Why is Square double and phantom charging my client's bank account ?

[aariestyles]

There has been a couple incidents where my clients will be double charged through their banking account and a random charge for a completely different amount charged from square.

For instance, my client who just left had to cancel the first payment $109.44 because she wanted to leave a tip and her hand hit the wrong button. So we hit cancel payment then re-swiped so we can redo the payment $109.44 plus $21.89 dollar tip. Then she looked on her banking account and it said that my business charged not only the $109.44 and the $131.33 but it charged a random charge of $29. Not even a number that I put through the square register. So I looked on my activity section of my square register on IPAD and it only shows the charge of the $131.33 and nothing else.

The other time this happened with a client it got charged twice the same amount, it took a couple of days to drop the extra payment. What is going on??? I can potentially loose new clients if this keeps happening. People thinking that I am ripping them off! Tell me what to do to fix this.

[Chad]

@aariestyles Welcome to the Seller Community! 🎉 I'm glad you came here to ask this, I can provide some clarification. 

If you ever cancel or void a transaction, there will be a pending hold on your customers account. This hold will reflect the amount charged. The pending hold will be released by your customers bank after a few business days. 

If a card is declined or a transaction is voided it will show up on the Transaction Status report on your Square Dashboard. These incomplete transactions will not show up in your activity. 

The third charge for $29 dollars is odd. There is a possibility they made a purchase from a different Square seller. If so there will be "SQ" before the business name on your customers bank statement. 

If you have any additional questions I would be more than happy to answer them! 😀

[statennis]

How do you explain if there was no void, no cancel (at time of transaction)?  A customer came in (10/19/17, Jane P.) and "paid" for a $15 service item, but called an hour later stating she had 3 transactions on her card, one for $0 and two for $15.  I read the statement about there being 2 transaction notes on an account, though only 1 is the true pending transaction, but that was related to a tip...are there 2 listings for non-tip transactions as well? Can we only assume the reader was interrupted, but did enough to "progress to signature".  But when I looked it up on the dashboard, it says status was cancelled. Would there be a way for her to see if one/two of those is "false"?

[Helen]

Hi @statennis. If your customer is seeing two pending charges on her statement for $15 I do recommend that you check the Transaction Status report from your Dashboard. If the reader was interrupted, or if the payment was accidentally canceled so that a tip could be added, you'll see this payment listed in that report.

When a payment is interrupted and canceled/voided your customer may see a second pending charge on their statement. Pending charges will automatically drop off a bank statement in a few business days. If it's been more than 2-3 business days please ask your customer to contact her bank directly. Each bank has different policies around what they will display on bank statements and I'd also be interested to hear why her bank also included a charge for $0 on her statement! 

I hope this helps but if you have any more questions please let me know! 

[statennis]

Hi Helen,

Thanks for your reply.

I check with the customer awhile ago and she said that only one charge is present now.

Our stand has been a little off lately, a few times it was not recognizing the drawer or reader, but it's been okay last several days.

Anyway, hope the weird phantom charges don't pop up too much.

Again, thanks

[Helen]

Great, thanks for checking back in with your customer! 

We are aware of connection issues with the Stand and iOS 11 — specifically connection issues with hardware peripherals like receipt printers and contactless and chip card reader for example. We're recommending that sellers do not upgrade to iOS 11 at this time.

If your Stand is acting up, these Stand troubleshooting steps should help. Just skip the step about making sure your Apple iOS is up to date for now. 

[thecorner]

I am having these same issues, thank goodness I happened to be looking at transactions and noticed and brought it to her attention, so she didn’t think I was trying to pull a fast one, however she had noticed. This has happened a few times but the other two are unknown. This is a HUGE issue especially for a small business!!! It could cost me customers!!! In my situation it is double charging the customer, WHY? The ? just keeps getting passed over with no real response!

thank you

[Helen]

Hi @thecorner, I'm sorry to hear that your customer's are seeing extra charges on their statement.

Were any of the payments voided so that a tip could be added? The Transaction Status report on your Square Dashboard will show anytime this happens.

The other reason a customer might see an extra charge on the statement is if the transaction was declined by their card-issuing bank on the first attempt to charge the card, and then completed on the second attempt. A declined may look like a charge at first, but the funds will not ultimately be deducted from your customer's account and the pending charge will automatically disappear.

If you have any questions about your customer's recent payments, or payments showing in the Transaction Status report please call our Support team so we can take a closer look!  

[Chazawa]

Hello Square Community,

We use Square's Checkout API embedded into our website.

Recently, a customer who paid via this API contacted us with a copy of her credit card statement to say she had been charged twice.

Indeed, when I looked at our transactions statement for our account, it did show two payments. Both payments were for the same amount, card number and the same date and time but with different receipt numbers.

For future reference, what would cause this to happen?

Thanks

chazawa

[nika]

Hi @Chazawa! @Helen shares some insight above on why your customer might have been charged twice. If that doesn't solve the issue, please give our support team a call!

[Twistedscissor]

Square caused me to loose two clients due to them charging my clients way more then I did. Had one transaction for 100.00 and square charged them 180.00 I refunded my client the 100 yet the 80.00 square kept. My other client total was 300.00 and again square charged 360.00 again refunded 300.00 yet square kept the 60.00. Thought the business was responsible for any fees not the consumer. Honestly the way square is taking money from people is pure fraud. Sad that a small business is paying the price for corporate greed 

[Joe]

Hi @Twistedscissor - thanks for reaching out.

In my tenure at Square, I have only ever seen funds pulled from a Sellers balance if money is owed to us from a separate account from the same Seller. It's important to note that the customer of the business is never the one to incur this charge.

Based on your description of your situation, it sounds like there may be a larger issue with your account. We would recommend flagging this over to our Support Team directly when you get a chance.