File a Dispute on Your Square Debit Card

Where there are card payments, there are payment disputes. As a Square Checking account holder with a Square Debit Card, you can count on us to help you through this process and present your dispute to the merchant in a timely manner.

You can also opt in to receiving SMS alerts on your account when high-risk transactions occur, such as international purchases, Card not Present (CNP) transactions, or declined transactions. You’ll be provided the option to temporarily lock your card via SMS to allow time to review the transaction before taking action. You can update your notification preferences or unlock your card at any time from the Balance section of your online Square Dashboard or from the Square app.

Things to consider before filing a dispute:

• Ensure the payment has posted to your account and isn’t pending or voided.

• Some merchants (e.g. gas stations) will place a temporary hold on your checking account to authorize your purchase. This temporary hold will be higher than the actual transaction amount, typically $75 or $100. We call these transactions pending authorizations. These pending authorizations can take up to 14 days to clear.

• Contact the merchant to try and resolve your concerns. We aren’t able to pursue a dispute if you haven’t attempted to resolve the issue with the merchant directly.

• If you have multiple Square Debit Cards active on your account, only the Square account holder is able to file a dispute for any cards on the account. Additional Square Debit Card users aren’t able to file a dispute.

Please note: If you have fraudulent charges on your Square Debit Card, we recommend ordering a new card directly from the Square app, or from your online Square Dashboard. Your disputes will automatically be transferred over to the new card and you do not have to wait for the dispute to complete in order to get your new card. 

When you file a dispute for unauthorized, or fraudulent charges, we may need to deactivate your Square Debit Card to prevent any additional unauthorized charges from processing. 

1. File a Dispute

If you notice a transaction you didn’t make or have a question about a transaction in your history, you will need to report a dispute. To do so:

1. Log in to your Square Dashboard or the Square app on your iOS device.

2. Locate the charge and click on the more options icon (. . .). 

3. Select Dispute payment.

4. Answer the questions about the charge (s).

5. Review your answers and click Submit.

Note on submitting multiple disputes using one form: If your answer to the first question "Do you believe this payment is fraudulent?" is Yes, you will be able to select up to 10 payments to dispute via this single form. If your answer is No, because you authorized the payment but are disputing for a different reason (e.g. goods or services not received, or not as described), please complete one form per payment dispute.

Note: You must file a dispute claim within 60 days of the transaction date.

2. We Investigate

If we receive enough information to proceed, a temporary credit may be applied to your account. Some disputes may not be eligible for a temporary credit. We will notify you via email once your dispute has been successfully initiated and confirm whether a temporary credit has been applied to your account.

3. We Follow Up

We’ll make sure you receive the results of our investigation via email. While we settle most disputes within 30 to 60 days, some may take longer.

If we’re not able to find a provable error, the disputed transaction will be considered valid and we’ll remove any temporary credit we provided. Whenever we can, we’ll provide you with further information as to why we had to deny your dispute.