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My Recent Experience With Square

jasongullickson.posterous.com

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Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#51

Post by smackfu »

delinquentme wrote: post #18
pm24601 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely square could do things better. How about for starters picking up the goddamn phone and making a call to talk to the customer in person? It really shocks me that people are willing to entrust their business's finances with a company they cannot contact immediately. I do exactly what the OP poster did - have a account that receives the funds and is immediately swept to an entirely different institution. I wo…

Hate to break it to you but a pissy customer whos mad over $175 bucks only thinks hes a priority when it comes to square. Seriously how much cash are they transacting ... and hes flipping out over ( as pointed out earlier ) $180 profit for square? yeahh....

If Square only cares about the big customers, why would small customers use them?

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#52

Post by aneth »

guan wrote: post #33
PeterisP wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative isn't "not dipping in working capital", the alternative is "freezing all received funds for a month, all the time". Chargebacks happen; and you shouldn't expect that you will get paid for 100% of your sales. Deal with it or don't accept credit cards - the rules of the credit card game favor the cardholder a lot, that's why customers want to use their cards.

The policy is clear, and based on other comments here probably mandated by the payment networks, but that doesn’t mean it’s reasonable. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect merchants to be prepared for chargebacks and have a buffer for that. It would be reasonable to have a few days’ notice to pay the money, or be able to designate a different account for them to debit the amount from, or submit a credit card that Squ…

You are not expected to keep a month sales, just some small percent that will vary by your customer's tendencies to chargeback. Since almost every merchant account will have some chargebacks, and high volume ones will usually have some persistent level of funds in chargeback limbo, having some billing process to ask for funds is expensive and unnecessary. And what would happen when Jason refuses to find his account because he didn't agree with the chargeback?

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#53

Post by [deleted] »

guan wrote: post #33
PeterisP wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative isn't "not dipping in working capital", the alternative is "freezing all received funds for a month, all the time". Chargebacks happen; and you shouldn't expect that you will get paid for 100% of your sales. Deal with it or don't accept credit cards - the rules of the credit card game favor the cardholder a lot, that's why customers want to use their cards.

The policy is clear, and based on other comments here probably mandated by the payment networks, but that doesn’t mean it’s reasonable. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect merchants to be prepared for chargebacks and have a buffer for that. It would be reasonable to have a few days’ notice to pay the money, or be able to designate a different account for them to debit the amount from, or submit a credit card that Squ…

[deleted]

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#54

Post by jcampbell1 »

aneth wrote: post #34

I have to land squarely on Square's side on this one. As far as I can tell, Square has handled this matter exactly as I would expect and hope. They communicated professionally and clearly with Jason. Jason responded with empty threats and demands, and clearly does not understand or respect his responsibilities in his business relationship. Getting money quickly from a merchant account is a privilege, not a right. Tha…

His first move should have been to pull out a personal card and charge himself $200.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#55

Post by wmf »

parfe wrote: post #3

I'm not sure why this guy had trouble understanding that he needed money in his account as collateral against the charge back. "Yeah, he'll probably send us the money if the charge back is upheld" is not a sustainable policy.

A downside of being so easy to use is that many people who have no clue what they're doing are probably using Square. I don't know how to solve that, since adding education (hassle) up front would definitely drive away some fraction of customers.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#56

Post by aneth »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #54
aneth wrote: post #34

I have to land squarely on Square's side on this one. As far as I can tell, Square has handled this matter exactly as I would expect and hope. They communicated professionally and clearly with Jason. Jason responded with empty threats and demands, and clearly does not understand or respect his responsibilities in his business relationship. Getting money quickly from a merchant account is a privilege, not a right. Tha…

His first move should have been to pull out a personal card and charge himself $200.

That would be clever way to quickly fund his Square account, although it wouldn't avoid the overdraft fee after the ECH was initiated.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#57

Post by ArbitraryLimits »

aneth wrote: post #34

I have to land squarely on Square's side on this one. As far as I can tell, Square has handled this matter exactly as I would expect and hope. They communicated professionally and clearly with Jason. Jason responded with empty threats and demands, and clearly does not understand or respect his responsibilities in his business relationship. Getting money quickly from a merchant account is a privilege, not a right. Tha…

> Getting money quickly from a merchant account is a privilege, not a right.

What is this, a forum for dads of teenagers? "Getting money quickly from a merchant account" is a feature that services like Square can either try to provide insofar as the law allows, or not. I really don't see the point of making this a moral issue.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#58

Post by pbreit »

aneth wrote: post #34

I have to land squarely on Square's side on this one. As far as I can tell, Square has handled this matter exactly as I would expect and hope. They communicated professionally and clearly with Jason. Jason responded with empty threats and demands, and clearly does not understand or respect his responsibilities in his business relationship. Getting money quickly from a merchant account is a privilege, not a right. Tha…

Sort of. But I would have expected Square Support to be a bit more sympathetic, especially if it is true that the customer had been a long time Square user with a good amount of transaction volume.

Square defenders seem to think that Square was going to automatically lose the money when the reality in a case like this where the customer has a good track record is that 1) the chargeback may have been won and 2) Square may have been able to collect from the merchant had the chargeback stuck.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#59

Post by pbreit »

phillco wrote: post #47
RandallBrown wrote: post #40

Here's what should have happened. Square: There's a chargeback for 180 dollars. You can dispute it. OP: I want to dispute it. Here's the information you need. (no more than one day later) Square: Instead of just linking to our legal agreement we'll explain why we're taking money from your account. We have to withdraw the chargeback amount from your account because of regulations and stuff. There is more information a…

Verification of a new account would take up to 5 business days, so it would be no faster than sending an ACH for the money.

What are you referring to?

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#60

Post by awj »

ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #57
aneth wrote: post #34

I have to land squarely on Square's side on this one. As far as I can tell, Square has handled this matter exactly as I would expect and hope. They communicated professionally and clearly with Jason. Jason responded with empty threats and demands, and clearly does not understand or respect his responsibilities in his business relationship. Getting money quickly from a merchant account is a privilege, not a right. Tha…

> Getting money quickly from a merchant account is a privilege, not a right. What is this, a forum for dads of teenagers? "Getting money quickly from a merchant account" is a feature that services like Square can either try to provide insofar as the law allows, or not. I really don't see the point of making this a moral issue.

At the end of the day, square has to live within the existing system. The purchaser's bank deducts the money from square at the start of the chargeback. That is the system. They can't just foot the bill until things are resolved, so the choice is between holding the money until chargebacks aren't eligible or handing the money over with the agreement that you'll promptly pay them. Compared to having the money held, prompt transfers are a privilege.

If expecting people to understand and work within the established system for handling monetary transactions is paternalistic, then I suppose this is indeed a forum for dads of teenagers.

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