Consumer complaint received 2019-04-01
Company: Square Inc
State: CA
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Other transaction problem

Complaint:
I have been using applications on my phone to send money to my wife and had {$1300.00} taken from me. I am a XXXX XXXX veteran  who has a XXXX XXXX military account and my wife has a local small credit union she uses as her bank. I get direct deposit to my account for my XXXX so I haven't gotten around to opening a new account yet, just for that reason. With that being said, I used apps like XXXX, XXXX, and CashApp since I couldn't transfer money straight to her account to send her money for bills. I have a XXXX XXXX XXXX so I send her a chunk of money so she can handle our main finances. I always used XXXX and had been for months with no problems. I always send her around the same amount $ XXXX and add a funny memo since it's always been the same thing, for her to pay our bills. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I went to transfer {$1300.00} using XXXX, it said it failed twice. So then we tried CashApp, that one said it also failed and gave an identifier code for the failed transaction of # XXXX. Then finally we tried XXXX and it seemed to work. The money came straight to my account. Then we realized my husband 's account was minus {$2600.00}, meaning somewhere along the line he was charged twice. I contacted XXXX and they said it was my bank, XXXX XXXX. So I contacted XXXX XXXX and they opened up an investigation ( Claim # XXXX ). I received a letter from them XX/XX/XXXX that said they were investigating but they would be giving us a temporary credit of the {$1300.00}. We thought, awesome, they can see the money transfer company messed up and we were getting our money back, especially since we knew we weren't doing anything wrong we thought it was being handled and that was the end. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, we received another letter from XXXX XXXX saying they were still researching which seemed a bit weird. Then we get a call from XXXX XXXX saying they went to take the {$1300.00} back but there wasn't enough so they need to talk to us. We of course are confused why they can just take {$1300.00} like that and XXXX XXXX said that there is some sort of grey area between them and the cash transfer apps like XXXX and they actually didn't have the rights to return our money in the first place. They said they had investigated our claim the max number of times and it was up to us to dispute it with the companies on our own. 

So, on XX/XX/XXXX, I went into the XXXX XXXX branch and got physical print outs of the transactions. There's something weird because the bank says they can see where the balance goes down an extra {$1300.00} but there isn't an actual entry to show where it went to. The transaction was only physically on my bank statement for maybe one day and then disappeared. I had no idea this was going to be such an ordeal or I obviously would've screenshotted the extra {$1300.00} that seemed to be taken from XXXX. 

We have made numerous calls to XXXX and they say as long as we can prove they took it, then we can get it back, but that's nearly impossible since the entry isn't on the bank statement. So they, just like XXXX XXXX, have said too bad. We then decided to try an investigation with CashApp since we were getting nowhere with the other companies. CashApp doesn't even have a support phone number, they just have an email address. I sent a complaint email to them XX/XX/XXXX including the identifier code and never got a response. 

The reason I'm submitting this complaint this far after is because we thought it was solved in XX/XX/XXXX until the money was taken back XX/XX/XXXX and I was giving CashApp some time to respond to me after me contacting them XX/XX/XXXX. I am beyond frustrated because I'm out {$1300.00} and I have three different companies refusing to communicate with each other, and most shockingly XXXX XXXX didn't protect me as a consumer and never offered a solution or reason for why everything played out the way it did. I'm not even positive which app took the money and their lack of communication doesn't help. I'm hoping you can track where the {$1300.00} went and why we've been told to go in circles with no real help or resolution.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation