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My Recent Experience With Square

jasongullickson.posterous.com

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Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#91

Post by bmj1 »

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…

> "The only counter point I can think of is that, for a certain chargeback/total charge ratio, it does seem Square could take the risk and absorb any funds deficit."

Would attract fraudsters if they took this approach. The law of unintended consequences unfortunately.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#92

Post by delinquentme »

smackfu wrote: post #51
delinquentme wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

welcome to automation. Its designed to work for the big guys. So there you go free motivation. If you want to be able to complain and stomp around like old ways of doing business you've got to get big.

Otherwise you use the service that is provided.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#93

Post by ddurick »

wilmoore wrote: post #69
awj wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, pr…

Sure, Square has to "live within the existing system"...in fact, from everything I've heard from them, their value-add is that while they live in it, they shield you from it. They are very sympathetic with regard to how crappy banking technology is and try to shield you from that; however, it doesn't seem that this sympathy extends to the charge-back side of things.

They (Square) did shield him from as much of the hassle as possible. They provided pretty good support from an email perspective. And more importantly, they did NOT charge him the usual $25 fee any typical processor would charge him for the chargeback. Which I might add is charged to merchants regardless of them winning or losing a chargeback so again, Square "shielded" this guy from typical charges any business would always have in a chargeback situation.

The problem is this is "money" movement, not customer service "sympathy" issue. Square like any company moving money is as sympathetic as possible but when Square gets a chargeback notice, you are GUILTY until proven innocent. As stated multiple times elsewhere, in plain and simple language a chargeback means the card holder says they did NOT authorize the transaction which means they are saying "This is a fraudulent" transaction. If you ran square, just exactly how much sympathy will you have for any business when this happens? especially as stated, you'll have to cough up the money regardless of whether you get the money from the merchant or not. And, do all that work with no extra fee to offset the hassle and customer service for doing it. So, in the end, Square did a really good job overall from shielding this merchant from the situation.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#94

Post by RandallBrown »

jasonlotito wrote: post #77
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…

No. This screams of willing ignorance. You are dealing with money. Your customers money. You should have just a bit of respect to understand the agreements you are signing when dealing with your customers money. Damn right you should understand the T&C BEFORE using the service like this. Doing otherwise is damn right irresponsible and shoddy. The people running into these problems have no idea what they are doing, th…

"It is our pleasure to inform you that this inquiry has been preliminarily closed in your favor"

Sorry I used the word "rule" instead. I was just quickly summarizing.

Yes you should understand the legal stuff BEFORE, but there's no reason that square couldn't explain it when they were doing something too.

This guy was happily following all the rules. Square was breaking promises (getting back to him in less than 24 hours).

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#95

Post by pbreit »

drone wrote: post #71
pbreit wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Generally speaking, the acquiring bank (working on behalf of Square, unless Square is a bank proper, I would presume they are just an ISO) takes all risk on a credit transaction, and then extends that risk back to the ISO, who then extends it back to the customer of the ISO. The author's experience strikes me as naive, (which we all are on our first chargeback) but notably, yes, it is his requirement to have enough m…

Square is neither a bank nor an ISO bit a "Payment Service Provider" or "Master Merchant" and is in fact likely on the hook for most or all losses.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#96

Post by wilmoore »

ddurick wrote: post #93
wilmoore wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, Square has to "live within the existing system"...in fact, from everything I've heard from them, their value-add is that while they live in it, they shield you from it. They are very sympathetic with regard to how crappy banking technology is and try to shield you from that; however, it doesn't seem that this sympathy extends to the charge-back side of things.

They (Square) did shield him from as much of the hassle as possible. They provided pretty good support from an email perspective. And more importantly, they did NOT charge him the usual $25 fee any typical processor would charge him for the chargeback. Which I might add is charged to merchants regardless of them winning or losing a chargeback so again, Square "shielded" this guy from typical charges any business woul…

This is a pretty fair point you make; I do commend them for going as far as they went with helping the customer.

That being said, I still don't believe that in this particular case (maybe they do in others) they live up to what they lead to expect of them.

So, agree to "slightly" disagree :)

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