[bmj1]

I have to disagree (perhaps unfashionably) with the author's sentiment and the comment below "I really like Square, but I always have this feeling that this company is going to be oe (sic) more paypal and with this story it´s confirmed."

- The customer service was pretty responsive and reasonably polite for a very fast growing company.

- The author notes he has paid Square hundreds of dollars in transactions fees so we can guestimate he's done $13k+ of revenue through Square (based on $400 fees & 3% average fee), $180 was hardly a critical amount for him

- What's the next best alternative, has anybody here experienced PayPal's customer service?

[ajross]

The problem is that people (mostly people here, based on their status as "one of us" I guess) were led to believe that Square wasn't going to be like PayPal at all. Yet here they are with a story that could have come straight out of paypalsucks.com.

In context, having unclear policies and unresponsive customer service at the "still-somewhat-better-than-paypal" level isn't matching the expectations set by Square's marketing.

It's a billing goof. It's going to happen, and all parties are always going to hedge in their own favor to the extent practical. Pretending that Square (like Paypal) won't go after your bank account to cover a pending chargeback is just fantasy.

[inuhj]

'PayPal' and 'customer service' should never be in the same sentence together.

[dkrich]

Heh, I called up once for help with the sandbox and the CSR told me that I was mistaken- there is no sandbox or any way to test transactions on the site. They must have a very rigorous training program there.

[Jacob4u2]

I don't believe the customer service was polite. They shouldn't scold the person right up front about multiple emails; maybe it's just me, but the customer pays you, they can send as many emails as they want. Also, it's confusing that he is told to respond to the first email (and that it's time sensitive) and yet they do not respond to his prompt reply.

[webwright]

" maybe it's just me, but the customer pays you, they can send as many emails as they want"

It's just you. Emails for a company at this scale enter a ticket queue, not somebody's inbox. Adding more tickets for the same issue impedes the company's ability to help other customers and doesn't get you help any faster.

They didn't scold him. They told him facts-- that it didn't help anything and that the system (i.e. the software) might flag him as a spam if he hammered on it too hard.

Regarding the core issue-- they have a stated policy on chargebacks. It isn't "guilty until proven innocent", it's "Square gets to hold the money in question until it's sorted out-- and when you set up your account, you connect an account and authorize us to debit $ to cover a negative balance".

This is just how chargebacks work. It's somewhat dictated by the credit card companies-- I'm not sure Square has much flexibility to have a different policy even if it made sense to do so (IMO, their policy is perfectly reasonable).

[smackfu]

A smart queue would bunch together tickets from the same email address, or at least classify them together. Treating each email as a completely separate contact is dumb.

[jspiral]

I'm interested to hear whether people have found a good way to do this.

I've had a couple of jobs where support reported to me. In those cases, our end client had a help desk of some form that was escalating to us, so it wasn't unusual to get small laundry lists of whatever their admins couldn't deal with.

I greatly prefer to have those lists split out into individual tickets.

Granted, our systems provided the ability to pull up a view of all tickets associated with a specific POC or client, maybe that's all you are asking for. I just wanted to point out that i haven't seen any shops where it was obvious that what you're asking for was easy or correct.

If you have an example i'd love to hear about it!

[ragmondo]

Here's something ironic... I am just re-opening my paypal account after it was closed approx 8 years ago (oct 2004). There is a small sum outstanding on it due to an ebay sale that the buyer said "never got goods" and I said "but I sent them". As it was for a small sum, I didn't bother registered mail. I didn't bother trying to dispute the dispute but as my acct had zero in it, they "froze" it. Fast fwd to today, 2012. To re-open my account, I HAVE to send them in a cheque. No other form of payment is accepted. Can anybody tell me why this is ?? It seems crazy that paypal, of all people, insist on me posting a cheque ?!?!

[adgar]

You seem to be giving Square far, far more credit than any business deserves. I suspect it is because Square is an HN darling, but hey, to each his own.

I take serious issue with your characterization that those Square responses were "pretty responsive" and "reasonably polite."

* They took several days to respond to a time-sensitive billing issue

* They claimed to provide support they could not and did not provide

* They refused to even acknowledge that this was frustrating for the customer

* They refused to acknowledge that their automated systems may not be doing the best thing for the customer

* Instead of owning any responsibility, they blamed the customer, several times

* __They still haven't given him his money__

All over a measly 180 dollars. Seriously - Square jerked this guy around for weeks over less than two hundred bucks.

How on Earth do you characterize those actions as responsive or polite? They weren't "responsive" to the customer's support interactions or his time-sensitive needs. They barely even "responded" at all, considering the e-mails they sent were clearly stock PR crap with some blanks filled in.

[PeterisP]

* Chargeback's can't be resolved faster; * They can't (and shouldn't) give him this money - as it's quite likely that this money will never be paid, the dispute rules favor the cardholder quite much.

[adgar]

So the best response is to not respond to him for a few days at a time, and when you do, assume the customer is acting in bad faith while you fill in some form letters?

[jguimont]

They clearly stated that "no further actions are required" from his part.

[adgar]

That's usually the case when one summarily dismisses the customer.

[eridius]

> * They took several days to respond to a time-sensitive billing issue

I just responded to someone else making the same claim up above (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3956896), but no they didn't. They always responded the next day.

> * They claimed to provide support they could not and did not provide

What do you mean?

> * Instead of owning any responsibility, they blamed the customer, several times

They did? I must have missed that. All I see are statements of facts from Square. Maybe you're misinterpreting that given that Jason did in fact screw up.