Consumer complaint received 2021-07-27
Company: Square Inc
State: FL
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Money was not available when promised

Complaint:
COMPLAINT : SQUARE , INC On/About XX/XX/XXXX I opened an account on Square to accept credit card payments for our small lawn mowing company. A first transaction in the amount of {$1.00} test worked fine. On XX/XX/XXXX I processed a credit card in the amount of {$290.00} which was accepted and posted to my account. When I attempted to move that to my bank account it was missing. 

I received an email that they had impounded my funds due to an open balance on a separate company that was closed in XXXX. That company was an XXXX  filed under the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX.

My new Square account was opened under a XXXX filed properly with XXXX XXXX. The XXXX  had it's own XXXX  and separate legal identity as a XXXX.

That XXXX  did have a dispute regarding a charge back due to a reported incidence of credit card fraud for which my XXXX  was the victim sometime in XXXX. 

My XXXX is a XXXX XXXX under my personal XXXX and the two entities, legally separate, never existed at the same time. The XXXX was not filed until XXXX, two+ years after the end of the XXXX. 

Square is asserting that the two, legally separate XXXX entities are connected for their purposes of attaching funds that belong to the newer enterprise. I find no such provision in their own TOS. 

Square 's position is that because I was the owner of a corporation, I as an individual XXXX with a XXXX XXXX, am liable for the XXXX XXXX. That goes against the very principle and purpose of incorporating any business. 

I raised this defense in response to their email. Their reply was for me to provide them government documents to establish the separation of the entities. To that I provided by now-expired XXXX documents and annual report showing the XXXX  as they requested. I also sent a copy of my filing for my XXXX. That of course, for security reasons, will not show a personal social security number. Both entities are separated not just legally but in time as well, by several years. 

Square found these insufficient but refused to state a specific document they would accept. They appear to have decided this in their favor at the outset and that no document I provide would ever be sufficient. I sent these documents at least three times and have another hard copies on the way to their HQ via US Mail. 

Should this type of aggression against an individual for debts of a corporation in which that person has an ownership interest would logically permit a private corporation ( Square Inc ) to take on the role of a court to pierce the corporate veil to collect from individual owners, debts it deems owed by those corporations. Shareholders would become targets for collection of debts payable by any corporation in which they owned stock. 

Since that time SQUARE did resolve the initial complaint IN MY FAVOR however now they state they wont release my funds for 90 days. They wont refund fees and wont pay interest which leads me to suspect they do this to aggregate funds from others to collect interest. 

I have copies of all emails related to this process. But I still have no access to my funds. 

There appears to be no means to contact anyone at SQUARE by telephone. 

A similar complaint was filed with the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX. 

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation