Sign Up Issues: Unable to Verify Identity

[SmartinDesign]

I have made 8 attempts to confirm my identity, using two different email addresses. I am not inputting any incorrect information whatsoever - from my drivers licence, medicare card or passport. I reached out to customer service, however I got a generic response (copy and pasted text) which was not helpful in any way. I have been through the forums and am absolutely mind-boggled by the amount of people who have experienced this as well, over a period of many years, and with all of this technology I cannot comprehend how this is still an issue for many people?

I have already ordered the square machine (didn't have any problems with that part!) and my husband has had to create a Square account instead - no problems with his verification whatsoever!! So it's got nothing to do with our names or our address or the many other reasons in the unhelpful checklist. I just feel frustrated that I have wasted a precious day trying to confirm who I am and his went through literary in a few minutes!

I run a market stall periodically (cash only), we have a big event happening and so I need the ability to be able to accept card payments. Can I use his Square account (he has a different ABN to me) to take my payments and then invoice him for the total sales at the end of the event to 'Square' things up?! The sales transactions will go into our joint bank account so no money will be moved. 

I cannot understand why this has to be so complicated! I have looked elsewhere but the majority of businesses in our town use Square and recommend it. I'm just not having the best of experiences so far and reluctant to move forward with this payment method for mine or my husband's business.

Any advice greatly appreciated! 😊

[Arie · Accepted solution]

Hi @SmartinDesign,

Thanks for writing in and welcome to our Seller Community!

I understand your frustration about not being able to verify your identity. 

Right now, this is an automatic process that is matching the data you're entering to what's on file with the credit bureau. Our support team would likely have pointed out some of the reasons this can happen. To clarify, Square doesn't perform a credit check but rather sees if there is a credit file we can match what you enter back to verify your identity. Some common reasons would be a mismatch in what the credit bureau has on file, and what you enter, a recent name or address change, or even a lack of a credit file existing. This can often be the case if someone has just moved to Australia (this happened to me when I first signed up to Square!) or for sellers who've just turned 18. 

Unfortunately, we can't look into the exact reason your identity wasn't able to be verified. It sounds like your husband was able to sign up for a Square account, and like you have your own ABN for your business. If that's the case, you could sign up for a Square account using your ABN, so all sales are reported under your business, but get your husband to complete the identity verification step. 

[SmartinDesign]

Hi Arie,

Many thanks for your response and that makes much more sense! I've lived in Australia for some years now at the same address, however I doubt I have a credit file since I've never borrowed any money.

Thanks for your quick response and yes, we will do that upon your advice - thanks for clearing that up!

[Vacantminds]

How can I try and verify my identity again?

[Laurie_]

Hey there, @Vacantminds,

For any issues verifying your identity, we recommend reviewing this online Support Article which runs through a handful of common issues. If this is the first Square account you have attempted to create, please reach out to our Support Team to request another attempt, and be sure to note any advice from the linked article. They'll be able to release your email so you can go through the signup flow again.

For further support, you can reach out to our team directly on 1800 760 137 (Mon - Fri, 9 am - 5 pm Melbourne time), or contact us via online chat or email. See the below steps.

1. Sign in to your Square account

2. Head to our contact page https://squ.re/3AWfZs2

3. Go to "Other", then "I don't see my issue"

4. Click "Message us", "Email us" or "Call Us"

Or, if you see the new chatbot help flow, type “support” to bring up a list of contact methods.

[ron000000000000]

I have bought the squre device but squre won't help verifying my identity. 
They just colleted all the personal infromation from my end such as ABN, passport details, driving license info, our medicare info, current address, date of birth names etc.

Now without giving us opportinuty to physically verify our account as they advertise on their website. they are just ignoring our requests without providing suficient information. 

Now my quetion is, are you guys really providing sevice or just running this process on website to harvest the personal data of the community?

And i don't have to do in detail on how it's going to be utilised.

[Arie]

Hi @ron000000000000 👋
 

I understand your frustration not being able to verify your identity and have merged your post to this thread where someone else wrote in with a similar inquiry. The best answer in this post gives you more insight into how the verification process works, and troubleshooting steps you can follow. 

Please review our Privacy Policy where we outline exactly why, and how certain information is required in order to sign up for a Square account. Being a payment provider, Square has obligations to verify details about businesses and individuals signing up. It's similar to signing up for a merchant account with a bank, where you'd have to provide this information in person, for example.  We can assure you that this is not a ploy to harvest personal data. 

[KimTsurah]

This has happened for me too!
I did change my name and address after getting married (over a year ago though) but with that response, perhaps it's due to not having a credit file either.

How can I proceed? I'm still not verified...

I just want to have a Square Online store

[Arie]

Hi @KimTsurah 👋
 

You can try following the advice I shared in this thread if you have an ABN. Unfortunately, we're not able to verify your identity by other means at the moment. 

[KimTsurah]

Thanks. I did try to set up my account with my ABN. So it seems because I have no credit file - that's the cause? Anyway to change that? 

Thanks 🙂

[Arie]

You'd have to start building a credit file, @KimTsurah, and try signing up again in a few months.

[trees1234]

I am a person who has NO ABN. i sell cards at church and community events. AL costs are paid for by me so 100% goes to the charity concerned. I only raise about $8,000 a year but everyone wants to pay with credit card. I have no credit rating and am an older person. I cannot verify my  identity because your computer will NOT accept my suburb. I want to cancel my order and get my money back for the little $65 machine unless you contact me and help me verify my identity. I am very angry!

[Arie]

Hi @trees1234 👋
 

I'm sorry to hear about your trouble verifying your identity. As mentioned in this thread, we're not able to manually verify your identity. If you've exhausted all four verification attempts, and aren't successful, you can return your Square Reader for a refund. 

There are also a few important things to keep in mind if you're trying to sign up for an account without an ABN and fundraising for a charity. When you create an account without an ABN, all income associated with the Square account will be reported to the ATO under your name, as mandated by Australian tax rules. This legislation requires all Australian payment processors — including Square, banks and other payment providers — to report card transactions where a business has received a payment or provided a refund to a customer. If you're regularly working with a particular charity or organisation that does already have an ABN, it might be worth asking them if they'd consider creating a Square account. Like this, all income would accurately be reported as funds raised for the charity, rather than income you made. 

[Minicraftz]

I have attempted multiple times (3/4) to verify myself for my account to be activated, but it hasn't worked. It does not give me an option for using a photo with my ID as proof. I have contacted square via email and received a generic response, but I have not changed anything or moved recently, and all my information is correct when I type it in. I don't understand why I cannot be verified. How am I supposed to activate my account for card payments? Any help is appreciated, thanks

[Arie]

Hi @Minicraftz 👋

I've merged your question to this thread where other users have written in with questions about Square's identity verification process. Take a look at the best answer at the top, as well as @Laurie_ 's advice to contact our support team. 

[Minicraftz]

Thanks Arie,

I do have my own ABN and am an Australian citizen, so I assume I have the same issue where I don't yet have a credit file because I've never borrowed money before.

Seems like a weird reason to reject my ID, but I will attempt the suggestion above and try again 🙂

[GCNSW]

We are a new cooperative trying to set up business. We have a Square Reader and planned to use this initially in our shop we are opening in the very near future. Trying to set up and activate the account and it says that our type of business is not supported at this time. Anyone struck this and how do we manage to use the Square Reader?

[Laurie_]

Hi @GCNSW,

I'm sorry to hear you're running into some issues when trying to sign up for Square!

I've taken the liberty of merging your post with an existing thread where we've previously discussed possible reasons for encountering issues with the identity verification step. Additionally, we've covered various troubleshooting steps in that thread.

I hope this information helps!

[northernbeaches]

I have been trying to set up my account and I keep getting this message:

Thank you for your interest.

We do not currently support your selected business type for payment processing. We will contact you once your business type is supported. In the meantime, Square can work as your point-of-sale solution. You can record sales, manage inventory, run powerful sales reports and analytics, send digital receipts and more

Only problem is that i got an email already saying we are verified and as well we are another campus of a Church and we had no issues setting up that one (we needed to create a seperate account because it was going to a different bank account)

Any ideas on what to do?

[Seamus]

Hi @northernbeaches,

Thanks for getting in touch and sorry to hear your organisation is having trouble signing up with Square! At the moment the ABNs we are able to onboard for payments processing are:

Individual/Sole Trader (with or without an ABN)
Partnerships (with an ABN)
Companies (with an ABN)
Trusts (with an ABN)

We're looking into ways we may be able to onboard more ABN types in the future - many NFP, club and association based ABNs currently require additional regulatory checks and paperwork that our onboarding process is unfortunately not able to accommodate at the moment. We hope to have a solution working for more ABNs in the future! If you've purchased hardware already, I recommend returning to the place of purchase for a refund.

Note that if you have received an email saying the bank account has successfully been verified, this is a different process and unfortunately does not mean the account has payment processing activated.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help here! You can read more info about this here.

[Fredsmec]

Not working please help thanks not working