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Got a call from Payoneer (and they got a call from Stripe)

lune856

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Jul 28, 2022
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So I'm currently residing in East Asia where Stripe service is not supported. I've joined Stripe using my Payoneer account (Australian) as a PG for my online-course website.
Signing up for Stripe was pretty straightforward: My brother lives in Australia so I used his home address and for the bank account I've used my Payoneer Australian account. All went well, no problem signing up and I've made a few test purchases (approx $20 USD) using my and my friend's credit cards. Stripe transferred the funds to my account after about a week and I must say everything was pretty smooth.

Now yesterday, all of a sudden I received a call (not an email but a phone call) from the local Payoneer office. In the call, they mentioned that they received a message (not sure if this was an email or an actual call) from Stripe saying that they needed verification(?) on me. I did truthfully tell Payoneer that I run an online course website and I've used your (Payoneer's) bank account. I wasn't really sure about what was the purpose of their call. They just said, "you might want to go with Stripe Atlas since Stripe is not supported here." The call wasn't long. They just confirmed that I was a live human being and didn't say much (since I'm their customer first and foremost). But at the end of the call, they made some daunting comment that I didn't want to hear saying that "Since the amount of transaction is fairly low at this point, we think you are okay but when your transaction amount grows there's a good chance Stripe may reach us(Payoneer) again."

My website is totally risk-free, it's consisted of academic courses so I don't see any risk-involved shutdown issues in the future. However, I do not want to see Stripe interfering with the website when my website grows bigger.

After all, I want the safest (and legal) way possible. I've read a few posts about setting up a UK LTD to use for Stripe UK but found that the director of the LTD established must reside in the area of the office. I do have a partner who built this website together who currently resides in London (and has British citizenship), maybe I should ask him? I'm a bit hesitant since that may require his bank account + tax burden.

Thanks for reading and any thoughts & suggestions would be highly appreciated.
 
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I've read a few posts about setting up a UK LTD to use for Stripe UK but found that the director of the LTD established must reside in the area of the office.
use a nominee director or similar for this.

Payoneer has to verify their customers, card holders etc. like any other financial service on earth. Sadly we are in 2022 and not in 1980 any longer.
 
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use a nominee director or similar for this.

Payoneer has to verify their customers, card holders etc. like any other financial service on earth. Sadly we are in 2022 and not in 1980 any longer.
Thanks. Still, I believe it's highly unusual that an employee of Payoneer's local branch would make a physical phone call. I've done much of my paperwork through Payoneer and was verified about a month ago. If I set up a UK LTD, can I assign my partner (UK citizen) as a director but still use my Payoneer bank account to use Stripe as a payment service?
 
No, the funds should be withdrawn to the account of the UK LTD.
Alright. Slight confusion here.

A) Form a UK LTD (1st formations, etc.)
B) Then assign my partner (a London resident) as a director, myself as a shareholder
C) Register the company's address to where he (the director) lives
D) Form a Payoneer business account and also register the address to where the director lives
E) Let the director connect the Payoneer account to Stripe

In this case, do I have an access to Stripe or Payoneer?
This just looks like myself doing all the hard work but having no access to any of the financial stuff haha..

My apologies. Just realized what a noob I was.
 
It's strictly not allowed to use your own card to make test transactions. Maybe this could have triggered something.
That's possible but I'm skeptical since the purchase could have been from anyone with the same name (yet another John Doe for instance). But thanks for your feedback!
For what it's worth, test transactions have been all going smoothly at the moment (from Stripe to Payoneer Australian account). I'm just concerned about possible future issues
 
It's strictly not allowed to use your own card to make test transactions. Maybe this could have triggered something.
Ive setup many stripe accounts and not one test transactions with my own cards has ever an issue.
How could I otherwise test if it all works, especially if you do custom checkout flows or other complicated things...
One should not test too much tho, since they have a test keypair for this. But one round before the final go is fine.

The issue is you life as director / shareholder in an unsupported country and try to bypass this.
Make your brother in Australia the director, give him shares of Australian company and it should work. Also use a proper bank there.
 

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