How Square moves Cash • Hacker News Board

Re: How Square moves Cash

#41

Post by jasonlotito » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 3:57 AM UTC

jes5199 wrote: post #31

djcapelis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a flash of brilliance for thinking about it, it's a flash of guts for building a product around it.

Yeah, I second this. When I was at Square (a year ago), we knew the banks' APIs would allow "refunds" of arbitrary amounts, but it was a sort of "gee, isn't that odd" piece of information - it certainly didn't occur to me that it would be reliable enough to replace ACH. I'm super-curious about who made the call to use it this way.

The reason why it wasn't done to any great degree is that banks generally frown on this, and when I was last dealing with them a few years ago, Visa and MC would see a rise in refunds sort of like a chargeback. It wouldn't cost you a penalty, but do too many and you'd be at risk to get shut down.

Re: How Square moves Cash

#42

Post by shloime » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 4:19 AM UTC

I tried Square Cash. Sent a payment to a friend and immediately received a notice that due to fraud detection my account had been permanently closed. Completely turned me off from Square and I don't ever intend on using one of their services.

Re: How Square moves Cash

#43

Post by lsc » Wed, Nov 20, 2013, 6:10 AM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #37

lsc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find interesting about the program is that I have an emotional reaction like they are talking down to me. I mean, yeah, it's a podcast targeted at the average person, sure, I'm not expecting them to really go deep. But I don't know very much about that sort of thing, so sometimes they really are giving me information I don't have. But the tone? Well, it really does feel like I'm being talked down to. I do not…

Wow, and this podcast was done by Bloomberg and Kestenbaum, two of their better reporters. I mean, yeah, it's NPR. You're not going to get amazing voice talent reading the stories. I don't feel talked-down-to as much as I feel like I'm hearing a work done by second-year broadcasting students trying to finish a project. Listen to Chana Joffe-Walt or Zoe Chase sometime. But if you think this podcast is annoying, best y…

nah, the voice acting is fine. And certainly, I'm not claiming that they are objectively arrogant, or that a 'reasonable person' would feel talked down to, and when you get down to it, I'm the last person to call someone else out on arrogance.

It's odd, too, as the non-financial stories on, say, this American life usually doesn't trigger the same response. (I mean, I'm not a huge fan of this American life, but not because I feel talked down to.)

I was commenting mostly because I find my own reaction... unexpected. And I think the question "what is arrogance?" is an interesting one. Different people will perceive vastly different levels of arrogance in the same document or reading.

Re: How Square moves Cash

#44

Post by encoderer » Fri, Nov 22, 2013, 3:10 AM UTC

andrewpi wrote: post #25

encoderer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debit-card only is something you'd need to determine yourself. But any merchant account API lets you issue refunds in this way. I've used Cybersource for it myself. And of course, has anybody verified w/ Square that it MUST be a debit card. It could also just be a marketing distinction. For me, I NEVER use a debit card -- i abhor them -- and put everything on a credit card. So I wonder if it would let me provide a cr…

Another reason they probably have the debit card restriction is due to the fact that the fees on debit card transactions are much cheaper than credit card processing fees.

I thought that was only true when processed over the debit network? That is, when using pin transacations. In my experience debit cards processed over Visa or MC network have identical fees to the merchant.

On the money-sender side, debit cards have far fewer consumer protections so will result in fewer successful chargebacks. Whether that had anything to do with it, I have no idea.