to present the same truth.
The Renaissance princes had public ceremonies and private councils.
Artists have commercial work and real work.
Smart businesses have compliance sites and conversion sites.
All equally true. Just spoken in different languages.
I am somewhat uncomfortable with the idea, but it makes sense. I'm going to sit with it.
My mentor once said marketing truth doesn't matter. I resisted that idea, wanting to be ethical and transparent.
I was transparent with Stripe. Look what that got me.
In an ideal world, people shouldn't be punished for being ethical and transparent. But we don't live in an ideal world.
We live in a world of full corporate zombies who hates their job, who wouldn't hesitate to remove your livelihood just because they have quotas to fill and don't want to take the time to learn about your context.
So now I understand what he meant.
The truth is I help clients get results.
The truth is also that I provide "professional consulting services."
Both true. One keeps me in business.
That's all of my thoughts today.
I think this saga can give us all a few great lessons so I'll continue writing about it and share what I learn.
Talk soon.
FELIX