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My Recent Experience With Square

jasongullickson.posterous.com

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Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#21

Post by ajross »

bmj1 wrote: post #5

I have to disagree (perhaps unfashionably) with the author's sentiment and the comment below "I really like Square, but I always have this feeling that this company is going to be oe (sic) more paypal and with this story it´s confirmed." - The customer service was pretty responsive and reasonably polite for a very fast growing company. - The author notes he has paid Square hundreds of dollars in transactions fees so…

The problem is that people (mostly people here, based on their status as "one of us" I guess) were led to believe that Square wasn't going to be like PayPal at all. Yet here they are with a story that could have come straight out of paypalsucks.com.

In context, having unclear policies and unresponsive customer service at the "still-somewhat-better-than-paypal" level isn't matching the expectations set by Square's marketing.

It's a billing goof. It's going to happen, and all parties are always going to hedge in their own favor to the extent practical. Pretending that Square (like Paypal) won't go after your bank account to cover a pending chargeback is just fantasy.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#22

Post by pm24601 »

pm24601 wrote: post #10
mrsteveman1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I like to hate on Paypal because they deserve it for a variety of reasons, I'm considering lately that for financial services startups like this, it's possible they CAN'T do certain things differently, though perhaps customer service could make up for it and may not have in this case. This phrase caught my eye in the story "Per the network regulations, the debit process is automated and will continue to at…

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…

@delinquentme - sure. Except how many people will look longer at square's competitors now?

I certainly am now reluctant to use them.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#24

Post by parfe »

pm24601 wrote: post #13
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.

I'm not sure why you think it is a good idea to let random outside parties dip into his business's working capital? Ooops sorry about withdrawing $10,000 instead of $100. What's a decimal place among friends? Hope you can still make that tax payment and payroll while we futzy around on our end.

Except it isn't a random outside party. It's his credit card processor and it wasn't a random amount, it was the specific amount under dispute.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#25

Post by PeterisP »

pm24601 wrote: post #13
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.

I'm not sure why you think it is a good idea to let random outside parties dip into his business's working capital? Ooops sorry about withdrawing $10,000 instead of $100. What's a decimal place among friends? Hope you can still make that tax payment and payroll while we futzy around on our end.

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.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#26

Post by getpost »

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.

Agreed. Square's policy seems clear. Since Square pays out transactions very quickly, it's essential to be able to recover funds when there are questions. Merchants need to anticipate this. The alternative is Square holding the money for a long time, which nobody wants.

Clearing funds at any time (not just on business days), as Dwolla proposes[1], will mitigate some aspects of the OP's concern.

It appears to me that Square's service is superb and prompt, especially when compared with a traditional credit card processor that won't even accept email inquiries.

[1] http://blog.dwolla.com/ach-goes-real-time-with-fisync-free-f...

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#27

Post by webwright »

Jacob4u2 wrote: post #8
bmj1 wrote: post #5

I have to disagree (perhaps unfashionably) with the author's sentiment and the comment below "I really like Square, but I always have this feeling that this company is going to be oe (sic) more paypal and with this story it´s confirmed." - The customer service was pretty responsive and reasonably polite for a very fast growing company. - The author notes he has paid Square hundreds of dollars in transactions fees so…

I don't believe the customer service was polite. They shouldn't scold the person right up front about multiple emails; maybe it's just me, but the customer pays you, they can send as many emails as they want. Also, it's confusing that he is told to respond to the first email (and that it's time sensitive) and yet they do not respond to his prompt reply.

" maybe it's just me, but the customer pays you, they can send as many emails as they want"

It's just you. Emails for a company at this scale enter a ticket queue, not somebody's inbox. Adding more tickets for the same issue impedes the company's ability to help other customers and doesn't get you help any faster.

They didn't scold him. They told him facts-- that it didn't help anything and that the system (i.e. the software) might flag him as a spam if he hammered on it too hard.

Regarding the core issue-- they have a stated policy on chargebacks. It isn't "guilty until proven innocent", it's "Square gets to hold the money in question until it's sorted out-- and when you set up your account, you connect an account and authorize us to debit $ to cover a negative balance".

This is just how chargebacks work. It's somewhat dictated by the credit card companies-- I'm not sure Square has much flexibility to have a different policy even if it made sense to do so (IMO, their policy is perfectly reasonable).

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#28

Post by PeterisP »

adgar wrote: post #16
bmj1 wrote: post #5

I have to disagree (perhaps unfashionably) with the author's sentiment and the comment below "I really like Square, but I always have this feeling that this company is going to be oe (sic) more paypal and with this story it´s confirmed." - The customer service was pretty responsive and reasonably polite for a very fast growing company. - The author notes he has paid Square hundreds of dollars in transactions fees so…

You seem to be giving Square far, far more credit than any business deserves. I suspect it is because Square is an HN darling, but hey, to each his own. I take serious issue with your characterization that those Square responses were "pretty responsive" and "reasonably polite." * They took several days to respond to a time-sensitive billing issue * They claimed to provide support they could not and did not provide *…

* Chargeback's can't be resolved faster; * They can't (and shouldn't) give him this money - as it's quite likely that this money will never be paid, the dispute rules favor the cardholder quite much.

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#29

Post by adgar »

PeterisP wrote: post #28
adgar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be giving Square far, far more credit than any business deserves. I suspect it is because Square is an HN darling, but hey, to each his own. I take serious issue with your characterization that those Square responses were "pretty responsive" and "reasonably polite." * They took several days to respond to a time-sensitive billing issue * They claimed to provide support they could not and did not provide *…

* Chargeback's can't be resolved faster; * They can't (and shouldn't) give him this money - as it's quite likely that this money will never be paid, the dispute rules favor the cardholder quite much.

So the best response is to not respond to him for a few days at a time, and when you do, assume the customer is acting in bad faith while you fill in some form letters?

Re: My Recent Experience With Square

#30

Post by dkrich »

inuhj wrote: post #6
bmj1 wrote: post #5

I have to disagree (perhaps unfashionably) with the author's sentiment and the comment below "I really like Square, but I always have this feeling that this company is going to be oe (sic) more paypal and with this story it´s confirmed." - The customer service was pretty responsive and reasonably polite for a very fast growing company. - The author notes he has paid Square hundreds of dollars in transactions fees so…

'PayPal' and 'customer service' should never be in the same sentence together.

Heh, I called up once for help with the sandbox and the CSR told me that I was mistaken- there is no sandbox or any way to test transactions on the site. They must have a very rigorous training program there.
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