What products are allowed in Square's early access CBD Program?

[aablaisdell]

The title of this thread has been edited from the original: CBD Oils and Balms - Ok with Square?

I'm in a professional forum where we are discussing whether our Square accounts will be terminated for retailing commercially available CBD products such as the balms from CBDclinic.co or ingestible oils such as https://realscientifichempoil.com/ . 

To my knowledge these products contain no THC which is the psychoactive compound in cannabis, and are therefore legal. Can you please advise us on the matter?

[Helen]

I'm so sorry for the delay. As soon as your application has been reviewed you'll be notified by email. We have had a lot of interest in the program so the review timeframe is taking longer than expected. I'm sorry again that you've been waiting but I really appreciate your patience in the meantime. 

[pupcakes]

Do these increased fees apply to only CBD product or to all products sold by a business?

[Valentina]

Hey @pupcakes! Once we approve an account for CBD, the increased fees apply to all payments processed through the account, CBD product or not.

If a large percentage of the products you'll be selling will contain CBD, I would recommend processing payments on two separate Square accounts - one for CBD products and one for non-CBD products.

[Chad2]

Can we have two accounts with one company and the same info?

[JustinC]

You absolutely can, @Chad2 - as long as the email address used to activate the second account is different from the first one. Create your other account straight from Square's homepage. 

[lu6471]

I recently completed the onboarding for a CBD account and I had a few questions:

1. I do have hemp flower products but I was not asked for COA's on them confirming they contain under 0.3% THC. I do have lab results on all of them and they are visible on my website, perhaps they accessed them that way during the review? Just want to make sure I'm in compliance on that. 

2. I've had a slight change to my store's return policy since I answered the initial onboarding questions. I remember one question asked for the policy. Do I need to update this somewhere with Square?

3. My store has not launched yet, I hope to be running within the next month or so but I just wanted to make sure my account would not be deactivated for any length of inactivity?

[JustinC]

What's up @lu6471 - Thanks for posting !

Hmmm, these are great questions. I'm going to surface these to our CBD team to get you the best answers. I'll circle back here when I get an update, so be on the lookout!

PS - Welcome to the Community! Nice to see a new face around here 🤗 

[lu6471]

Hi @JustinC,

Thank you. Any update?

[hbhurt]

I have been waiting nearly 7 weeks now.  I sent int he application on Oct 3rd within an hour of the public announcement. Surely, there can't be that many merchants ahead of my application.  Is Square only focusing on larger merchants at this time?  I wouldn't mind waiting if I had a timeline .... but the endless waiting with no update or response is incredibly frustrating.

[Helen]

Hi @hburt! I'm so sorry you still haven't heard anything. I've just sent you a private message so we can take a closer look. 

[hemproost]

I hope you get better and quicker answers than us. Our accounts are now basically frozen until Square tells us that we are all clear. We have deposits just sitting in limbo and it is really hurting this small business. 

[sap7724]

I was told to fill out this "application" and wait 6 weeks.https://squareup.com/us/en/solutions/cbd Feels more like a contact form than an application but I'm hoping it works. I have seen some large CBD shops using square but if we all have to wait til revenue hits $10K a month they are penalizing small business for sure. Fingers crossed for all of us that what I was told was incorrect. 

[Juliecw]

Im in the same boat!  I have $$ sitting there that I cannot access!  I do not even sell CBD out of my location therefore not processing payments through Square and they STILL have my account suspended!  There's no telephone number to contact this department either.... I'm beyond frustrated

[SPowell12]

Hello there! All my deposits have been deferred until my account is verified! I have tired a million different ways to email square, verify my account (the form square asked for me to fill out (for the thc lab levels) will not allow a secure pdf file to be uploaded. I have been without my funds for almost 2 weeks and I don’t even sell but 2-3 cbd hair products and salves a week. This has been a huge inconvenience for my small business and family. They are withholding the funds from 2 weeks from my salon! Can anyone help me? I am completely at a loss here! We have a very small line of cbd hair products and I had no idea this was even an issue, since it’s legal in my state. 

[pupcakes]

@SPowell12  Do what I did. Remove any mention of CBD from your items/categories and process your CBD sales outside of square (paypal, venmo, ole' fashioned cash).

Then call square customer service (use the 1-800 number, choose the option for sales, then ask to be transferred to someone who can help) and tell them you're no longer processing CBD sales with square. That should get the ball rolling for you again.

If you're like me and your main revenue source isn't CBD it's not worth the across-the-board rate hike square will charge you anyway, because the higher fees apply to all sales, not just CBD items. My customers grumbled at first but when I explained to them exactly what square was doing and why I need to process CBD separately they more than understood.

Square has major holes in their CBD program and they refuse to address them. It's unlikely we'll see any real resolutions that work for us teensy businesses anytime soon. It's sad to see a once small biz friendly solution turn into the anthesis of what it started as.

Anywho, Hope this helps.

[dankaw]

Hey Square team, @Tom, @JustinC, @Valentina, @Helen 

I've read through this community thread and it looks like there are some delays. Three weeks ago, I reach out to customer service, and a few days later rep. KB told me to submit my business details. I submitted 2 weeks ago and haven't heard anything. If it helps to expedite the process, my products (oils, isolates, balms, etc.) are lab-certified to be 99.9999% free of THC and I don't sell smokable flower. Sorry to be reaching out during the holidays, but really need to start the ball rolling soon! 

[SPowell12]

Hey there! 
Mae has a little luck with messaging Facebook and Twitter! Someone did help us to “upload” a file they now require for sales of cbd products. I have since removed all cbd products from my inventory (since if they are going to up my swipe fees,I’ll just cut square out for those sales) and still have been wanting for since the 17th for my deposit of over $3000 that is suspended and will not transfer until this is resolved. I am pretty upset about this issue. It’s a HUGE inconvenience for me and our business. I’m not even sure how this is legal to withhold payments when my cbd sales are very small, and I own a hair salon. I hope things work out for you or someone else responds! Glad it’s not just me but I hate we are in this boat and have no outcome or answers right now! 😞 

[sap7724]

Totally agree. Doesn't seem legal when our products are completely legit. Hope it all works out for you too!

[dkawal]

I'm sure there's a pretty hefty backlog. In the meantime, I'm trying to cover all bases to find a payment solution, but I'm finding it exceptionally difficult. Most banks and processors only want to see topicals on the online storefront, but Square stands out in its openness to CBD. I was planning to go with Authorize.Net for my processing, but a number of Authorize.Net-associating merchant services actually suggested Square for convenience's sake, but with the warning that Square would simply act as an aggregator of payment processing solutions, automatically accept applications, and perform reviews retroactively, meaning accounts were still liable to be shut down or frozen. There isn't a lot of clarity speaking to this Square program's viability as a long-term solution for a business that doesn't exclusively sell topical CBD products, in spite of the initial forum reply by Tom. Until Square offers something more dependable, I can't rely on Square to be my banking and payment solution and I'll continue the search for another merchant service provider.

[sap7724]

Agreed, this process is much harder than it really needs to be for people selling legal products containing no THC. I would prefer to use Square also, but the waiting is going to prevent that. Try PayKings....my approval took a week, providing you have the proper paperwork. Good luck!

[hemproost]

If you don’t mind me asking, what was your rate with PayKings? I still haven’t heard anything on my account yet, so we have been forced to go to cash and check sales only. 😔