[stouset]

“Setting things right” would, in this case, potentially set Square afoul of federal law. Worse, not doing so may violate Canadian law.

International law is wildly complicated and full of landmines. I suspect Square would strongly prefer to just disburse $14,000 and set things right. Unfortunately the cost of doing so potentially involves prison time for anyone who made that happen.

Even something as innocuous-sounding as explaining to the merchant why they can’t release their funds is potentially grounds for an arrest. Whenever you see an article or blog post about Square, Stripe, Venmo, PayPal, or any other financial company having a pissed-off customer who’s owed money and can’t even get a support person to explain what’s wrong, the answer is virtually inevitably OFAC, and there is often literally no legal path forward to make the affected party whole at that point.

[sova]

Wow. Thanks for mentioning so, I had no idea is was such a widespread problem. All due to cutting corners on implementation while still wanting it to look legit.