Stripe is currently a popular payment processor among online ESL teachers for processing payments from WeChat Pay. I originally created an account with Stripe to use them myself, but I immediately encountered problems with them. Here is my personal experience with Stripe and why I ultimately chose to use NihaoPay instead of Stripe.
Starting Out
I decided to use Stripe to process payments from my students in China. Since it was popular, I assumed it must be reliable and have the lowest fees compared to any other option.
I created my Stripe account, and opted to use WeChat Pay and AliPay. They didn’t activate right away, but I knew it could take up to three business days for that. So, I waited.
And waited.
Problems Already
After a little over a week of waiting and my account not updating, I reached out to Stripe’s customer service. I told them I’d created my account a week prior and tried to activate WeChat Pay and AliPay on that same day. They replied that it can take “up to three days” for those options to activate. I replied that as stated before, I’ve already waited a full week to no avail. The customer service agent said they understood and had to forward on the issue to get it resolved. They said I should expect to hear back from them within the next 24-48 hours.
Good News! …Or Not
Two days later, I received an email from Stripe stating, ”I’d like to provide you with an update and some good news. ….after further review of your Stripe account, I’m glad to inform you that your account is good to go. Your payouts are enabled and you can process payments as normal. ….On the other hand, regarding the Wechat and Alipay methods that are shown in your Dashboard as ‘pending’, I want to let you know that we are continuing working on this and we will get back in touch as soon as we have an update for you.”
That wasn’t good news. In fact, that wasn’t any news at all! They just reaffirmed what I already knew, and still didn’t even have so much as a time estimate of when they expected to get things resolved.
I replied that I was both frustrated and disappointed that the company had failed to meet their own deadlines and that I was reaching out to their competition. I hoped that would incentivize them to truly escalate the issue. They replied back with a standard apology email with no additional information nor new timeline of when I could expect them to resolve their issue.
So Much Correspondence
Above is a summation of all the written correspondence I received after reaching out to Stripe from both their chat feature and email. Along with all of that, I also called them several times. Every time the initial conversation with a new customer service agent would start out the same way.
Stripe repeatedly told me that there must be missing or incorrect information on my account. I told them I’ve double-checked my account, and I didn’t see any problems. I had to insist they tell me exactly what needed to be fixed on my end since they wanted to continue giving me their blanket statement without checking my account. Eventually they replied that I was right; everything seemed to be correct on my end. Then they’d always say they’d escalated the issue, and I couldn’t speak with anyone in that department.
Finally, once they confirmed the problem had been assigned to someone, they still told me they could not transfer me to that person nor give me any contact information for them. They promised me my issue would be resolved within 24 hours once it was assigned to someone. It was not. I didn’t get ANY follow-up response from them. I replied 2 days later and got another standard apology email.
Resolution
I initially made my Stripe account and tried to activate WeChat and AliPay on September 14, 2021. On October 19, I finally received an email that both Chinese payment options were active and available on my account. This was after I’d finally quit communicating with them since I’d given up and moved on.
I am glad I encountered the issues I did early on with them because it was before I ever processed any payments with them. Imagine if something had gone wrong on their end regarding actual money! I no longer felt that Stripe was trustworthy or reliable. That’s why I decided to use NihaoPay instead of Stripe.
Moving On
I still needed to find a way to process payments from China ASAP! At some point during all of that nonsense, I started to do a deep dive on the internet to find another option. That’s how I eventually stumbled on NihaoPay, which has lower fees than Stripe anyway. As frustrating as that whole ordeal was in the beginning, it ended up working out for my benefit in the long run. I’ve been using NihaoPay instead of Stripe since October 2021 for all of my online teaching payments. NihaoPay has been stable and reliable. If I ever have a question, their support team gets back to me in a timely manner. I’ve never had any problems with them.
Helping Others
In various Facebook groups, I learned I wasn’t the only one who experienced problems with Stripe. I know firsthand what it’s like feeling helpless when it comes to resolving issues with your chosen payment processor. This is especially true when it directly impacts your livelihood!
As soon as I received my first automatic payment with NihaoPay without issue, I knew I had to tell others about this option for processing payments from China! That’s when I became contracted with NihaoPay to help other online teachers through their application process since you can’t just create an account with them directly on their website.
NihaoPay Perks
One of the biggest perks of becoming contracted with NihaoPay is that I have exclusive access to internal communication. I know exactly where I can direct my questions for them. Their application and support teams are also familiar with who I am and the type of applicants I send their way. I’ve never had any problems using NihaoPays services, but I feel secure knowing I have better and faster connections within the company. I can also advocate for my referrals too!
Be sure to check out the 10 Benefits of Using Me as a Referral for NihaoPay!
