No Show/Cancellation Fee never works

[timothytrimothy]

Almost everytime I need to charge a no show/cancellation fee I receive an error saying “There is an error updating this appointment.” I’ve called support and they’ve told me the customer’s bank is declining the charge. This happens almost every time but does not happen when charging a card on file to pay for a service. I’m assuming however square charges the cancellation fee triggers a fraud alert with most banks. I’ve asked multiple times for a resolution and square has just responded with options to reach out to clients to pay another way, block clients, or make clients pre-pay for services. This completely defeats the purpose of the no show protection. Based on these answers it seems square has no intention of fixing this service that they offer and that we pay for. Is this correct?

[MayaP]

Hey @timothytrimothy,

I see this is your first post here! Welcome! 👋

I understand how frustrating it must be to deal with ongoing issues and to feel that your concerns aren’t being fully addressed. Keep in mind if the seller has insufficient funds or canceled the card, the charge won't go through and can generate the error. There is a risk that the charge will not go through despite there being a card on the appointment.

I am happy to get some more details and look into this. Is this happening with the same merchant or every customer? What is the appointment this happened on that we can reference while we investigate this? 

[timothytrimothy]

It happens with different customers. Occasionally the charge goes through but majority of the time it does not. I have used the same card that is used to reserve to pay for appointments at the end of the service before, so I do not believe the specific card is the issue. This happened for my 10:30am appointment this morning 

[MayaP]

Hmm, I get it! This is frustrating. I currently do not see any disruptions filed for this. I would submit a feature request on our Ideate Board. 

In the meantime, I am going to tag some sellers for their assistance @wajiha @TCSlaguna @DLRosenberg @RashaadtheWise @Minion @HeroAir @GourmetOnWheels @PartyManiaMD. 

Thank guys! If you need me, don't hesitate to tag me! 😊

[GourmetOnWheels]

Sorry I do not use that feature

René

[MayaP]

I'm sorry, let me clarify, I did escalate this to our team, and they confirmed there is no disruption currently with this feature. We offer charging a card for no-shows and canceled appointments but if we are getting an error message from the card, there isn't way workaround for that. That is what I am suggesting you can file a feature request for @timothytrimothy.

Our team is working on ways to mitigate this in the future but for now, there’s a risk that the charge will not go through despite there being a card on the appointment. 

[timothytrimothy]

Hi it’s already a feature. The feature is not working

[faunasugaring]

Hi I am a seller in Canada with an appointment based service and we are having the EXACT same problem and support has told me the EXACT same bs answer 😞 you’re not alone! Support has confirmed that a valid credit card must be entered to book an appointment, so they are checking that somehow, yet when I try and charge a cancellation fee, about 75% of the time it says “oops something went wrong” and I am unable to recover the financial losses from the “no-show protected” credit card on file. I don’t think it’s very likely that 5 of my different clients had insufficient funds on their credit cards to cause declined transactions all in one day!! There’s something glitchy with this feature, one we are paying a lot of extra money to access and it’s failing. There must be someway to ensure this feature is reliable or else I will have to take my business bookings to a different platform very soon.

[timothytrimothy]

Glad to know it's not just me lol.  I've talked to them several times about it so I know they're aware of the issue but clearly they aren't very interested in fixing it.  I'm in the process of switching to a different booking software.  Hopefully things work out better for you.  Good luck!

[jennbella]

Exactly the same thing. What else can we do to protect our businesses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????????????????

[Stella_Suon]

This happen on me a lot too and I was asking the solution but they don’t have solutions. 

[Kitnkaboot]

This happens to me too. This is so frustrating.  Let me know what other platforms are available bc I'm ready to switch too

[LexiLynn]

This wasnt a problem for me a year and a half ago.. but now I get the error message way more often than not. What is the point of having "No-Show Protection" if the card can never be charged? This has happened with multiple clients and its been an ongoing issue for about a year now.

It is uncomfortable to have to reach out to clients saying "Hey, my system won't let me charge your card.. can you venmo/zelle me?" 

This needs to be a priority because service providers are losing a lot of money because of this. I love Square, but this makes me want to try a service-focused payment processor.