Refunds: How to check destination?

[AVsupport]

I've just had a situation where a customer returned a faulty item after a period of time, and we had to issue a refund.

I found the relevant transaction, with the receipt stating card payment MC 3097.

I asked the customer if that was the last 4 digits of her card, to which she said 'No, my card ends 3746, but it is a MasterCard, yes'.

It wasn't her husband's card either, nor another joint account.

So, how do I know that this refund would actually end up in her account if I cannot issue a refunt to a particular card??

I could not guarantee, so we did not go ahead.

I had to do a manual transfer instead, which of course also creates a stock / sales account issue as this item is not retuned properly, and I have a sale income which is no longer true.

How do I know this works @Seamus , this isn't very trust invoking..

(I tried to search for answers to this..)  

I guess one way forward would be, where an expectation is that a particular card was used for purchase, to use the card to verify the account during the refund process. In such a way (and I have seen this elsewhere) one doesn't need to know the number, as long it's the same card everyone is happy and the process can continue. If not, system could respond with 'no matching card'

[Laurie_]

Hi, @AVsupport, thanks for reaching out to us with your concerns.

Do you recall how your customer made their payment at the time? Did they happen to pay with their mobile device, rather than a physical credit card?

What you've described sounds like your customer may have used their mobile wallet to make a purchase with you (this is a tap-to-pay method, but rather than a card, a mobile device can be tapped). There are a few important things to note about mobile wallet payments.
 

Digital wallet payments from Apple Pay and Google Pay will generate a unique card number that differs from the actual number of the card added to your customer's digital wallet – this way their actual card number is never shared with merchants. This is done to provide additional security for Apple Pay and Google Pay customers while making payments both online and in person.

Rest assured, you can issue refunds by selecting 'Refund' on the transaction, and these funds will be routed back to the connected card from the mobile wallet, just like a standard refund.

I hope this helps to explain the process for mobile wallet payments. If you have any further questions here, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

[AVsupport]

Thanks for the quick response @Laurie_ , this explains the number mismatch, but unfortunately it doesn't give me any further clues as to if the wallet card (if that was used) is indeed the correct one; When I look at cards stored on my iphone I see a visual representation of the actual card with the last 4 digits matching the real card. I get it, the electronic data might be different.

But how do I tell?

I cannot just refund, if that was a different card or  different account, how do I know?

How I can execute a refund onto a distinct card present in shop, or mobile device payment platform through tap-to-refund? 

[Seamus]

Hi @AVsupport,

If a payment is made with Apple/Google pay it will have a different last 4 digits to the physical card attached to the same account. A customer can check the last 4 digitals of their device's digital card on the device used to take the payment. This isn't a Square-specific thing, but how digital cards work.

On iPhone: Open Wallet > select the card that was used for payment > tap the "..." button in the top right > scroll down to "Device Account Number".

Note that this process may be different on a different version of iOS (I'm using the latest). I assume Google has a similar function, however I've not got an Android device at hand to check. If your customer is in doubt, they can contact Apple or Google for further support regarding Device Account Numbers, however this should be fairly easy information to access or Google. If the customer used a different device to make payment though, the number will be different again.

The most fail-safe way to match up transactions though is via the original receipt!

If your customer isn't able to get their Device Account Number and doesn't have the original receipt, you'll need to match by the date/time/amount of the transaction - this again can appear slightly differently on their bank statement if the transaction was done via Visa/Mastercard debit - eg there would have been a pending period before the transaction officially processed, so keep this in mind as well.

[AVsupport]

thanks @Seamus I will try the 'Device account number' next time; for this one, the ship has sailed 😉

Didn't have a receipt as this wasn't produced / sent anywhere during checkout, again, this wasn't matching with bank statements either as you suggested.. [I just wonder if you sold 50x the same item in a day..???]

Big thanks

[Laurie_]

Hey, @AVsupport, to clarify here, Square automatically generates a receipt once you have processed payment. This is not dependent on whether a receipt was sent to the customer at the time the transaction was processed.

The good news is that you can resend a receipt from your Transactions page in your Square app by selecting an individual transaction > and selecting New receipt. From your Dashboard, navigate to your Transactions page, select an individual transaction > and then select Send Receipt.

Let me know if that helps with your concerns. 

[AVsupport]

Hi Laurie,

yes I saw that, and I was going to resend, but there wasn’t one sent to the customer to begin with so there is no data (email or phone) in the system pre-populated. Hence I did not go down that path. Couldn’t verify that either as she came back without the receipt..