Consumer complaint received 2022-11-10
Company: Block, Inc.
State: SC
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Problem with a lender or other company charging your account
Sub-issue: Transaction was not authorized

Complaint:
For my company XXXX, XXXX On XX/XX/XXXX I realized my card had been used for purchases that I did not authorize. I never lost possession of my card, I never authorized anyone to use my card, and my card is still under my control to this day. 

I realized the card had been used because I went to make a purchase at a XXXX and after doing so I realized my balance was really low. I examined why it was so low and saw that there had been a few transactions made immediately prior to the purchase totaling {$1200.00} from a couple of vendors. I immediately transferred the remaining money in my SQUARE checking account to my savings so no further purchases could go through. I notified SQUARE and filed a dispute immediately. They said it would take 3-5 days to process, so I waited. 

I received a response about 5 days later saying they found in favor of the merchant since I said I always had possession of my card, which I did, however, the card must have been somehow cloned because I did not make the charges. They told me I have to follow up with the vendor directly. I made the case that they didn't even do an investigation because if they had, they would have seen that I did not make the charges. I then embarked on a journey to contact the vendors. I asked for the vendor information and Square said they couldn't give it to me. On the statement there is vague information about the vendors and there is no way to figure out who to contact. 

This has been a circular issue as I need the information to contact the vendor directly. 
Square won't give it to me. They tell me to get the information off of my statement, but the statement only gives a name, and only one of the vendors is big enough to XXXX which is XXXX XXXX. I call XXXX XXXX and they tell me that I would need to contact the issuing bank of the card but the issuing bank won't give me the information so as to protect the " privacy '' of the merchant. I called the police department and they say I need the information of the vendor so that they can figure out the jurisdication, but I can't figure out the jurisdiction because my bank won't give me the information and refuses to investigate themselves. 

After examining the rest of my bank statement I found what appears to be a " check '' transaction at the start of the day on XX/XX/XXXX where they maybe verified how much was in the account before they started getting money out of it. The merchant is shown as a bunch of random letters " XXXX XXXX '' with a {$0.00} transaction amount. I have seen this same thing on a couple of other occasions on my account where no money was taken. 

Also, for quite a few more days after this, they continued to try to withdraw fund out of the account multiple times on XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, followed by another " check '' transaction on XXXX by more random letters " XXXX XXXX ''. Then they tried to get money out again on XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. SInce I turned my card off, they could still TRY but no one is able to make any more transactions with the card. 

The disputed items that went through were as follows : XXXX XXXX {$280.00} XXXX {$400.00} XXXX {$400.00} XXXX XXXX XXXX {$180.00}

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation