thread Re: client given SMS notification of payment but to random company in Payments Troubleshooting

client given SMS notification of payment but to random company

RussB — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 13:08:58 GMT

Hi Guys

had a perplexing moment this evening when a client on paying for their Fish and chips received a notification to say they had paid to (A N other Company...a coffee shop in London) and not mine

the Bank notifying the customer was Starling.

I am beginning to worry I hadn't been made aware of this before and that others may have slipped thru

Any other similar experiences

Thanks

Russ

Re: client given SMS notification of payment but to random company

Sam_400º — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 19:18:22 GMT

I’ve got a starling account & this is quite frequent.

A local coffee fan comes up as some place 100 miles away.

I think it’s their ‘smart’ systems trying to group payments over the entire network together. I’ve not seen the issue with my regular current account & the coffee place uses sumup - so a different platform too.

Re: client given SMS notification of payment but to random company

RussB — Sun, 12 Sep 2021 08:33:46 GMT

Hey, thanks for replying .

So it looks like a Starling issue? something that Starling might be addressing? Have you had anything back from Square on this particular issue. Do you think they are aware of it?

apologies for the 50 questions (LOL)

Re: client given SMS notification of payment but to random company

tranguyen — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 10:39:34 GMT

Hey @RussB, I just want to step in for Sam here!

When a customer makes a purchase from you, we send SQ* YOUR BUSINESS NAME to the bank. You can change your business name anytime from under Account & Settings on your Dashboard.

However, banks can decide what information will be displayed on record. When processing a payment, different banks will request different information like location, business names, etc. and they can choose what they display. Some banks and card-issuers will also add supplemental information based on the location of the transaction that maybe inaccurate.

I've seen this previously and unfortunately, we're limited in what we can do from Square to ensure that the bank will display the information we've sent.

Apology for the inconvenience caused by this!

Re: client given SMS notification of payment but to random company

Sam_400º — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 18:06:56 GMT

It’s not something I raised with Sq as it was something that happened with a vendor using sumup - so it seems that this is Starling issue.