no-show protected appointment unable to be charged

[ptownmassage]

Please be aware that there is NO guarantee of payment with no-show protection. We recently had an incident in which a customer cancelled last minute and we were unable to charge his card. The appointment clearly shows 'No-show protected' and the credit card was clearly entered by the customer at the time of the appointment. He also had 2 cards on file, one of which was the same used for the appointment reservation. We tried each card as an appointment cancellation fee and both were declined. There is no option to somehow force the transaction.

We contacted customer support and were told that although this is rare, it can happen. 

This is a truly disappointing occurrence.

[TheRealChipA]

Hi @ptownmassage.  I’d ask “what are the odds,” but of course we all know that there are more than a few customers who have maxed out all of their credit but keep throwing their card information around as a guarantee.  Yup, it’s pretty rare, but it does happen, and I’m sorry it happened to you.  And, no, there is no option to “force” the transaction.  That would be illegal since once the customer’s card-issuing bank has declined a transaction all we are allowed to do is keep trying until it either works or we give up.  That’s the law.  However, I know of no laws or regulations that prohibit you from trying to run those cards again for a while.  Who knows.  You might get lucky and catch them when there are available funds (and when they don’t think to dispute it!)

[ptownmassage]

Hi Chip... Thanks for taking the time to reply. Yes, this is a rare occurrence.  It's seldom that clients cancel appointments but when they do, they are usually very understanding of the cancellation policy. What irks me is the fact that we spend a lot of time ensuring that credit cards are taken when booking via the phone. We've always felt secure in that matter. We also felt especially secure that when a customer enters their own card information via the web, that the form of payment is guaranteed; perhaps by receiving an approval code for the amount of the potential cancellation fee. This doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps the card simply meets the standard of being a valid card number. 

Our small business is located in an expensive seasonal summer resort area. This has never happened before. I hope it's not indicative of the future. Hopefully not.

[TheRealChipA]

I completely understand your frustration here.  Unfortunately, even if an approval code was received — like for a deposit so something — that would only last for a few days due to banking regulations.  So if customers were able to book weeks in advance that wouldn’t do you any good either.

Which brings up something I’ve thought was missing from Appointments.  Currently, you have the option to hold a card for cancellation/no-show, or you have the option to collect a prepayment for the entire amount of the booking.  It seems that there might be some worth if Square Appointments allowed you to also collect a partial prepayment (call it a deposit) that would be forfeited for no-shows/cancellations or applied to the bill after the appointment was complete.  Since I don’t use Appointments, I’m not sure I should be the one to do this, but it might be worthwhile for someone like you to submit a feature request to the Appointments Team here.

Having that option would give you the peace of mind you want/need since that partial prepayment would be run as a transaction immediately upon booking.  Just a thought.

[ptownmassage]

Can someone from the Square support team answer the question as to how credit card information is processed in no-show protection appointments?  Is it verification or hold?

[TranBeauty]

It happens because no-show clients lock their credit cards, so no-show protection of appointment plus is useless in this case.