by Ben Dwyer Square credit card processing isn’t a good fit for every business. It’s best suited for individuals or businesses with low or sporadic sales volume or a low average sale amount.
Square has oversimplified credit card processing. This has allowed the company to grow rapidly, but at the expense and frustration of many of its users – frustration that comes in the form of deposit limits, frozen funds, and poor customer service.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t use Square. Just be aware of the pros and cons before signing up based on name recognition. In this Square review, we’ll explore those pros and cons to help you decide if Square is the right fit for your business.
- How much does Square cost?
- Square is an Aggregator
- Rates, Fees & Pricing Model
- Funding & Deposits
- Holds & Reserves
- Swiper & Compatible Devices
- Customer Service
- Sign Up
- Is Square Right for You?
How much does Square cost?
Just want the rates?
In 2019, Square eliminated its long-standing “flat rate” and moved to a flat rate + transaction fee pricing model. Those costs depend on whether you’re taking cards by swiping or keying. Additionally, there are different rates for other plans, as noted.
| Square Rate | Monthly Fee | |
| Swiped Transactions | 2.6% + 10 cents | $0 |
| Keyed Transactions | 3.5% + 15 cents | Varies by plan |
| Online Transactions |
2.9% + 30 cents | $0 for basic, varies for advanced feature plans |
| Square for Retail | 2.5% + 10 cents | $60/month per location + $20/month per additional register |
| Square for Restaurants | 2.6% + 10 cents | $60/month per location + $40/month per additional register |
Square began adding a per transaction fee of 5 – 10 cents in November 2019. Believe it or not, Square was actually losing money on many businesses with small average tickets, such as coffee shops. The addition of the per-transaction fee was Square’s attempt to plug that money leak.
Additionally, Square has separate rates for CBD businesses. As any CBD company can attest, not many processing companies currently serve those businesses. Square’s rates for CBD reflect higher pricing more in line with “high risk” processing in general. As of autumn 2019, the rates are as follows:
| Square Pricing for CBD Sellers | |||
| In-Person (Swiped) | Online | Keyed or Card on File | |
| Rate | 3.5% | 3.8% | 4.4% |
| Per-transaction fee | 10 cents | 30 cents | 15 cents |
Rates subject to change at Square’s discretion. Custom pricing available for high-volume businesses.
Update — 3/4/2023: Square eliminates processing fee returns for businesses that issue refunds starting in April of 2023.
Update — 9/25/2019: Square eliminated it’s flat 2.75% pricing, instead offering 2.6% + 10 cents per transaction for swiped card payments. This effectively significantly reduces the benefit of using Square for small transactions.
Update — 10/28/2015: During Square’s IPO, information came out that Square lost millions of dollars by processing transactions for Starbucks.
Update — 11/11/2013: Square discontinued $275 monthly flat rate pricing as of November 8, 2013.
Square is an Aggregator
Square is not actually a credit card processor; it’s an aggregator. Paymentech is the company that processes transactions for Square, and JP Morgan Chase is the company’s acquiring bank (also called a member bank). Square’s application collects credit card information and routes it to Paymentech where it is then routed through Visa or Mastercard’s network to the customer’s issuing bank.
Does it matter?
Yes and no. Aggregators can be a good option, especially for smaller businesses and individuals that don’t need or want a merchant account with a monthly fee.
However, aggregators don’t do upfront due diligence. While the quick signup process means you can often start accepting cards same-day, it also opens you up to greater chances of unexpected account closure. With a processor that does an upfront application and underwriting, applicants are considered before approval.
With an aggregator, review often comes later. In some cases, that results in the company determining that they can’t serve your business and closing your account.
Additionally, aggregators are somewhat more risk-averse. While any processor can freeze your funds, aggregators may have lower thresholds for any activity they deem “suspicious.” Large transactions, unusual swings in volume, and other changes in processing patterns can make processors nervous. If you have situations like that, it’s better to avoid aggregators.
Rates, Fees & Pricing Model
The pricing model a processor uses has a greater impact on cost than the rates and fees it charges.
Rate & Fee Pricing
Square uses a bundled pricing model to bill its customers for credit card processing. This means it combines the three components of credit card processing costs into one single rate. For example, banks charge businesses an interchange rate and transaction fee of 1.51% and $0.10 each time a business swipes a Visa consumer credit card. Visa makes money by charging an assessment of 0.11% and $0.0185 on the same transaction. Adding these costs gives us the “wholesale” rate of 1.62% with a $0.1185 transaction fee.
Square combines these first two components of cost with its own markup, and then bills its customers a rate as noted in the chart at the beginning of this article. As I’ll explain a little later in the review, Square’s pricing is cost-effective for some businesses, and very expensive for others.
General Charges
Square does not charge annual or start up fees. The only charges are the company’s processing rates, which vary depending on whether a credit card is physically swiped or the card number is key-entered.
If you’re on the Square for Retail or Square for Restaurants pricing, you’ll have a monthly fee as well.
Swiped Rates
On the basic plan, Square charges a rate of 2.6% + 10 cents per transaction for Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express credit and debit card transactions. If you use Square for Restaurants, you’ll also pay 2.6% + 10 cents per transaction, but with monthly fees on top of it. Square charges a $60/month fee for each location, with the first register’s subscription fee included in that price. Additional registers will cost you $40/month per register.
Keyed Fees (Card Not Present)
Transactions that are keyed instead of swiped are charged a higher rate of 3.50% of volume plus a $0.15 per item fee. For example, a $100 transaction would incur a fee of $3.65.
Monthly Flat Rate Pricing – Discontinued
Discontinued November 8, 2013
Prior to November 8, 2013 Square offered flat rate pricing of $275 per month with several very limiting restrictions. Under this pricing model a business did not pay a percentage fee. Instead, it paid $275 per month to process up to $250,000 a year in swiped transactions. Any volume in excess of the $250,000 limit was billed at Square’s typical 2.75%. Square’s flat rate credit card processing only applied to swiped transactions less than $400. Transactions of $400 or more were billed at Square’s swiped rate of 2.75%, which was a charge in addition to the $275 flat rate. It’s also important to understand that Square’s flat rate of $275 did not cover keyed transactions. Keyed transactions were billed at Square’s typical rate of 3.50% plus $0.15, and these charges were in addition to the $275 flat fee. The restrictions that Square has imposed on its flat rate pricing caused many businesses to pay more than $275 a month. For example, keying in even as little as 10% of transaction volume resulted in a business paying a hefty 3.50% plus $0.15 surcharge in addition to the $275 for all keyed volume.
The monthly flat rate pricing is no longer offered.
Funding & Deposits
Square doesn’t get very high marks for the way it handles funding and deposits. The company deducts fees prior to deposits, which hinders cash flow, and it caps deposits for card-not-present businesses.
Funding Time
Fixing a previous inconvenience, Square now offers the ability to choose your own close of day time. Square will group and send payments based on the chosen time.
Users generally register deposits in their bank account in one or two business days if sales are greater than $10. If sales are less than $10, Square will not deposit funds until sales surpass the $10 minimum. Below is the funding schedule from Square’s Web site that outlines when deposits will show in a user’s bank account.
| PAYMENT TAKEN | IN BANK ACCOUNT |
|---|---|
| Sunday 5 p.m. PDT – Monday 5 p.m. PDT | Tuesday morning |
| Monday 5 p.m. PDT – Tuesday 5 p.m. PDT | Wednesday morning |
| Tuesday 5 p.m. PDT – Wednesday 5 p.m. PDT | Thursday morning |
| Wednesday 5 p.m. PDT – Thursday 5 p.m. PDT | Friday morning |
| Thursday 5 p.m. PDT – Friday 3 p.m. PDT | Monday morning |
| Friday 3 p.m. PDT – Sunday 5 p.m. PDT | Monday morning |
Daily Discounting
Square deposits funds into users’ banks accounts using the daily discount method. This means that Square deducts fees prior to deposit.
For example, if a user key-enters a $100 sale, she will receive a deposit of $96.35, which is the gross sale amount less Square’s 3.50% plus $0.15 fee for key-entered transactions. Unlike Square, many processors utilize the more business-friendly monthly discounting method. With monthly discounting, the processor makes gross deposits throughout the month and deducts fees in one lump-sum at the end of the month. Monthly discounting provides better cash flow than daily discounting, and also makes reporting and reconciliation easier. Unfortunately, Square does not offer monthly discounting as an option.
Check out CardFellow’s article about daily vs monthly discounting to learn more.
Auto-Batching
Square automatically sends transactions to the processor for settlement at the end of each day. This is known in the credit card processing industry as auto-batching.
Auto-batching is convenient, as it helps reduce the likelihood of delays from forgetting to batch out at the end of the day.
Deposit Limit
In 2014, Square eliminated deposit limits for all existing and prospective accounts. In addition to eliminating the deposit limit, Square has removed related holds. Previously, Square’s virtual lack of an underwriting process left the company exposed to higher levels of fraud and misuse. For that reason, Square had limited deposits of higher risk card-not-present volume to just $2,002 every thirty days. Any amount beyond $2,002 was held until the following 30-day period. Any amount beyond $2,002 will be held until the following 30-day period.
Square’s high rate and fee of 3.50% plus $0.15 combined with its deposit cap of $2,002 a month makes it a very processing solution for businesses that key-enter the majority of transactions. If your business does key-enter most sales, and you’re dead set on using Square, you should request an “accelerated payment schedule” via Square’s email support.
Holds & Reserves
Credit card processors combat fraud and misuse by utilizing a thorough underwriting process before allowing a business or individual to accept credit cards. Square has bypassed this underwriting process in order to grow its user base as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for its users, this approach leaves Square very vulnerable to fraud which requires the company to take a “shoot first apologize second” approach to suspicious activity. The result is many businesses having funds held without notice for prolonged periods of time or reserves placed on deposits.
Holds
Like any merchant service provider, Square has a team of people that monitor transactions looking for fraud and other misuse. If suspicious activity is found, Square will freeze the user’s account and hold any unreleased funds for the “entire time it takes” for a thorough risk investigation. Funds are often held without notice, and Square is notorious for providing little, if any, customer service to keep people informed about the progress of a fraud investigation. As I said earlier, Square’s lack of underwriting makes the company especially sensitive to any changes in a business’s processing history, volume, or average ticket size. If your company experiences swings in volume, ticket size, or you’re expecting rapid growth, Square is not the processing solution for you.
Reserves
A reserve (often called rolling reserve or hold back) is when a credit card processor routes all or a portion of funds from your sales to a non-interest bearing account until funds in the account meet a certain balance.
For example, if a processor requires a $10,000, 5% rolling reserve on a business’s account, the processor will withhold 5% from each deposit until the balance of the reserve account reaches $10,000. It’s then up to the processor to decide at which point to release the reserve account, if ever.
A traditional credit card processor will typically notify a business if a reserve is necessary when the business applies for a merchant account. However, since Square does not have an application process, a reserve may be imposed, increased, reduced or removed at any time at Square’s discretion.
If your business operates on thin margins, a sudden reserve or more will likely be devastating. There’s no one at Square you can contact to inquire whether your business is likely to incur a reserve, so consider this carefully as you determine whether Square is right for your business.
Swiper & Compatible Devices
One of the benefits of Square’s service is that it’s completely free to get started. Square’s application runs on a user’s existing iPhone, iPad or Android device, and there is no charge for the magnetic stripe card reader (swiper) that plugs into the headphone jack.
Square also offers EMV-capable swipers to allow you to securely accept EMV chip cards. Currently, the EMV reader costs $29. Square also has a combination contactless/EMV reader. The swiper is free to businesses that qualify, or will otherwise cost $49 but include reimbursement of $49 of processing fees.
Swipers and Readers
Square’s magnetic stripe swiper is about an inch tall by an inch wide, and plugs into the headphone jack of compatible devices to collect information from the magnetic strip of a customer’s card. Once a card is read, the information is encrypted and then passed to Square application for transmission. 
Square’s EMV swiper is also a small-profile reader that plugs into a headphone jack. The swiper can be used for both chip cards and magnetic-stripe cards, providing a wider range of card acceptance possibilities. Square’s EMV swiper is expected to be available prior to the October EMV liability shift.
The combination NFC/EMV reader is approximately 2.5″ x 2.5″ square, and can be charged and then connected wirelessly, or plugged in to the Square Stand using a USB hub. The NFC/EMV combo reader also comes with a traditional magnetic stripe reader to allow you to accept older magnetic stripe credit cards.
Compatible Devices
Square’s service is compatible with iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Apple iPhones must be running iOS version 4.1 or newer, which includes the 3G, 4 and 4S versions of the phone. Apple iPads must have iOS 5.0 or newer. Android devices must be running operating system version 2.1 or newer.
Requirements subject to change. Be sure to check with Square for the most up-to-date compatibility specs.
Customer Service
Square excels at some things, but customer service is not one of them. The company goes out of its way to avoid verbal contact with its customers, and contacting Square customer service is not an easy task.
Customer service is expensive, and Square is putting its investors’ dollars toward growing its user base, not toward servicing existing users. Please tell us about your experience with Square’s customer service using the comment form at the end of this article.
Square Phone Number
Square only offers customer service by phone to businesses with existing Square accounts. Before calling, you’ll need to go to square.com/code to receive a “customer code.” The customer code is required when calling in order to reach a live customer service member through the automated recording system. Prospective customers and customers who have had accounts cancelled or frozen may be directed to email support where responses to questions and issues can take as long as week. You can give Square customer service a call at the phone number below.
Square phone number: (855) 700-6000
Square Email
Square strongly prefers email support over phone support. The company claims to answer emails within 24 hours, but the basic consensus from existing users is that Square takes anywhere from three to seven days to respond, and some people never receive a response at all. The Square email for support is listed below.
Square email: help@squareup.com
Alternately, you can contact Square via a form on the company’s Web site.
Sign Up
Square’s goal is to acquire as many new users as quickly as possible, so signing up is quick and easy. Square does not require a credit check on individual user accounts, but does require a credit check for commercial entity accounts. For typical user accounts, Square’s underwriting process is limited to a quick electronic verification of identity. However, the company does reserve the right to investigate a user more closely, and also to share user information with Paymentech (its processor).
Restricted Business Types
You wouldn’t know it from Square’s aggressive marketing, but the service is not for everyone. Like any other credit card processing service, Square has certain types of businesses that it will not work with. Take a look at section six of Square’s Merchant User Agreement to ensure your type of business is not prohibited before you sign up. If your business is prohibited, you will likely find out after you sign up when Square freezes your account and holds your money. And remember, there’s limited telephone support to get the issue resolved.
Square and CBD Merchant Accounts
In the spring of 2019, various news outlets reported that Square began a program to permit CBD sales. As of 2023, the company publishes separate rates for CBD accounts directly on its website and provides information for CBD sellers. With CBD sales explicitly permitted, businesses in that industry can consider Square for their processing needs without concern of being shut down as an unsupported business.
Is Square Right for You?
Square is a great processing solution for individuals and businesses that fit a certain profile, but Square is by no means right for everyone. It’s very important to educate yourself about how credit card processing fees work before you decide to use Square or any other processing service.
Square may be a good fit if: Your average transaction is less than $10 OR you process less than $3,000/month in credit cards. I’ll go into this in more depth below.
Business that May Benefit From Square
Certain businesses may benefit from the flat rate pricing, mobility, and lack of monthly charges that Square offers.
Low or Sporadic Processing Volume
Square’s lack of monthly charges makes it a perfect solution for individuals and businesses that don’t process many credit cards or that only process cards every now and then. Traditional credit card processors have monthly charges and usually a monthly minimum fee that makes them less competitive than Square for this merchant segment.
Low Individual Sale Amount
Square’s flat rate and no transaction fee pricing actually caused the company to lose money when it processed very small transactions, which is why Square began imposing a transaction fee in 2019.
Businesses that have an average sale of $5 may still find Square to be cost-effective. It depends on the alternatives for per-transaction fees. For businesses with many small transactions, the per-transaction fee can take a big bite of your profits. The lower the per-transaction fee, the better.
Business with Low Volume that Require Mobility
Square is a great fit for businesses that require mobility and also have low or sporadic processing volume. Businesses with monthly processing volume of about $4,000 or more will find other mobile processing service to be more cost-effective.
Businesses that Should Avoid Square
Businesses that have medium to high sales volume, key in most transactions, have fluctuations in volume or ticket size, that enjoy any level of customer service, or that can’t afford to have funds frozen without notice should opt for a traditional processor in place of Square. Additionally, businesses that process a lot of returns (such as clothing stores) may want to consider other options.
Businesses with Higher Transactions and Volume
Square’s rate is nice and simple, but it’s not really that competitive when compared with a traditional processor offering interchange plus pricing. If your average transaction is over $10 and you process more than a few thousand/month in cards, skip flat rate. Instead, find a competitive interchange plus processor.
Sign up for free at CardFellow to receive instant quotes from multiple processors to see for yourself.
Keyed Transaction Businesses
Businesses that key-in transactions instead of swiping cards should stay far away from Square. 3.50% plus a $0.15 isn’t even close to competitive for card-not-present transactions.
Fluctuations in Volume or Sale Amount
Abnormal processing behavior triggers a risk flag that may lead to frozen deposits and account holds. Square has to manage risk like any other processor, but its streamlined sign up process leaves it more exposed than traditional providers, so it tends to have a hair trigger when it comes to holding deposits and freezing accounts. Businesses that have fluctuations in sales volume or average sale amounts should not use Square.
Customer Service is Required
Square is not known for good customer service. Even the company’s processing agreement directs user questions to an email address. If you place any value whatsoever on customer service, Square is not the processing solution for you.
Businesses That Take Returns
For businesses that take a lot of returns for customers (such as clothing stores) Square might not be the best option due to a change planned for April 2023. At that time, Square will stop issuing refunds of processing fees to businesses that have processed a return for a customer. In its official communication about the change, Square says it made the decision to reflect the fact that Square incurs processing fees on refunds themselves. While this is true, when a refund occurs, the processing company does receive a portion of the processing fees back.
Square could choose to refund the portion of the processing fee, even though its not the entire processing fee that was originally paid, but they are not doing so. For businesses with a lot of refunds / returns, that lack of credit for the original processing fees can add up.
If that matters to you, you’ll want to find a processor that returns your interchange fees. Processors that place quotes through CardFellow are required – by legal agreement – to pass those refunds to you when you perform a refund for a customer.
Simplicity & Competitiveness Are Two Different Things
Square hasn’t invented anything new; for better or worse, it has simply made credit card processing more accessible to the masses, largely through oversimplified pricing. Square pays interchange fees to issuing banks and assessments to card brands just like any other processor.
Interchange is credit card processing’s version of wholesale, and the vast majority of interchange rates are significantly less than the 2.6% and 3.50% rates that Square charges.
However, Square’s pricing looks simple. But simple is not the same as competitive. Don’t be fooled into thinking that a simple flat rate is automatically the lowest cost for your business. In many cases, it isn’t.
If you need help comparing your pricing with Square to other companies, try CardFellow’s free quote comparison tool, which includes pricing for Square so you can see exactly how it stacks up.
Wow! I wish I would of read this before clicking “I agree to the square Up terms”
One could and should go one step further with this review and say “Square Up is not a good choice for any business for any reason”.
Any suggestions on alternative services that people are extremely happy with?
Hi David,
There are a couple great alternatives to Square. If your business does not require the mobility that Square provides, then the most cost-effective option is to utilize a traditional credit card processing solution based on interchange plus pricing. You will find the lowest rates and fees right here at CardFellow. Simply sign up to receive free quotes from multiple processors.
If your business does require mobility, then you should look at a traditional processor coupled with ROAMpay. As long as your business processes about $2500 or more each month, this option is less expensive than Square and provides the same portability. Again, you want to be sure to get competitive interchange plus pricing along with low monthly and annual fees. You’ll get exactly that in the quotes through CardFellow.
Finally, if your business has low or sporadic monthly processing volume, a traditional processor may not be cost-effective. In this case, you should check out PayPal Here.
PayPal Here has a lower rate than Square, and it uses a traditional underwriting process that helps to avoid the holds and reserves that are common with Square. PayPal also provides customer service that is far superior to Square’s non-existent customer service.
Square is definitely the worst company of all mobile processors. I had an account with them, and one day they just decided to hold all my funds and deactivate my account!!! Even after giving them SOLID PROOF of identification and invoices and signatures of customers, they said that I “violated the rules” of Square.
Same exact thing happened to me today. Do you think it’s worth getting legal help or is it fine for them to terminate any account according to the license agreement?
I am an attorney that got sucked into the worst customer service of any company in any industry, that is a hell-hole called Square.com! They have held $3500 of my money which my client sent me over 20 days ago. I am a lawyer, and the client would have generated nearly $40,000 of fees, which now I will very likely looe because of this little piece of a crap of a company called Square. They do not have live support. The emails are not answered until a full 6 days have passed. The online help is piece of crap. I will strongly recommend any one to quickly close their account with this company. There are many alternatives. I am also considering a lawsuit for embezzlement! (I have 21 years of experience in litigating cases, and boy they will jump once I file my suit!) Technically, the money they have is not theirs, and hence it must have been placed in some form of trust or bank account. So, we will see who is going to be laughing at the end!
Someone needs to start a class action law suit against these idiots. They have NO concern for any merchant issues.
I just spent two days writing back forth with someone called “Terence” that has cut off my account because I asked how I could stop my SquareUp account. Talk about passive aggressive. “Terence” has done more damage to his company than any little Square white cube could do to itself.
Terrence was under the mistaken impression that there was a coupon in my card reader case and implied that I had bought it off the shelf somewhere other than SquareUp. No, in both cases. He tried to rationalize the $2,002.00 limit through circular logic. That was cute.
At the same time I received an e-mail telling me my new SquareUp card reader was being shipped to me(?) I did not ask for a new reader because the little cube does have serious design flaws. E-mail is the only way you can communicate with SquareUp, there is no customer service. The lone 888 telephone number is useless.
Enormous waste of time.
I am going with Intuit. Old fashioned phone service, quick response, almost no waiting time for approval and the card reader works much better than the cute little white square. That’s all it is – cute.
Karen
Hi Karen,
I’m sorry to hear about your experience with Square. Unfortunately for Square, your frustration with the company is not at all uncommon. I would recommend that you look toward PayPal Here instead of Intuit GoPayment. Take a moment to read our comprehensive profiles of PayPal Here and GoPayment.
Paypal is no better than Square. They closed our account for no reason. Fortunately, all funds had already been processed.
I’ve been using Square since the beginning. My business involves a couple dozen transactions three times a month. It’s very small and very mobile. I’ve never needed to call customer service.
For a one person business that only does sporadic transactions it’s fantastic. They’ve never withheld a transaction, but then I’ve never charged more than about $200 at a time. Considering how inexpensive it can be, and how much they’ve done to break open the industry, I’m glad to have them.
We began using Square last fall. Square was very easy to set up and use. We thought it was great, but now we have learned the downside. We have not been able to refund a payment to a customer via Square’s system, and despite repeated requests from us asking for help Square will not pick up a phone to help us get this resolved. Instead, we’ve been emailed that “[o]ur Support team operates over email in order to serve you most effectively.” Seems to me that they not only need to revamp their customer support, but their marketing as well. Sending a statement like that to a customer in a time of need is only salt in the wound. Square gets a very low score from us now.
If anyone files…I am in. THEY STOLE $300 from me. I had a charge back 109 days after the transaction…in which the customer signed and gave me his email for a receipt.
They sent me an email on a Thursday afternoon 4pmish and by 3am Fri…they took the money out of my account. And said…pretty much….IM SCREWED…contact the customer. THAT WAS A 109 days ago at an ART FAIR!
Im not letting this go…..THIS IS UNFAIR AND UNJUST!!!!
I just signed up for Square and after I read reviews on how they’re defrauding people I instantly emailed them to cancel my account, but I’m still worried about how they have my linked bank account. Does anyone know if they can still take out money from my account if I didn’t use Square Up at all? And how long does it take for them to fully deactivate my account?
Close your bank account to be safe and open a new one.
After using Square for over a year I was able to enjoy the mobile freedoms of collecting payments from my online and retail clients without the hassle of dealing with more “traditional companies.” Over the past 9 months my transactions have increased due to an expansion of my client base and the opening of a retail store (which is a great!). Today I received an email from Square stating there is an alert on my account and information is needed for verification.
After providing every piece of documentation Square requested, and calling back and forth to the help desk, I was informed that security agent Nigel determined my business was high risk and I would receive an email about the decision. Square is holding $2300 of my funds both swiped and CNP after just increasing my limit in November.
This company is deceptive and crooked to make such determination without any type of guidance regarding the decision making process. My company is a corporation that has a EIN and a location and still Square considers the company to be high risk! Bull! I say class action suit!
Pissed,
Sam
Square is horrible! I would rather pay higher fees to get a mobile payment processor with customer service!
Square is the biggest scam ever. They are calling my $50.00 sale a fraud or high risk transaction. Who the heck calls that at high risk transaction when I provided all the information needed for the account?
They are terrible. They do not make deposits, charge my customers and run with the money. I am contacting my Attorney Generals office in the State of Wisconsin. Someone has to stop these thieves! Do not use Square-Up.
I started my roadside assistance company in November 2012, I realized that I would need to accept credit cards because not everyone carries cash. I picked up Square and have been using them on a regular basis charging no more than $700 at a time. The funds have always gone through within 2 business days unless I took the payment after 5pm on Friday. If you accept a payment between Friday at 5pm through Monday at 5am you will not get your payment right away, and that is the price for accepting credit cards. No banks have true weekend hours. So I wait a few days, not a huge deal! I tried Phone Swipe, Pay Anywhere, and all of these other companies and you need complicated merchant account information, Batch Numbers, and so on. Those companies claim to beat Square. Well, I am living proof that those other companies are garbage, and they take longer [to deposit funds] and have hidden fees.
As for those who collect the higher amounts like $2002.00 and don’t want Square holding the funds for 30 days, just break charges down into 2-3 payments. Its not rocket science, its business!
WOW! What a terrible experience for anybody to go through. It is hard enough to make a living in small business. We were approved for taking credit cards from Square, and I thought it would be great and simple. We did our first swipe for a $1000 deposit, and it took 12 times to get the transaction to enter. The customer signed for the purchase with her finger, and all seemed good until I received the following email from square a few hours later:
“To ensure the financial security of both you and your customers, we would like to verify some additional information about your account. Until we have verified this information, deposits to your bank account will be deferred. During this period, you will still be able to accept payments.”
So, we sent them all information requested, which was 3 bank statements, business information, invoice information, etc. Two hours later we received this email from Square:
“Our Account Services team has concluded a review of your account and has determined it to be high risk. For security purposes, we have elected to deactivate your account. From the date of this letter forward, you will not be able to process transactions.
To learn more about Seller Agreement and terminations, please visit: Seller Agreement.
Any funds currently in your account will be held for 180 days before being released to your linked bank account.
If you do not want to wait 180 days to receive these funds, you may consider refunding the payments back to the original cards and seeking an alternate form of payment. Please note that we refund all the fees, too.
To refund a payment, please log in to the Dashboard on a computer
1.Navigate to your Payments page.
2.Click on the payment you would like to refund, then click ‘Issue Refund’ on the left.
3.Enter the reason you are refunding the payment, then click ‘Refund this payment.’
For security reasons, we cannot divulge the reason for your account termination. We apologize for the inconvenience, but our decision is final.”
Now that is customer service at its best! They should have asked for bank statements and other information before we were approved. When I called Square the representative basically told me that they can do what they want, and then hung up on me.
I learned my lesson. Do your homework on these companies, and be sure to read the fine print. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the refund to be applied to cardholder.
I don’t know what laws govern these companies, but there should be some sort of help for the small business. Buyer beware!
Square just took $280 out of my bank account for no reason. I’m confused as to why, and I need to speak with them, but I can’t find a phone number to call. Can somebody please help? What is Square’s phone number?
I was thinking about using Square, but I will stay away after reading all negative comments. Unbelievable, 98% negative feedback and this business is still alive.
I am very disappointed with the Square service.
I put a large charge through them, and after a few days, they did not send me the money. Instead, I was asked to send in documents to support the transaction.
There is no phone number to call, or even an email address to contact customer service. Square is very unprofessional.
Square’s phone number: 415-375-3176. You MUST have an extension number, so I tried random 3 digit extension numbers and 123 worked. Well, at least it was the only extension I tried that actually rang a phone and had a voice mail system. I left a lengthy message.
My concern was about a chargeback a customer claimed. I swiped the lady’s card in person. I have sent in all my documentation and am now waiting over a week for a response.
I am now going to try to go through Visa themselves to see if this was settled.
Otherwise, I have really enjoyed Square.
No phone for customer service. No response via email. No way to get in touch with this company when needed.
Don’t do it.
After using Square for about a year they closed my account permanently due to “High Risk”. I am a self employed manicurist and I use Square for only a couple of my clients. Most of my business is paid by check or cash. So I have the regulars that like to use a card. Today my regular cc user purchased a $300 gift card from me. Her normal transaction every other week is $80. I get an email from Square saying I need to provide some info about my business to verify it. So I follow the instructions. I send bank statements, receipts, website info and oddly enough pictures of the salon (they asked for these). 2 hrs later I get a response that I am high risk “Your account activity includes non-bonafide transactions,” What does that mean?! I provided everything.
Then they state that “Due to unusual or high risk activity associated with your account, your outstanding Square balance will be reserved for up to 180 days (but no less than 90 days), unless circumstances require that we extend this reserve period. If you do not want us to reserve your funds, you may refund the payment back to the cardholder account.”
I have to wait 180 days! Are you kidding me! So now I have to bug my customer and ask for her to let me refund her and have her pay another way. Why? So she can be out money when Square chooses not to refund her. You can’t call anyone, and when I email them they do not get back to you. I think my attorney needs to be called.
I have been using Square since April 2013. No problems at all, some transactions are $600.00, $400.00 and over $20,000.00 a month. I have been happy with Square and so are my customers. I did write to them to let them know that my sales will be higher in August and September.
I signed up for Square less than a month ago and made five transactions. The first two were fine, but the rest were held and I was asked to provide information such as bank statements, business papers, and a bunch of other stuff that really isn’t easy to get. Once sent, Square said I was “high risk” and closed my account holding nearly $2,500 of my money for 90 days. Is this legal? Will I ever get this money back?
Same here! Has anyone gotten their money back after the 90 days? They have nearly $2000 of mine.
Same as everyone else. We started using Square when we opened our business. It was an affordable option and I had never had any issues with their service. Until recently when we actually needed HELP! As everyone states above, there is NO phone number you can talk to. There is no one you can call to help you solve an issue. We had a chargeback on our account and we were looking to dispute it since the customer did not follow our policy. Instead they would email us and tell us all the stupid stuff that is listed on their website. Then all of a sudden we weren’t getting our deposits. They said we had to reset our account, I did that and am in the process of billing our clients praying they will deposit our money since this is how we run our business – off of auto credit card payments. After not being able to reach a real person we will be moving to a new service. I’m very disappointed with they way they handle things. This is all of our livelihood and we survive off the money we bring in.
I totally feel you. Square was holding $1100.00 of my funds. Talk about panic when there is no one to talk to. So, I re-linked my account and they only got $700 back in holding. They took $400 as a fee, which I still have no idea what for. They will not return my emails and there’s absolutely no number to call. How do they get away with this?
Any customer can say a payment was made in duplicate and take the funds back. I was called into a computer repair shop to work on computers the “tech” knew nothing about. I performed the work on his customers’ computers. I usually take cash but let him pay with Square since he claimed to have none on hand.
Now 1 month later he complained of a duplicate billing with American Express. I got a notice in my email allowing me to dispute it within 10 days. Now less than 24 hours later, it was automatically charged back to his account. I only have a handful of transactions that they could have easily seen, yet they still charge my account.
They have 1 phone number that is never answered by a human, and disconnects you.
This is it, I’m done with Square.
I looked at Square and thought what they presented was fair, so I thought my first test would show me how the system works. I pulled out my credit card and charged myself one dollar as a test. Before I did any more I waited to see my statement. I was quite surprised to see I was charged the key-in rate when I had swiped the card. Customer service said that I had done the procedure improperly, but I argued that I never keyed in the credit card number, only the other information asked for on the screen such as zip code. I had the card in my physical possession to swipe it, so why was I charged the manual rate? That’s when I went online to see other peoples’ experiences. I was also dismayed about the holds on money. My charges are typically $500 to $3,500, so a hold really hurts. I decided to go no further with Square and deleted the app from my phone.
I have used several credit card processing processing companies for my two very small businesses, including PayPal. PayPal has zero customer support, and its charges are over the top.
I can’t praise Square enough. We’ve now been using it for 18 months.
The sign-up process was straight forward, and a lot simpler than other commenters have stated.
– Our funds are promptly in the bank the next business day, and payment notifications arrive within an hour in my email inbox.
– I’ve contacted them with questions several times, and had quick (within 24 hours) responses, by knowledgeable people.
– We assure customers that we do not have access to their email or credit card information, and our customers are impressed with Square’s system.
– Square has never held my funds and payments to my bank account are prompt.
I would not touch PayPal credit card processing services with a barge pole. Many of the negative comments posted above about Square are true in spades for PayPal. Be aware that any customer can dispute a credit card payment, and whatever the company, the rules are stacked against the merchant.
Just wait, they will slam you overnight for God knows what because they won’t get back to you via email to tell you. They just tell you to read the contract (which is complicated). You will wish you had a real person to talk to who will answer your question of “why are you charging me this enormous Fee, and Why are you holding my money to pay this enormous Fee.” I was very happy with them at first, then they get you. It should be illegal.
Don’t believe you and suspect you’re a shill for Square. How come nobody else can get in touch with a live person?
In more than 2 years of business I have had not a single complaint using Square. Now, I have run into my first client who wants to dispute my services. It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
Good luck with this. Watch out for some exorbitant fees, and no response from them to help.
Square is horrible! It should be illegal for anyone to do business this way. No customer service? Do not fall for the “help emails”… they are simply cut and paste responses from a “company” who obviously wants to pocket money instead of paying for a staff to help its customers, hence the businesses who use them. I will never use Square again.
Square is a joke. It’s not for a real business, it’s for middle school children selling t-shirts and pins. If you are looking to grow your business, stay away from Square.
Square allowed my first transaction of $17,000 in October, then accepted one for $4,000 in November. I received a confirmation email. Then noticed the money was never forwarded to my account. Numerous requests lead only to a return email stating they need more information. Even after sending it, I still get the same email response. There is no phone number. A normal company would have fixed this in 10 minutes. Never again will I use Square. I’m still out my money a month now.
I wish I read this before using Square.
Square is the worst company ever! I have a very small company, and I process cards for a total of $200 per week. All credit cards are swiped in the presence of the customer. For no reason, I received an email from Square telling me that they canceled my account. I immediately sent an email requesting an explanation. It is unacceptable for a credit card company not to have a customer service phone number to call. Square was supposed to make a deposit into my account for $80, but never did… this is a copy of the email Square sent me after I requested an explanation.
Hello,
Thanks for writing in.
For security reasons, we cannot detail the reasons for our decision.
I apologize for the inconvenience, but our decision to deactivate is final.
Sincerely,
Griffin
Square Account Services
I am a small business, just me. At first Square was great, then bam, overnight they took out a four hundred dollar fee for something, and I still have no answer. There is no number to call and the few emails I’ve gotten back from my NUMEROUS emails were untimely and of no help whatsoever. I’m completely getting the runaround. It’s been two months I’ve been trying to get a response from them, so to the person above who said “you just have to do your complaining in writing.” NOT TRUE MY FRIEND. The worst company ever. I can’t believe they are not closed down. They have complete control of my money and They don’t give a crap about helping. I still haven’t heard back from them on my last email 4 days ago. Do not sign up with this company… Please!
The problem with you all is that you’re processing high value amounts. Square will shut you down immediately. Square is notorious for shutting everyone down, but they are in such a hurry to sign people up and then they hit you left and right. Do not ship anything out or perform any work until the money is physically in your bank account. All these people claiming to be ripped off, knew right off the bat that they weren’t in physical possession of the money, but opted to do the work or ship the product before getting paid for it. Regardless of what is said by anyone, you all know the risks in dealing with online transactions or anything that involves using a credit card. If you don’t know that a customer can make up a fake chargeback and take the money away from you, then you have no business accepting credit cards. You’re the prime reason why you get shut down. It was your customer not anyone else, so why should someone else be held liable for seller stupidity? Oh they shut me account and stole all my money, then when you find out the truth that they didn’t bother saying, it turns out they shipped something to Nigeria, or they didn’t put tracking information on a package or whatever, they go crying and complaining, but never bother to say the details.
Yeah, Square sucks big time, they limit everyone, you think one of the reasons is because of the level of intelligence of some of these sellers? Everything with business is geared towards customers. Customers can get away with stealing a product over and over again, and credit card companies, say oh well that’s your problem and that’s the cost of doing business. Credit card companies are the ones that are responsible for all this fraud. You see on TV all the time, credit card companies and banks, especially PayPal, egging the buyer to file disputes because they sound like its perfectly legal and there’s nothing to it. Then they set the rules in opposition saying that if a merchant gets too many chargebacks because of what buyers do (and sellers have no control over it) they shut your account down. Credit card companies cause the problem and they blame sellers for it. Oh and these geniuses at Visa and Mastercard, oh the chip is supposed to get rid of fraud you cant duplicate or copy the card. The only thing those did was push all the fraud online, making it even more difficult for ecommerce merchants to run a business. And yeah its going to get dumped on us, it’s time for merchants to fight back, go back to the old days of taking cash!
I suggest going through a real processor with a phone number and a physical place to go get help and answers. This company is a rip off and should be shut down.
I have used Square for two years with no issues. I was being robbed by another credit card company, so this one is working much better for me. Someone posted a review saying that only people who deal with “chump change” should use Square. Yes, that’s me, and I’m happy. This company so far has enabled me to stay in business so I don’t have to give 25% of my charges to a crooked card processing company. I have the same customer base who would never dispute any charges, so I think I will have no issues with Square. I really wouldn’t recommend Square for large companies or contractors who provide services. It is very easy for a customer to scam a business with Square by saying that they were not happy and want their money back.
I signed up for Square in October of 2013. After receiving the card reader, getting the app installed on my smartphone and tablet, I got my inventory set-up the way I wanted it and then got started accepting orders.
After a week of taking orders and processing cards without a problem, I thought everything was working okay. On October 31 I got an e-mail message from Square Compliance telling me that high risk activity was detected on my account, and as a result, my account has been deactivated. I was then told to visit the Square website for more information.
After re-reading the seller agreement, terms and conditions, etc, I didn’t find anything that I had done wrong to have my account deactivated. So, I sent an e-mail requesting information to customer support regarding their so-called decision to deactivate my account.
After waiting a few days, someone finally responded to my message and stated that my account was high risk and due to security reasons, but they couldn’t tell me any more information. The person went on to say that Square was exercising its discretion under Paragraph 42 of the Seller Agreement and that the decision was final.
I want to know what actually happened to classify me as a high risk user or a security risk. There was no appeal process or anything, Square just deactivated my account. Thankfully, it didn’t keep any funds that I had accepted from my customers. So, I’m happy about that, but overall, Square’s customer service is crappy, and I’m sure they can do better.
For other business owners/individuals out there that are looking for an application to help them process credit cards — you can do better than Square. I’m sure there are alternatives that are better. I will say that the application interface is nice and the reader is small and compact, but the customer service needs a whole lot of work.
Don’t waste your time with Square.
Square’s support is terrible. I tried to use its mobile staff feature and cannot figure out how to get someone setup to accept payments for the company. You define a mobile staff member with an e-mail address. They receive the e-mail invitation with a button to create an account. If you try to use the e-mail address to which the invitation was sent it tells you there is already an account with that e-mail, even though the only place it appears is in the mobile staff entry under your business. Square tells me to use an alternate e-mail address to create the account, but that is not tied to my business. It wants bank account information and the “mobile staff” member does not have access to sale items that were created.
Trying to get help with this whole process has been frustrating. Square only send e-mails, and it has given me two e-mail addresses to correspond with (help@squareup.com and support@squareup.com). Sending e-mail to either of these addresses gets an automated response that says “they do not read e-mail for this address”.
I’ve been in IT for over 30 years, and this is one of the worst systems I’ve ever seen. I wanted to use this for an event our foundation is planning in March, but now I have to rethink the options.
A customer filed a “friendly fraud” chargeback on Nov. 24th because an employee of his had been stealing money and he didn’t recognize the charge. The first I hear of this is when I get a notice on Dec 27th from Square that the funds had been debited from my bank account. I responded to Square with the invoice and email/txt communications with the customer. I contacted the customer, and they immediately withdrew the dispute and provided me with a confirmation number from their processor along with the phone number to the card issuer’s investigator. They also wrote a letter stating they had withdrew the dispute, which I forwarded to Square. I have begged Square to be proactive and contact the card issuer, yet they responded to me that they’ve not received any resolution and that the process can take up to 70 additional days. The customer has paid the bill. Email responses from Square have taken up to 5 days. Reading some of the other reviews above, I gather that I’m not going to see my money for several months. Square sucks.
Square is the worst company I have ever worked with.
Very disappointed in this company! Two days ago I received an email about a charge back for $33.00 which I am providing proper information for. Today I receive an email that they are taking $31.69 out of my bank account with no explanation why. I have emailed them several times with no “quick response,” and of course, like many have said, there is no customer service phone number. This is ridiculous!
My gosh. 95% of the reviews about Square are “very” negative, so I am assuming that there must be a competitor out there that is better. Who?
How is this company still in business? I was so supportive of the service and told all my business associates about Square. OMG! How is it possible to be a financial service working with businesses and not provide customer service? It’s horrible. My customer was charged 3 times for a transaction that showed up as being “Declined.” The customer assured me that the funds were available, so I swiped the card two more times, each time the card reader said the card was declined. The customer, of course, did not authorize the transaction, but when she checked her account the next day 3 transactions had gone through. As the business owner, I did not have any indication of the transactions on my dashboard. The amount calculated from my sales for the day did not include the 3 swipes. It’s as if the swipes never took place on my side. It has been 2 full days and I have not been able to speak to anyone at Square, nor have I received an email from the support team in response to the email they say they have received from me. This is terrible! Square needs to be out of business!
Customer service is terrible!!! This company holds your money and makes every excuse not to fund money collected to your account. When you call, you get the same message or no answer. Beware!!!
I find every nearly every comment (both good and bad) true. The Square system was designed around a street vendor mentality, i.e. a merchant who sells multiple small value products directly to a customer. That’s not to say other merchant models can’t use Square, but the minute you “stress” the system by processing large amounts, keying certain transactions, sell to commercial or government customers, or exceed any of the secret limitations Square has arbitrarily placed on your account, you run the risk of losing the value of the sale. They will hold your funds for any reason or any length of time. AND, as has been stated, there is effectively NO direct customer communication let alone ‘support.’ MORAL of the story: Don’t process any sale that you cannot afford to lose.
I have loved Square for over 3 years now but a couple months ago there was a shipping problem, and yes, the package was late — my fault. Square took the money out of my account and said when I have confirmation of shipment delivered I would get the funds back. No problem right!? Two months later and 6 emails sent by me with auto-response only from Square stating, “We are trying to get a hold of his bank, allow 5 weeks.” I gave them 7 1/2 weeks – I’m done! My bank gave me back my money because the package was delivered and I did have proof. Who knows if Square was really working on it or not. If you are using Square, be perfect at all times because Square will leave you for dead or broke if problems do arise.
I’ve only had excellent service from Square. I process up to $5000 worth of down payments and they have always funded into my account the next day.
I did a few things early on and that was to contact them and discuss my business and processing needs. They agreed on my needs and service has been excellent.
I had a hold on a $10k charge as that was over my “limit” until I called and discussed with them. But by the following day the funds were released into my account.
I’m happy for now but always looking for better pricing and service. But yet to find any I’m more comfortable with.
I don’t know what all these people are talking about. I’ve been using Square for two years and have never had a problem.
Similar to all the messages below, we were just screwed over by Square. I wish I would have ready these reviews before setting up with these idiots. We have been using PayPal and Amazon for most of our customer payments, however, I wanted to add a mobile option, plus cheaper processing fees, so I signed up for Square after seeing their commercial on TV. The account was immediately approved, and everything was setup as promised. However, a day after I ran the first credit card charge, I received an email stating the account was under review. Not thinking anything of it, since the account was new, and noticing very little due diligence could’ve been done by Square during the initial setup, I immediately provided all the documents requested. I sent them 3 month’s bank statements, the original online customer order, our invoice with tracking and serial numbers, and the delivery receipt, showing the order had been shipped AND received already. This was a very good customer, so I did not want to hold their order, while Square was getting setup.
A couple days later, I sent an email checking status on the review and hold on our funds. After another day went by, I finally received a response indicating the account was being deactivated:
—-
“We’re sorry to inform you that we are deactivating your account. Our Account Services team reviewed your account and found a pattern of transactions associated with high-risk activity.
For further information about our policies, you can review section 42 of the Square Seller Agreement.
We regret that, starting today, you will no longer be able to process transactions using Square. Any funds currently in your account will be held for 90 days before being released to your linked bank account.”
—–
Amazing how they found “a pattern of transactions associated with high-risk activity” when we had just run our very first credit card charge, and the product had been delivered BEFORE the payment was charged.
I immediately refunded the customer’s card, and ran it through PayPal without a problem, then sent a message to Square asking for more information, and what could be done to re-evaluate the situation. I received the following CANNED reply:
—-
“Thanks for writing in. We understand that it can be frustrating to have your account deactivated. Unfortunately, our review found that we cannot support any Square accounts for you or your business.
As stated in the deactivation notice, we will hold the remaining funds in your Square account for 90 days from the date of deactivation. Since your account was disabled on June 20, these funds will be released on.
Depending on your bank’s policies, you should see these funds one to two business days after we release them to your linked bank account. We will notify you as soon as we deposit the funds.
If you don’t want to wait 90 days for your funds to be deposited, you may consider refunding the payments back to the original cards and seeking an alternate form of payment. Please note that all refunds must be issued within 60 days of the original transaction date.”
—-
As you can see, this response was a canned reply by someone who didn’t even take the time to look up the account. I had refunded the ONLY charge on the account already, and the account clearly showed a zero balance at the time of this reply.
I don’t believe Square is necessarily scamming people, however, I do believe they are trying to grow quickly, by sacrificing customer service. It is clear they auto approve just about anyone, then put the accounts “under review” after they have funds in their hands, instead of doing the proper due diligence BEFORE the new customer is approved to accept credit card payments.
At the very least this practice is unethical and damaging to prospective customers, but very well may be against Vica/MC/AMEX/Discover policies. My next contact will be with these companies, to see what can be done about Square’s deceptive practices. In the meantime, I will do everything possible to prevent as many people as possible from doing business with Square.
We decided to use Square having a CLEAN record with PayPal/Intuit and a payment gateway. I am talking about no refunds in a 3 year period. We processed $2500 dollars of invoices (from the same city) from our test clients (clients that were close so we knew if they tried anything).
Review came up. Okay, I understand. I gave Square legal papers that our company was real and an invoice from QuickBooks, and we were deactivated the next day.
Square said we are high risk? We had to refund all customers or wait 180 days for a review (doesn’t mean we would even get the money). They gave us NO details, and we didn’t break any terms.
Note: We are a service / retail shop with all A+ reviews and NO bad BBB history.
I wouldn’t even waste your time with Square, they will just let you down.
We have been using Square for the past two years at our Bed & Breakfast. Setup was straightforward, as was info about what their system does and what we should expect. I was surprised by the number of responses from those expressing unfortunate experience. For our business, it has worked superbly and without error. Our business is primarily weekends, but even with busy weekends there has never been a delay in depositing funds. And, there are no fees to pay when we shut down for the winter and go a period without processing charges. It’s a slick system, but one that needs to be carefully assessed to ensure expectations are met. Works great for us.
I had my account placed on “hold” pending verification of funds, too. Well, the credit card had already been processed and charged for the full amount while Square sits on my money. So, I issued a refund and will use another service.
I’m done with Square. And yes, I waited all afternoon to speak to anyone over there, but no such luck.
Good bye, Square!
Worst company ever.
I’m a hairstylist and it’s easier to take payments with a card in my field of business. I was able to do a few transactions and then I get a message that my funds are being held for 90 days. Also I was only able to reach someone when there’s a case number but once you answered the questions that contact gets deleted. I want to know will I ever get my money back?
We loved Square until we found the transactions report. They are not notifying us that transactions are being cancelled after the buyer’s card is approved. We have declined cards and cancelled transactions and Square is approving them all on the register. We are now evaluating a more trustworthy merchant services provider.
Glad I read the reviews before activating Square. Been on hold twice today for a total of 3 hours regarding my order! Non-existent customer service seems very likely.
Buyer Beware! I am very suspect of any business in which you cannot communicate with a human being, especially when it comes to your finances, and that the case with Square Co. Impossible to reach a human if you do not have an account. I was interested in setting up an account with them, but like any good business person, I have questions I wanted answered first. When you call they will only talk to you (and that could a maybe as I never did get through) if you have an account number. Instructions are to go on line, enter information, get account number and then, maybe, you might be able to get through. They would not issue an account number unless I linked my banking information, which automatically links your bank account to their service. If you don’t enter it, they do not issue an account number, therefore no communication via humans. In reality, they are stupid because they have just created so much mistrust in me I now know I would never use their service. Read reviews folks, it’s all in black and white. People are not having a good time with the Square. I tried to get through for almost an hour thinking eventually I would find a phone number that would connect me to a person. That did not happen. Think before you act. It sounds convenient but if you cannot even get through to their SALES department to enlist their services, what kind of help will you get if their is an issue with your bank account? NO SQUARE FOR ME OR I’m sure, ANYONE ELSE WHO IS BUSINESS SAVVY.
This is the most awful company. My husband and I have opened a plumbing company. Our first transaction was over $30000.00 they froze our account saying they had to do an account verification. This took over a week then they said I had to refund the money and now it’s been 3 weeks total and the customer still has not received his refund. We are a brand new business and this is drowning us. I would never use this company again.
I have over $25,00.00 being held by Square in “pending deposits.” After trying to get a code and emailing them every other day and getting the Attorney General’s office in my state involved, I received an email with a (NO REPLY TO) address. Square stated they will be holding my money for 180 DAYS, with the right to extend if they deem necessary!!! Square is telling me to refund the transaction?? I can’t refund all of them because $14,00.00 is over 60 days and Square’s refund policy only applies to transactions within the last 60 days. I am contemplating doing the refund on the remaining transactions because I can’t wait 180 PLUS days to get my money it has already been almost 2 months. Did your client/customer ever get their money refunded back to their credit card? I am thinking even if it takes a month for that to happen at least I can get a check from my client then. Did Square charge you the processing fees? I can’t believe a class action law suit hasn’t been waged against these criminals yet!!
This company sucks. They allow transactions at first then they cancel/suspend your account and hold your funds for 90 days. I had to send merchandise and hope they release the funds in which they did 90 DAYS later. STAY AWAY FROM SQUARE!!! You’ve been warned.
It’s been over 90 days & I haven’t gotten back anything. I feel helpless as they do not respond to my emails and there is no way to contact them by phone. You stated that they did release your funds back to you after 90 days? I have $2,500 in Square prison with no possibility for parole it seems. I hate this boiler room of a company.
I received an email receipt of FRAUDULENT charges on my credit card by one of their businesses, that does not exist. No customer service? This company needs to be shutdown!!! They are taking alot of money from merchants and customers!!!! Why is this company allowed to continue???? I’m appalled.
My advice? Run as far as you can as fast as you can from Square. After being a user for a good period of time Square decides to cancel my account due to the fact that I accept too many pre-paid gift cards. This was the primary reason for opening the account.
The advised me via a canned email form letter and when I attempted to discuss it with them I was met with similar canned responses. Their final canned reply after requesting help from a live human being was:
________________________________
Hello,
As indicated in our prior email to you, the decision to deactivate your Square account is final and we will no longer assist you in that matter.
For more information on how to refund a payment, please vist this article: https://squareup.com/help/article/5060-processing-refunds
For more information about the deactivation of your account, please visit the Square User Agreement: https://squareup.com/legal/merchant-ua
If you have have any additional questions, you may visit our Support Center: https://squareup.com/help
Thank you.
Square Compliance Team
__________________________________
What I did find is the Amazon Register (https://localregister.amazon.com) has live bodies who you can not only talk to, but will call you back to discuss your account. And being Amazon, they have customer support 24/7! Their rates are lower and their deposit times are faster. And what’s best, they don’t have any stupid rules about what type of card they take. As long as it’s a card with a Visa, Mastercard, Discover or AMX logo on it, they are happy!
After signing up with them and taking my first payment I was sent a Verification by Square. I have a LLC registered with the Secretary of State for 13 years and have been in business for 13 years. I have filed all my taxes federal and state. I have been very profitable for 13 years too. My company has never gone bankrupt or been sued. My company doesn’t owe a penny to anybody and has over $500k in assets. I was just informed by Square that they we deactivating my account due to a pattern of transactions associated with high-risk activity. This decision is FINAL. I now have $500 taken from my customer 4 days ago sitting in Squares bank account and I cannot get it for 90 days. THIS COMPANY SUCKS AND IS NOT TRUSTWORTHY!! Use Intuit or Amazon, they are both great.
I didn’t think customer service could be worse than the cable company but that’s exactly what Square has managed to do. We are a new, small, online business that is about to begin taking our product to shows.
We have been trying to get the Square account up for a week. After two phone calls which we waited on hold forever, and numerous e-mails they have terminated our account and are holding our first transaction for 90 days because they believe we are fraudulent. We don’t advertise yet and because we can’t provide them with an advertisement they believe we are not legitimate. We have a website and gave that to them but it’s not good enough.
Luckily for us our first transaction on Square was with someone who buys our product wholesale and sells is at large tradeshows.
We can refund her transaction and rerun it on the one we set up through the bank that holds our business account. Glad to know now before we racked up a bunch of sales this weekend and not see the money for three months.
I just had the most unpleasant experience with Square. I charged $3100 to a customer for sale of equipment on 11/11/2015. They started by asking me to fill out a verification form and provide them with an invoice, my ID and 3 bank statements which I did immediately. I get an email back asking me to provide more information about my relationship with the customer, which I found pretty strange, but yet, I provided them with that. Today 11/16 and after 6 days of holding my funds, they decided to reject my transactions and asked me to refund the money to the customer. The reason they say is that I am violating the terms of service agreement. here is the email I received “Under our Terms of Service, you cannot process prepaid cards, gift cards, or your own credit card using your Square account. The Square Terms of Service also prohibit using Square as a money transfer system. You must provide a legitimate good or service in exchange for every payment processed with Square.” So I read the terms of service agreement section by section and did not find that my transactions violate any of the sections in the agreement. My sale was for equipment and an invoice was provided. I did not charge a gift card, prepaid card, nor it was my own credit card and definitely that was not a money transfer!!! Asked to speak to a manager, they refused!!
I process over $40,000 a year of transactions using merchant services. I thought switching to Square would save me some money. But it looks like the money I would save will be spent on medications for headache caused by Square’s complications. I think I will stay with Bank of America merchant services. Business owners beware.
I’m sorry to hear of your frustrations with Square. Have you signed up to get quotes through processors in CardFellow? It’s free and only takes a few minutes. You may be able to save more money than you would working with Square or Bank of America.
I went to their website and there is not even a phone number to call. I just want to find why should i switch to Square from my merchant account with Intuit. Square will go down the drain like ETSY or other ‘nothing special to offer’ companies. Square will not succeed as a company.
Look at their website. A look at their website reveals how immature the team behind square. Credit card processing is not fun it is a serious business. A business relies on credit card processing company to make a living.
Showing some pretty girls and wimpy guys on your website implies this Square service can be useful for garage sales but not for real business.
Reminds me of the days when Ebay when they started competing with Amazon. EBay wanted to make selling fun but Amazon wanted to makes online sales a serious business for customers. See where ebay is compared to Amazon today. Selling online or offline is not fun but it is hard work. So take the fun out of credit card processing and see it as a serious business.
It can be difficult to contact customer service with Square. People regularly complain about their lack of phone number. As for why you should switch from Intuit, it’s possible that you’d be able to save money. Have you read our post about Intuit’s processing costs?
If you’re interested in seeing what possible savings are available, I invite you to create a free account at CardFellow. Signup only takes a few minutes, we keep your contact information private, and you’ll receive fully-disclosed quotes instantly. All of the certified quotes placed by processors in our marketplace are bound by a legal agreement with CardFellow and require interchange plus true pass-through pricing, prohibit cancellation fees, and require a lifetime rate lock. If you choose a certified quote through a CardFellow marketplace processor, we also monitor your processing statements to make sure you’re only paying what you were quoted. We help make sure you’re paying as little as possible for processing and we watch it for you so that you can focus on your business and your customers.
Square labeled me a fraud with NO way to defend myself, and is holding $900 of my money hostage. Don’t use them if you are smart. I had $900 in sales, half in person swipe, the other half as emailed invoice, all within a week. They flagged me, called me a fraud, kicked me off the system and said they are holding my money for 90 days because security. The rep when he called me before this all happened (I had no idea he was probing me) asked me to describe my business and when I did he said “oh, I don’t think we can service that type of business” and BOOM, I was cut off from any communication, phone, email, or otherwise. Contacting them via Twitter got me a “too bad, so sad” message and that’s it.
Interesting to read these comments. I’m an independent contractor and have processed about 23k a year through Square for the last 3 years. I’ve never had a single issue with them. I have been very happy with Square.
Are you sure you are not a Square employee or being paid to post your comment?
Square…Warranty? Customer service? Nothing! I had the most awful experience of customer service with Square. They sent me an email at the beginning of 2016 saying that one of my clients had a dispute about a fraud charge with my Square. They never sent me any information about it. I replied with another email asking for more information to know where to start to solve my problem. They didn’t give me any comments. I sent them several emails asking for more information and gave them my phone number because I wanted to talk with a representative via phone, but nothing, called them but the voicemail asked me for a code to access, dialed the code several times and won’t work, then I sent them another email telling them that I wanted to talk with somebody personally and NOTHING! So through email they told me that the charge was 4 mos. ago, so I wrote them telling them that I want more information but that was the last time I heard from them. They finally withdraw $800 from my checking account and now I’m dealing with this stupid company that had nothing to help customers or clients other than give them hard times. Be very careful.
DO NOT RECOMMEND! We read the reviews a lot before purchasing and unfortunately we still did it. I regret it!
We have been back and forth with customer service and the dispute team and it has not be helpful. Our company is suffering because of the Square’s lack of communication and actions. It took about 4 days to be contacted by the Square after seeing a withdraw of $5,745.66 on our account from the Square. You cannot get a hold of customer service without a code and I could not find my code anywhere. I called several times a day and emailed at least 5 times and was still not contacted by anyone.
We are a small family owned business who had a stubborn customer who made a dispute, but it did not take long for them to realize they were wrong and cancel the dispute. They made our account negative a few times and tried multiple times to take out the money. The dispute was canceled by our customer and the Square still took out the $5,745.66 from our account. The Square should have canceled the debit immediately but instead debited our account 3 days after the dispute was canceled.
This has taken up a lot of our time and we cannot conduct business without that money. We are a small business and something like this puts us in a bind. We have vendors to pay and projects to start and we can’t run smoothly because of the Square.
I am very disappointed and will be looking for a replacement for the Square. I will not be recommending the Square to anyone and I will be reviewing on every page I can find to stop people from getting the Square. We just started our business and the Square has made this nothing but difficult.
SQUARE INC. COMMITS BANKING REGULATION FRAUD and they will continue to get away with it by using the loopholes in the consumer credit industry.
I have been using Square to accept credit cards for over three years. My type of business is exactly the model that Square Inc. is targeted for.
Square Inc. withdrew funds from my account for a legitimate, authorized purchase that a customer made at an Art Fair in Texas. They provided my with only the last 4 digits of the AE card, the date of the purchase, and an image of the key pad signature. Were it not for the fact that I delivered the item to my customer, I would not even known who, what, or why the monies were withdrawn. I have accepted countless credit cards from customers that I would have no idea how to contact in a situation such as this.
Upon contacting my customer, I discovered that the husband did not recognize the name of my company (his wife made the purchase), and simply contacted the bank that issued his AE to see if he could get a copy of the receipt. He never disputed the charge! He later figured it out, called his bank back TWICE to assure them that the charge was legitimate, and paid his American Express bill IN FULL, INCLUDING THE CHARGE FROM MY COMPANY. But neither American Express or Square Inc. have refunded my money. To the contrary, they are claiming that the charge is still under dispute, WHICH IT NEVER WAS, and are continuing to hold my money.
Again, I would have absolutely no recourse under normal conditions to even know where to begin to fight this, were it not for the fact that I had my customers’ name, address, and phone number, which I do not have for the 200+ charges that have been made through my Square account.
My customer is happy with her sculpture that she “bought” from me. American Express has their money for this purchase. Square Inc. has received its fees for the transaction. But not only do have a loss of $545, my car payment automatically deducted following the withdrawal of the funds by Square, resulting in my bank charging me a $36 overdraft fee!
DO NOT USE SQUARE! DO NOT ACCEPT AMERICAN EXPRESS CARDS no matter who you process your credit cards through.
Ok Square should be avoided, this is what happened when we tried to join Square alongside our current payment provider PayPal:
1. No response to emails or phone calls.
2. Their phone numbers are all bots who ask for code numbers which can’t be found.
3. They spam you with emails , we’ve received hundreds at a time.
4. They deposit a few cents into your account and then say your account is “unverified”.
5. Absolute Joke – Avoid Square, use PayPal.
I have always gotten responses back. Hell, one time I left a client’s keys in another client’s car and they emailed that client for me asking them to return to the store!
I’ve never gotten a bot, and in fact they call about every quarter to see if we have any questions or concerns.
Only e-mails I get are when we take a payment, and when they are offering their Square capital loan or a new product.
This article is old. We have our Square at 2.35% and 2.95% + $.15 as of now. We can set the cut off deposit time so we almost always get our funds next day (Saturday shows up on Monday). I love not having to worry about one more bill every month, so the auto removal of fees is great. We average about $150,000 a year thru square, and have had absolutely ZERO issues.
Hi TC,
The article is up to date. Square does sometimes set pricing for individual businesses differently; this is most common if you request a quote through Square or otherwise use “assistance” in getting set up. It sounds like you’re on special pricing with Square, which may not be available to most businesses using it. (In general, Square’s services are too expensive for businesses processing more than ~$3k/month or with average transactions higher than $10.)
Square has horrible customer service. I entered my information wrong one too many times, when I tried to go back and fix it the website would not let me. I emailed them for help and this is the response i got.
‘Hi,
I apologize for the delayed response — thanks for your patience.
Unfortunately we can’t approve your application to accept credit cards with Square. We wish we could provide you with another chance to apply, but we’re unable to do so since Square can only provide a set number of application attempts.
While we’d love for you to process payments with Square, this isn’t possible.
We wish you the best of luck with your business.”
So the last comment that I could see was written over a year ago. Maybe Square has improved the customer service enough to eliminate more recent complaints. I own & operate a “blueprint shop” and have been an extremely satisfied user of Square for credit card processing AND invoicing. The bottom-line rate from Square is the best I’ve found, and yes I did shop … not to mention entertain several cold-calling salesperson’s proposals. I’ve never had a problem with customer service, mainly because I’ve never had a problem; and when I have called whatever issue I called about was resolved quickly and courteously by a pleasant, knowledgeable Square representative. I HIGHLY recommend Square.
I think you need to take another look at Square’s Processing Fees page (https://squareup.com/us/en/pricing?solution=pricing-in-person-payments). There is no longer a “basic” option….what used to be 2.75% is now 2.6% + 10¢ for new customers. The rate changes for existing customers in November.
You’re absolutely correct, we’ve updated the info. Thanks for the comment!
– Ellen from CardFellow