Comment by RandallBrown | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RandallBrown | Hacker News Reader

Here's what should have happened.

Square: There's a chargeback for 180 dollars. You can dispute it.

OP: I want to dispute it. Here's the information you need.

(no more than one day later) Square: Instead of just linking to our legal agreement we'll explain why we're taking money from your account. We have to withdraw the chargeback amount from your account because of regulations and stuff. There is more information at this legal link.

OP: I keep that account empty to prevent fraud. The transaction will fail or I'll end up being charged. Can I pay it from another account or can you wait?

(no more than one day later) Square: (if possible) Yes you can pay here (link to payment site). We will automatically try your account in a few days. You will here from us when we've decided on your dispute.

OP: Ok, here is my payment (or) funds will be in my bank account shortly.

(later on, after dispute is decided) Square:We ruled in your favor, the money is being debited back to your account. It will be available for withdrawal in a few business days.

No. This screams of willing ignorance. You are dealing with money. Your customers money. You should have just a bit of respect to understand the agreements you are signing when dealing with your customers money.

Damn right you should understand the T&C BEFORE using the service like this. Doing otherwise is damn right irresponsible and shoddy. The people running into these problems have no idea what they are doing, they haven't dealt with real processing, and are blaming everything everyone but themselves.

Hell, even your comment is ignorant of the system that the customer agreed to use.

Guess what? Credit card users have certain rights, and if you want to accept credit cards, you have to play within those rules. This means chargebacks happen. This means you don't get paid. There are ways to reduce it, but you are still on the hook for it. Hell, even if the chargeback gets reversed, it's still held against you.

A shining example of this ignorant is right here:

> Square:We ruled in your favor,

That's not how chargebacks work. Square doesn't rule in any capacity. It's the banks. It's the client bank. Not Square. Not the merchant.

Every time a story like this pops up, we get a whole bunch of fools complaining and making reference to PayPal, and not a one of them has any clue as to the realities and reasons why.

And yes, I've done this. I've read the documents, and handled this. And it's always the same story. People whining about the company they deal with, when the reality is, the policy is in place to protect their customer.

"It is our pleasure to inform you that this inquiry has been preliminarily closed in your favor"

Sorry I used the word "rule" instead. I was just quickly summarizing.

Yes you should understand the legal stuff BEFORE, but there's no reason that square couldn't explain it when they were doing something too.

This guy was happily following all the rules. Square was breaking promises (getting back to him in less than 24 hours).

Verification of a new account would take up to 5 business days, so it would be no faster than sending an ACH for the money.

What are you referring to?

When you link your bank account with Square, they have to send test deposits first to verify that it is indeed yours. These take up to 5 days, plus the time after that to actually transfer the overdrawn money.

Asking Square to take the money from another account would be no faster than moving it yourself to your primary one, because of this verification stage. Even if you had the foresight to link it ahead of time, Square only supports being associated with one account at a time.

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