In addition to making the small bucks as a science fiction writer, I have a day job. I run a game store which hosts events and serves the local community here in Brooklyn, but also sells games and collectibles online and at shows/conventions.

When Square came out with their portable credit card reader, I was very excited to adopt this technology. In exchange for a little under 3% of each transaction, they provided a way to turn my cell phone and my iPad into credit card machines. Portable, convenient, reliable. What’s not to like?

I loved the product. I carried the Square reader with me any time I traveled to events, and used it to complete hundreds of transactions. I told everyone who would listen how it was the best thing since sliced bread. When the regular credit card terminal at my store broke down, I used Square while waiting for a replacement terminal to arrive.

“Wouldn’t it be great,” I mused, “if Square added a way to accept credit cards online, so I could use them for e-commerce, too.” And, sure enough, they did. It was easy to use, and I eagerly set up their service as the way to process all orders on my store’s web site. This was in July of 2013, and for a few months everything was good. Then the trouble began.

In November 2013, someone used stolen credit card numbers to place several large orders on my site. Before I or anyone else caught on, my staff ended up shipping approximately $1800 worth of trading cards to different addresses provided by these thieves. The addresses weren’t even in the same state, and the transactions weren’t so out of line with other orders placed through the site for us to become suspicious.

The first time I knew there was a problem was in mid-November, when I received two chargeback notices from Square, totaling nearly $1200. Here’s what a chargeback means: A consumer finds fraudulent transactions on their credit card and notifies the credit card company. They then contact the processor (in this case, Square), and Square holds the money in escrow while they investigate the incident.

Unfortunately, credit card fraud is a relatively common problem. I deal with occasional chargebacks in-store, and through PayPal for our eBay transactions. In all PayPal cases, I have been able to get my money back once I provided proof that we shipped the item where we were supposed to, with tracking and delivery confirmation. Resolving such a case typically takes from a few days to a few weeks.

Square has a slightly different procedure. For each chargeback, they provided a link asking me to fill out a survey and provide supporting data such as invoices, receipts, and communications with the buyer. None of which I had, since the entire transaction was handled online, directly through Square. That’s OK though — their FAQ suggests that even without additional documentation, they will represent the seller and try to resolve the dispute on their end — just like PayPal would.

Unlike PayPal however, it seemed that they just withdrew the disputed funds from my store’s bank account, without any additional follow-up.

I wanted to call and speak to their fraud prevention department in order to figure out how we can best comply with their policies to avoid future problems. That’s when I discovered that Square didn’t really want to talk to me. At least not on the phone.

They don’t have a phone number listed on their web site. A Google search unearthed a number, but it was literally nothing but a recording, directing the listener to go to their web site. So to the website I went, sending them the following message through their web form:

Hello, We use Square to process all orders on our web site, and in the last 2 weeks or so we had two large chargebacks (over $1000 total!). I was hoping to speak to someone to find out about the status of the dispute on these, as well as figure out if there’s a way to better protect ourselves from future chargebacks. The orders are taken via web so we do not interact with the customer directly or have copies of the credit card or much additional info — like with any online transaction. I wanted to make certain that it’s safe for us to continue accepting large orders via Square. Thanks very much in advance! Sincerely, Alex Shvartsman

It took almost a week for them to respond. On December 2, I received the following reply (emphasis mine):

Thanks for writing in. At this time, we do not provide live phone support. Our Support team operates over email in order to serve you most effectively. We also need to keep all communication with our merchants documented in writing. Thanks for providing the requested information and documentation. We will respond to your customer’s billing disputes on your behalf and hope to receive a resolution soon. We will notify you once we’ve received a decision from your customer’s bank. Please note that it may take up to 90 business days to resolve these disputes, but we will provide updates throughout this process. Please visit our Help Center if you would like further information around the dispute process: https://squareup.com/help/en-us/article/3882-understanding-chargebacks If you have further questions, feel free to reply to this email. We would be glad to help.

At this point there was already a third chargeback, for a grand total of nearly $1800. We caught and canceled a couple more orders that looked suspicious, avoiding some further pain.

$1800 is a lot of money to me. What’s worse, these items are sold on incredibly low margins. After the wholesale cost, shipping, and processing fees, I make approximately $5 in net profit for each $90 box of trading cards sold. (And that’s not counting fixed costs!) So an $1800 loss wipes out profits from literally tens of thousands of dollars in sales.

Much of this is my fault. As the online sales portion of my store kept growing, I should have set up a more reliable e-commerce solution by now. But I liked Square. They were a scrappy young company providing a cool service, and I wanted to be along for the ride. They were the good guys. They said they’d take care of this (or at least do their best). And so I continued to use Square to process all orders on my web site (with no further problems, I might add), and I waited.

Late last week, I received another chargeback. It wasn’t for a recent transaction, but for another order that took place back in November and was, no doubt, part of the same problem as the three others. When I came into work on Monday, one of the first things I did was to fill out their chargeback response form again. Less than two hours later, I received the following e-mail:

Hello Alex, 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 Square account. From the date of this letter forward, you will not be able to process credit card transactions using Square. To learn more about Square’s Seller Agreement and terminations, please visit: Seller Agreement. Any funds currently in your account will be deposited to your linked bank account within 1 – 2 business days. Typically funds will be shown in your account the following business day after they have been deposited, but keep in mind that each bank’s policies are different so it may take a little longer. You’ll receive an email as soon these funds have been sent to your bank. For security reasons, we cannot divulge the reason for your account termination. We apologize for the inconvenience, but our decision is final. Thank you for understanding. Sincerely, Square Account Services

So not only has Square done nothing so far to help me resolve these chargebacks, not only did they withdraw 100% of the funds in question from my bank account, but they also punished me for being a victim of fraud by shutting down my account without advance notice, even though I have processed hundreds of legitimate transactions with them before and since this incident.

I’m out over $2300 to date, but this will end up costing me even more money in lost business. This Monday alone, my employees and I packed and shipped out approximately 250 orders we received through eBay and other seller portals over the weekend. Each of those shipped orders included a flyer inviting our customers to visit our Square-supported site. Those of them who might, will find that they can no longer place orders with us there, and we’ll most likely lose their repeat business. We’re now scrambling to get a PayPal shopping cart installed on the site, but that will take some time.

Meanwhile, it has been nearly 90 days since the initial chargeback was initiated through Square. I received none of the “updates throughout the process” that they promised. There is no way to view any sort of info regarding disputed transactions on the Square web site.

At this point, I’m far from optimistic about any sort of positive resolution. I’m posting this as a cautionary tale for anyone who might consider using Square for any larger-scale transactions, such as e-commerce. They created a cool, innovative product, but it seems that, as they rapidly grew as a company, they failed to build a robust customer service department or even a reliable way to communicate well with their own merchants.

As to the ability to swipe credit cards on the go, there are now many other companies providing that service. I’ll just have to move on, poorer for the experience.

#SFWAPro

Read the sequels to this post and the Square saga:

Fair and Square

Moving Forward

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