An indefinite pause to AI Made Simple

This is not clickbait.

Hey everyone,

This is a very important announcement to make- AI Made Simple will be going on an indefinite pause now. There is 1 very important article that I will write in a few days, but after that, I will not be writing anymore. Don’t worry I haven’t burnt out or lost my motivation. However, there is an issue that I have to resolve before I can get back to writing. I’ll go over the details of the same over here.

Background- As I’ve mentioned a few times, I’m not allowed to accept payments from anyone who’s not my employer. This is why all my clients have to hire me through SVAM and why paid subs of AI Made Simple are charged through SVAM. It’s even mentioned on the “pay what you want page” where we have all the possible discounts that you can use, specifically in this passage-

“For various immigration/compliance reasons- I am monetizing this newsletter through my employer- SVAM International (USA Work Laws bar me from taking money from anyone who is not my employer). Thus, their name will show up on the charge. But rest assured, I will retain complete control over every part of this newsletter. There will be no meddling/interference of any sort by SVAM.”

Unfortunately, one of the readers missed this. They signed up for a 50 USD/year plan. However, they didn’t recongize the SVAM name on their bank statement and marked that transaction as fraudulent. This has caused complications with the bank account (which belongs to my employer, not me). The complications are as interesting as they are difficult.

1. I lose money on every fraud claim. In this case, Stripe has removed 70 USD from my Stripe account: 50 for the base plan + 20 in fees which will be taken regardless of how this claim happens.

   

   This is a problem b/c my Stripe account has no money in it- by default Stripe sends all the money to your bank immediately (major lesson learned here, and I’ve switched the payout schedule to monthly to ensure that I always have a buffer in my Stripe Account to handle issues like this). This has created a negative balance in my Stripe account. Due to all of this, Stripe has paused all my payouts. Unfortunately, Stripe does not let you use future deposits to settle balances (which makes sense from their perspectives, but leaves me in this weird situation).

2. The negative balance also made Stripe charge my company bank account (the account where Stripe deposits all the money). This + the fraud claim have spooked out the accounting department. Both SVAM and I are very new to this whole thing- and it was hard enough to get them to start this engagement to begin with. So I need to make sure everything is cool internally. All part of growing pains I guess.

I’ve started doing whatever needs to be done, but this takes a lot of time. I have been told the review by the bank could take upto 3 months, and Stripe customer support hasn’t been super helpful in the past. That being said, I have started communication with both the reader, my company, and Stripe/Bank. No need to worry about me, I’m not too stressed about the thing. I’m cautiously optimistic about resolving this quickly and getting back to our cult. I just need to square all the circles before I can put the required mental effort in my work. Writing/Research takes a lot of mental space, and I don’t think I could do a good job if I was constantly firefighting these issues. No need to worry about me, I’m sure we’ll be fine.

Talk soon.

Peace

Devansh <3

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