Some Square merchants & customers demand refund due to failed transactions amid recent outage

Following a recent service disruption, several merchants and customers are reaching out to Square seeking a refund for transactions that failed during the outage.

Merchants claim that the disruption resulted in significant financial losses as customers were unable to process payments during the downtime.

It should also be noted that a serious outage has recently impacted major financial services in the US.

According to reports (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10), the situation was doubly problematic for Square customers. They claim to have repeatedly attempted to make the payments after their transactions were declined.

Notably, a few even ended up paying in cash for their purchase. However, once the services were restored, users discovered that their initial transactions had indeed been completed.

Consequently, money got transferred from their accounts, and they ended up paying double the amount for a single purchase.

A merchant says that their customer’s transaction appeared to have failed amid the outage. So, the buyer made a cash withdrawal from a nearby ATM to complete the purchase.

However, after some time they got to know that the transaction had completed and asked for a refund for the excess payment.

Unfortunately, the money has not been credited to the merchant until now, due to which they can’t initiate the refund.

My customer’s transaction showed “failed” so she went to the ATM & brought me cash, then about an hour ago, she texted to tell me that the payment did process. I need to refund her money but of course the system is still down & I don’t see it on my end
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Another person claims that their credit card transactions were initially uncredited, only to be processed two days later. Due to this, they had to go through a cumbersome refund process.

And to make matters worse, the company denied giving back the fee charged for transactions.

Amid the outage, I made two $260 credit card swaps, initially uncredited. Two days later, they went through, but I had to refund them, and I still got charged the fees. Surprisingly, Square won’t refund fees for app glitches, as per customer service. 😔 #Square #CustomerService
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Some Square users couldn’t process the payments in offline mode as well. They contend that the platform was completely down, resulting in a significant downturn for their business.

Those affected are now requesting the company to provide a full refund for the amount that has been debited. Merchants claim that they will incur extra expenses for processing refunds.

Also, they will have to shell out additional money to generate invoices for services already provided.

@Square I would like my refund for my fee this month and to be reimbursed for fees on cards I will have to run manually bc of the outage. This is just unacceptable. You’ve hurt so many small businesses.
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You need to refund all of us who pay for subscriptions! I can’t even access my appointment book. Disgusting how poorly you handle this situation.
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Having said that, we will keep an eye on this issue and notify you as and when we come across anything noteworthy.

Featured Image: Square.

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