Why does it take so long when an order is cancelled to get credit on a credit card

[Debbie1126]

I need to know the status of a cancelled order ? Need to know when my client will be refunded  or what stage the refund is in .

[Donnie-M]

@Debbie1126 Refunds have a lot to do with did you cancel it the same day or after the transaction had processed and posted.  I assume it was probably the latter.  Credits on credit/debit cards usually happen in 1-2 days.  Think of it like this:  You issue the refund, it processes that night in the batch and gets transmitted to the other financial institution.  That bank then has it's own internal processes to post that money back on the customer's account.  If any of this takes place on a banking holiday or on the weekend it can add 1-2 days to the whole process.

The key thing here is it is not under your control or the customers control.  Some budget cards through marginal credit banks like credit one or some of those types can sometimes delay refunds an extra day or 2.  I don't understand why they do that, where someone like capital one is pretty good about promptly posting those credits.

Here is the official information from Square:

"

Refund Timeline

Once a refund is initiated, the customer should see a pending transaction on their bank account for the refunded amount within 1-3 business days. This timeline to post the transaction ultimately depends on the card-issuing bank. 

Note: Pending transaction notifications currently apply to payments made with Visa, Mastercard, or Discover. Pending transaction notifications will not apply for payments made with American Express or other card networks.

Square’s full refund time frame typically takes 2-7 business days. Once the refund is processed and sent to your customer's card issuing bank, it can take another 2-7 business days (depending on the bank's processing speeds) for the refund to post to the customer's account. In total it can take 9-14 business days for your customer to receive their refund."

[Debbie1126]

Donnie ,
My client is freaking out ! It’s been 10 days at least . What should I do ? 

Deb

[Donnie-M]

@Debbie1126 I would go into your online dashboard and pull up the transaction and look at the transaction and it will have the refund date and amount.  You can send this to your customer or you can go into the point of sale a reprint the paper copy showing the refund.

The next step I would do is have the customer contact their bank/credit card issuer to check on the transaction.  Someone there may be able to see it.  I am not saying that a customer has ever been wrong, but sometimes a customer can miss a transaction being refunded if they have a bunch of other transactions.  It doesn't mean that the customer is wrong, but if you can verify on your end the refund was processed, I have never had a time where square didn't send the refund back as it is pretty much autopilot.

Without being negative, sometimes customers/clients can make a mistake, or say they did something when they really didn't .  I trust square and refunds stink in a lot of places.  Was this a debit or credit card and do you know the issuing bank?

[Debbie1126]

It is not showing on my dashboard or anywhere . It was a large credit card company . There was a type -o when I entered the credit card so it never got paid to me . So square said oh you need to process it like a refund and when his credit card company gets the refund re process it . I see no history of any of this being done . 

[Donnie-M]

@Debbie1126 That explains a lot.  If there was a type and you never actually completed the sale there was no transfer of money.  So if you did not go in and manually process a refund then there is no refund to wait on.  At this point, in my opinion, you can run it like a new sale with the correct information.  You can't refund something you didn't get.

If I am understanding correctly.  If it was a chargeback that is a different issue, but you should know if it is a chargeback as you would still have a record of the transaction.  It sounds more like your transaction didn't go through and you thought it did.  You should be able to look at all of your transactions on the date you did it.

Does all of this make sense?