If you are like me, who likes to buy and sell watches online, you might be aware of the Stripe Payment gateway. Stripe is a processing payment system for many different payment types, such as American Express, Visa, Master Card, and many other companies. You might wonder about the risks associated with Stripe Payment. This guide will help you minimize the many risks associated with Stripe.

Let’s see the steps you can take to reduce the potential risks.

About Stripe

Stripe was founded in 2010 with headquarters in San Francisco. The company primarily offers payment processing software and application programming interfaces for e-commerce websites and mobile applications. The current valuation of Stripe is $50 billion in a new $6.5 billion funding round.

Selling Watches Using Stripe

When selling watches using Stripe, you must be careful because you do not want to get a chargeback, but there is a way to lower the chances of getting a chargeback by accepting credit cards when it comes to selling watches. Since we launched our watch marketplace, we have managed the risk very well by following these steps.

Know the buyer

Knowing the buyer is one of the most critical steps you should take. If you know who the buyer is, you will be less likely to get scammed by that person. You should connect with the buyer on social media, have a phone conversation and even ask for references. If you feel that the buyer is hiding something, it’s better to move on and not proceed with the sale.

How to set up Stripe selling watches online.

If you are selling watches at Value Your Watch Marketplace, where the only fee is Stripe, you will need to go to “Your Dashboard->Settings->Payments and link your Stripe account. If you do not have a Stripe account, follow the step-by-step guide from Stripe.

When you set up your Stripe account, you can activate certain safeguards accepting credit cards online.

Stripe Radar

To activate Stripe Radar, you need to start More-> Radar for Fraud Teams. If it’s the first time you use it, you will get 30 day’s trial. The fee is $.07 per transaction. By using Stripe Radar, you will be able to see many details about the buyer by clicking on the “Risk Evaluation” Using Stripe Radar helps you sell watches online more confidently. However, chargebacks are still genuine, which I will talk to you about later.

How Stripe Radar Works

It is a machine learning system that is flexible and responsive and continuously learns from past and current customers of the Stripe. The risk is divided into 3 categories. The higher the number, the higher the risk.

• High risk (75-99)
  • When Stripe marked the payment as high risk, it is automatically blocked by default.
• Elevated risk (50+)
  • There is an increased chance of being fraudulent, and it’s advised to pay greater attention to these transactions.
• Normal risk (0-50)
  • Learn more about Stripe Radar

If the payments have regular risk evaluation, it has fewer characteristics to be fraudulent; however, even average risk can become fraudulent, and you need to make sure that you know who you deal with.

According to stripe.com, “When a business using Stripe sees a card for the first time, there’s an 80% chance that we’ve seen the card elsewhere on the Stripe network in the past.” That’s how they are able to see the patterns.

Stripe Fees

2.9%+30¢ per successful card charge+0.5% for manually entered cards+1.5% for international cards*+1% if currency conversion is required.

Ship to a verified address

When you ship to a verified billing address which matches the shipping address, that’s the safest way of knowing, you are most likely shipping to the right person.

Suppose you ever see that the shipping address is different from the cards’ billing address (Billing address is in Hawaii, shipping to New York). In that case, you should pay closer attention to the seller.

Another trick scammers use is that they ask you to change the shipping address or  get you torush to ship as fast as you can. That’s why it is good to ship with FedEx or UPS to return the sender package. You get more control over the package before it gets into the wrong hands.

Speaking of shipping, you should always ship with a company that allows you to reroute your package, especially when it comes to luxury pieces. The companies below are the ones that are highly recommended to use.

• UPS
• FedEx
• DHL

Here is a great blog post on “How to ship watches fast and safe.“

Check the IP address.

Stripe is good at showing the location as well as on what device the transaction took place.

You can also use https://iplocation.com/ in case the Stripe map location does not work properly, which has happened to me in the past.

Verifying Buyer’s Identity when selling watches

It is not uncommon that people do ask you for your id when you shop in retail stores. The same implies when you shop online, especially when someone spends $10,000 for a used Rolex watch. People who are serious and do not have anything to hide will be more than happy to show the id to match the shipping address and, in many cases, the billing address.

Lucky for you, Stripe has a way to verify people’s identities. You need to click on More->Identity and follow the steps to activate it.

When using the Verification check for watch buyers, this can also be used for watch sellers. You can choose several options when trying to “create verification.”

The type of verification check to be performed.

• Document: Collect and verify the authenticity of a government-issued identity document.
• ID Number: Collect and verify a user’s name, date of birth, and national ID number.
• Add selfie check: Capture a face image and perform a selfie check comparing a photo ID and a picture of your user’s face.
• Add ID number check: Collect an ID number and perform an ID number check with the document’s extracted name and date of birth.
• Require live capture: Disable image uploads, identity document images have to be captured using the device’s camera.
• Limit allowed document types: Driving License, Passport, ID Card.

By having a person go through this Verification, there is a smaller likelihood that the person will try to scam you. Also, by having all these documents and communication between you and the buyer, you are building a case to find back if someone creates a dispute.

Processing time

Wait for at least 48hrs before you ship the watch. Just let the purchaser know that you will ship in two days. The reason being, that if the person stole the credit card, the actual owner might find out, so you are giving them enough time to cancel the payment if that is the case, and you will not get screwed.

Now that you know how Stripe works, it’s time to learn how to use is when you are selling watches.

How to set up Stripe?

You will need to have an account with Stripe. Here are two potential scenarios. You might have to open an account link to Value Your Watch or open a regular account with Stripe.

Whichever approach you choose, you just need to follow the instruction. The registration is free.

How to get paid

If the watch sale is your first transaction on Stripe, it typically takes seven days to get paid after the first successful payment is received (“Estimated future payouts”). After more transactions, the payout is much faster, generally in two days.

How risky is to accept credit card when selling watches?

Using a Credit card can be risky, especially when people can do a chargeback. However, Stripe seems like the best choice when it comes to using cards when selling watches online.

PayPal is well known for siting with buyers, and they have 180 days to create a dispute. On the other hand, Stripe goes by the book to see if the transaction was legit or not. Yes, someone can steal a credit card, and you want to make sure you get protected against chargebacks. That’s why it is so important to know who the buyer is.

How to fight a dispute when selling watches using a credit card

A credit card dispute occurs when a cardholder challenges a charge made to their credit card account with the issuer. Disputes can arise for various reasons, such as fraudulent charges, billing errors, goods or services not received or not as described, or unauthorized charges made by someone else.

Stripe created “a dispute resolution process through which you can respond and submit evidence to make your case that the payment was valid. If the dispute is found in your favor, the disputed amount is returned to you. However, if an argument is upheld, the card issuer’s decision is final, and the cardholder’s payment remains refunded.

Please note that the entire lifecycle of a dispute, from initiation to the final decision from the bank, can take as long as 2-3 months to complete.”

Disputed Payment Process

Responding to disputes when selling watches

The first step should be to contact the watch buyer immediately and ask the buyer about the dispute and if there is any way to resolve it. You, as a seller, have two options. First, you can accept or challenge the dispute.

IMPORTANT: “You can’t address a formally disputed payment (such as by refunding the customer directly) outside this process because the issuing bank has already refunded the account owner through the chargeback process, and you risk refunding the customer twice.”

When you have a clear picture of the dispute details, you need to consider the following questions:

• Is the claim valid?
• If not, do I have enough supporting documents to disprove the claim?

Can the account owner withdraw their dispute if we find a middle ground? For example, give some money back, service the watch, etc.

When counter dispute, Stripe opens a form that guides you through the submission process where you will tell your side of the story before submitting the most relevant evidence to fight the dispute.

What kinds of evidence helps to fight dispute when selling luxury watches?

• Proof of delivery, ideally signed by the customer
• Copies of any customer service communications
• Photos showing the watch before shipping it out
• Product Details
• Refund Policy Details

Be aware bank evaluation will not review any external information:

• Audio or video files
• Requests to call or email for more information
• Links to click for further details (for example, file downloads or links to tracking information)

Conclusion

Stripe is a trendy processing software that is getting only better with technology. Stripe is easy to use and has lower transaction fees than many other credit card processors. Stripe is very popular among many online retail stores and watches marketplaces on the internet. If you get a chargeback, you still have a chance to fight it back.