Alert of a New Scam

[pchefmichele]

The title of this thread has been updated from: "BEWARE!  THERE'S A NEW WAY TO SCAM USING SQUARE!"

Checking my email last night, I had an email from "Kutina & Square."  When opening the email, it stated there were 4 swipes of my personal credit card on a Square device totally $391.  So I checked my Credit Card statement; and there it was, a pending charge for $391 through a Square device.  I have a Square account, but this personal credit card is in no way linked to my Square account.  My VISA company stated, that if they would have seen the 4 charges from the same person, on the same day, in the amounts they were, it would have thrown up a red flag.  But since it came to them as 1 grand total, it did not send out a red flag to them.  They closed my personal credit card account and are issuing me a new card.

[VanKalkerFarms]

square charges don't get grouped together they are charged after each swipe or dip or manually entered transaction.  so if it is showing up as a $391 charge that is what was charged otherwise you would see 4 separate charges.  unfortunately, there are people out there that try to cheat the system and steal.

without seeing the email and email headers it is not possible to see if this email was from Square as there wouldn't be an email to you as a customer saying there are four swipes of your card and here is your total for the day, you would get 4 emails, 1 for each transaction individually and it would have the name and information of the place that used them.

[Beckiet464]

Bull square does group payments together because I was robbed by someone with a square account and when I tracked down the payment it was for one charge total but different amounts all at the same time they refunded 9.69 and kept 741.00 so again I say bull

[Chad]

I'm sorry to hear about the trouble you've encountered @pchefmichele! That's great that you've already filed a payment dispute! We are trying to curb this kind of activity on Square, but it's an uphill battle. 

Just for clarification @Beckiet464 Square does not group payments together. Each time a credit card is swiped it will be logged as a separate transaction for reporting and tax purposes. All payments will be deposited at the end of the day, but this doesn't effect your credit card statement. If you have any other questions please let me know! 

[VanKalkerFarms]

you can have multiple individual items make up a single transaction, just like you would if you went to best buy and bought 6 DVDs, but it is charged as a single transaction, not 6 DVDs separately on your credit card.  but if a card is swiped for a transaction it is charged at that time, and then if a card is swiped again for another transaction it is charged then again at that time, be it 1 minute or 2 hours later, a separate time, there is no grouping of payments.  I have run literally 100,000+ transactions and never has a charge been consolidated even if the person has checked out many times on the same day or many times in a row.

[pchefmichele]

When I called customer service at Square, they saw the 4 transactions in a row and the grand total.  They looked at the entire transaction.  They have given to an investigation department to look in to.  I'll probably never hear a thing about it, according to the person I spoke with.  I didn't have to pay for it...my CC company flagged it as fradulant, apologized for not catching it and is issuing me another card.  I just wanted everyone to know what just happened to me so they can keep an eye out on their own accounts a tad bit closer.

[Tritter82]

Sadly, the fraudulent people usually seem to be one step ahead of everyone.

Thanks for the heads up