Consumer complaint received 2022-12-02
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Refund anticipation check
Issue: Fraud or scam — 
Company: Block, Inc. (MD)

I created an account with Square , Inc. for my small business, and shortly thereafter issued an invoice to a vendor. It was not until I received payment ( XX/XX/XXXX ) from the vendor that Square deactivated my account without cause, referred to their ability to do so without cause in their terms and conditions and refused to provide any additional information. Further, with the deactivation, Square placed a hold on my funds, noted that they would be on hold for 90 days, and would be dispersed on XX/XX/XXXX. I contacted the company because there has been no attempt by the company to communicate about the unwarranted deactivation and seizure of my funds. Nor did the company make any attempts to deposit the funds into my verified account or via my linked debit card. My first contact attempt on XX/XX/XXXX resulted in being told that because my account was deactivated, the customer service rep could no longer speak with me. My second attempt on XX/XX/XXXX resulted in a gentleman stating that he needed to escalate the case because he could not see why my money was not being released. He also stated that someone would contact me within 24hrs. After the 24hr mark, I reached out to Square again on XX/XX/XXXX and literally received the same response from another customer service rep. I logged into my account to try to manually transfer the funds, and it would not allow me to do so. I contacted the company via chat on XXXX to again be told that the customer service rep could not tell me anything about the status of my account because that was not her department and that she would escalate my case. There was no record of the previous case escalation as I was told about on XX/XX/XXXX. Because again 24hrs have passed, I contacted the company on XXXX The resulted in almost 3hrs of varied communications via chat and phone. I was hung up on 3 times and told via chat that I could no longer be helped. My third contact got me to a rep who said that he was getting my account information from support and updating my account to send over the the department that processes the release of funds. He put me on hold for 6 minutes and when he came off of mute, he hung up. I waited for 15 minutes to see if I would receive a call because of the disconnection, but never received one. On my fourth and final call attempt before filing this complaint, I explained to the rep everything that occurred before XXXX to present, she then transferred me to the accounting department again. After speaking with a " XXXX '' and recounting my entire story, including how previous reps hung up and did not resolve my issue, XXXX explained that he reached out to the department that handles the issue I'm experiencing. They refused to speak with me and based on his reporting, they told him that they would follow up with me via email before the end of the day today ( XX/XX/XXXX ) regarding when I could expect my payout. I expected my payout on XX/XX/XXXX per their out of touch email and refusing to communicate with consumers is an absurd business practice. After a little research to determine the proper entities to file a complaint with, I was able to see that there is a pattern of this business practice and that I am not the only business owner who has experienced this and further received the dismissive responses, if a response is given at all. Square Financial Services unjustly terminated my account and held my funds ( {$1100.00} ) for more than three months without any reason or communication.