An update on my world of fraud. Stripe refuses to help, and they shut down payment processing for Inkwell. They basically are saying sorry there is nothing they can do. There isn’t a number to call, and I’ve exhausted attempts through email. I may be able to get back in with Stripe, but I’m going to have to get some legal paperwork I’ve been putting off, as I wasn’t sure if Inkwell would take off or not.
In the interim, we need a solution to allow users to pay for Plus and Ink Donations. After looking at the options, it looks like Square is my best option for now. I’ve used them in a previous adventure without any issues. The bad news is I had to kill a couple of features for now: paid writing subscriptions and postage (donations) that used Stripe Connect. Stripe Connect is how the bad actor exploited a bug and processed payments using stolen credit cards. I couldn’t find a way to implement the features with Square. There are other ways I could go about it, but right now I don’t have any users using these features (if I’m wrong, please let me know!).
The biggest drawback is that any current Plus subscribers will need to resubscribe through the new payment portal. Inkwell does not store your payment information, and the fraud/bug issue was isolated to Stripe Connect. From what I can see, it was only used to process fraudulent payments. I understand if users are hesitant to resubscribe. I’m a little flustered too haha. I was able to process an Ink Donation payment, so I believe it’s working correctly. But if anyone has issues please let me know.
The good news is I’ve implemented hardened security to prevent anything like this from happening again.
Once I have the business fully formed, I will go back to Stripe, set up a new account, and try again. But the government is not making it easy currently, so this will likely take a few weeks.
Marginalia