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File a claim on your Square Card

Where there are card payments, there are payment disputes. As a Square Card owner, you can count on us to help you through this process and present your claim to the merchant in a timely manner.

You can 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 claim:

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

  • Some merchants (eg petrol stations) will place a temporary hold on your Square Card to authorise your purchase. This temporary hold will be higher than the actual transaction amount. We call these transactions pending authorisations. These pending authorisations can take up to 14 days to clear.

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

Note: if you have fraudulent charges on your Square Card, we recommend cancelling your card and 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 unauthorised or fraudulent charges, we will deactivate your Square Card to prevent any additional unauthorised charges from processing. 


Step 1: file a claim

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 claim. To do so:

  1. Log in to your Square Dashboard.

  2. Navigate to the Balance tab and select View all activity.

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

  4. Select Dispute payment.

  5. Answer the questions about the charge.

  6. Review your answers and click Submit.

To submit 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 authorised the payment but are disputing for a different reason (eg goods or services not received, or not as described), please complete one form per payment dispute.

You must file a dispute claim for fraudulent or unauthorised payment transactions within 13 months of the transaction date. All other disputed payments must be made within eight weeks of the transaction date.

Step 2: we investigate

If we receive enough information to proceed, in some circumstances relating to an unauthorised payment a temporary refund may be applied to your account within one working day. Some claims may not be eligible for a temporary refund. We will notify you by email once your claim has been successfully initiated and confirm whether a temporary refund has been applied to your account.

Step 3: we follow up

We’ll make sure you receive the results of our investigation via email. While we settle most claims within 30 to 60 days, some may take longer. If following our investigation, it is determined that the payment transaction was in fact authorised, we may reverse the refund. If this outcome occurs you will be given notice before any refund is debited from your account.

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