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Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

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51–60 of 176 posts

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#51
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic they should charge by request volume, not by percentage of amount. As a matter of fact, there is no logic in pricing. Sellers will charge what they can get away with, buyers will pay what they can afford. And of course, it is always negotiable.

That assumes that the cost is proportional to the number of transactions, and is completely uncorrelated to the size of the transaction, which doesn’t make any sense to me. Any costs due to risk will be larger for larger transactions.

Risk is almost always borne by the merchant or the bank, never the processor.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#52

This will affect businesses that do 3rd party merchant services, like events. If the event is cancelled, refunds are issued. Who pays that fee? It would be up to the business to try to claw back funds from the promoter of the event... who is now bankrupt from not being able to do their event. It gets ugly fast.

I think that's why (well one of the reasons along with generally poor behaviour) most ticketing sites tag on so many extra "service" charges. Some charge to even receive a digital copy of your ticket! I believe they don't have to refund these charges when the event is cancelled.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#53
post #2

it was only a matter of time given that Stripe has a penalty too

Stripe doesn't refund the processing fee too.

> Depending on your fee schedule, you may incur fees to refund a charge. Additionally, Stripe's processing fees from the original transaction will not be returned in case of a refund.

https://support.stripe.com/questions/understanding-fees-for-...

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#54
post #43

This will affect businesses that do 3rd party merchant services, like events. If the event is cancelled, refunds are issued. Who pays that fee? It would be up to the business to try to claw back funds from the promoter of the event... who is now bankrupt from not being able to do their event. It gets ugly fast.

Those businesses don't get a refund on their electricity costs from cancelled sales.

Poor poor ticket master.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see why there’s a penalty for a refund. A chargeback would be one thing, but a refund is a totally normal business process

A refund _is_ a chargeback – the only difference is who initiates it. Technically, any time funds are moved onto a card, it's called a chargeback. This is how one would load a gift card, for instance. When it comes to credit card merchants, a chargeback always dings a transaction fee, and the merchant may additionally tack on a chargeback fee. So a full refund process will incur two transaction fees, plus possibly a…

> Technically, any time funds are moved onto a card, it's called a chargeback.

No, this is not true. The opposite of a charge is a credit.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly users still expect refunds for any reason. Charging a 3% fee on a refund is a cause for a shtfit.

Why sadly? This is basic consumer protection stuff. It seems like currently this fee ends up being paid by the vendor or some middleman, but that seems like BS too. Visa/whoever should be returning the fee and folding it into their business model as the cost of doing business.

Our businesses should be doing more to prevent refunds. The sheer amount of trash every large company makes is sickening.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#57

This will affect businesses that do 3rd party merchant services, like events. If the event is cancelled, refunds are issued. Who pays that fee? It would be up to the business to try to claw back funds from the promoter of the event... who is now bankrupt from not being able to do their event. It gets ugly fast.

I think that's why (well one of the reasons along with generally poor behaviour) most ticketing sites tag on so many extra "service" charges. Some charge to even receive a digital copy of your ticket! I believe they don't have to refund these charges when the event is cancelled.

The extra fees are simply a way to gouge end users. It has nothing to do with refunds and it is also often out of the control of the promoter of the event.

When I built an event ticket sales site, we tried to get promoters to just raise their ticket prices a bit to include the 'service fees' so that end users got a single price, and they refused.

Promoters just want to advertise $25, not $32.50 (contrived example)... they don't care that the end user has to pay the additional fee. We did all of the math analysis and the end user total cost could have been lower, while the promoter got more money, with our method, but perception is king.

Re: Square to no longer return processing fees when buyers are issued a refund

#60

How is this going to work for businesses in the EU where customers are allowed to refund for no reason when buying things at a distance?

Businesses will increase costs to cover it, just like they do now.

How will that help in the scenario the GP described? The businesses would still have to refund those higher charges.
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