Last week, I got an email from a client about a 7K job she was trying to put down a 50% deposit for but she kept getting an error message.
It was one of those moments that stops you from finishing what you’re doing and makes you drop everything. I mean, who doesn’t want to collect $3500 from a willing and ready to pay client right?
I immediately contacted my CRM, 17hats (through which I’d sent the invoice), and they told me the error was coming from Square, my payment processor.
When I called Square, they gave me the mind BEnDing iNExPlicable news: my account had been deactivated.
Just like that. No email. No warning. No heads up.
NO REASON WHATSOEVER.
Now I had an emergency on my hands because this meant I couldn’t collect ANY payments from clients at all. What if someone tried to book a session through my online calendar? What about tomorrow’s client?
Luckily, I wasn’t on a shoot, and was able to attend to this emergency.
Needless to say I was furious at Square, and the support guy heard an earful.
The answer to me yelling “why????” (among other expletives), ended up being the same scripted bulsh*t from every support agent I spoke to.
“I absolutely understand that it can be frustrating to have your account deactivated. However, due to security concerns and the obligations of our agreements with card networks and other financial institutions, we cannot provide additional details.”
Apparently, I agreed to their terms and conditions which state that they can deactivate my account for any reason or no reason at all and don’t have to tell me in advance.
💁🏼♀️ I wish I was rich and can sue companies like this just to get back at them.
After a frustrating search online, I found out this happens to a LOT of people. Some have their money held for up to 180 days! And no one can do anything about it.
In my head, I was running through all the lessons I’ve learned. What could I do? What was my next step?
My first priority was my client. I needed to collect her payment and not make it her problem.
Since 17hats, also connects to Stripe, and I happen to have a Stripe account (which I use for other types of payment collections), I was able to switch payment processors on the fly, collect her deposit, and save the booking.
Whew.😅
I then immediately canceled Square payroll service and moved my business to QuickBooks. It was about $20 more expensive but F🖕Square.
My next step was to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) because in my deep dive on Google, I read that this can be effective.
And it was. I got my Square account reinstated (just on principle) after two weeks of going back and forth through the BBB.
On that note, who knew anyone even pays attention to the BBB anymore? 🤷🏼♀️ I thought the BBB had become obsolete since Yelp came into the scene but I was wrong.
My friend, these ups and downs happen all the time in business.
And, most of the time, you DON’T get lucky like I did. I had to go through a fire drill to fix it, but I wasn’t concerned at all.
I truly didn’t worry. I knew I couldn’t DO anything until someone at Square reached out to me, so I just went about my business putting out a fire.
The most important thing here is that I was able to handle it and move away from Square. I wasn’t stressed because I had already built my systems. I had a backup payment processor in place.
Friend, I promise you are going to go through difficult moments as a business owner.
It’s a guarantee. The good news is that you too will get SOOO much better at handling it.
So to recap: I used to be all about team Square. Now, I’m on Stripe for payment collections through my CRM and in-person payments ( using the app and my “phone pay” feature, no hardware needed) and Quickbooks my accounting software, for Payroll.
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