Square

**Square is illegally withholding approximately $20,000 of our café’s operating revenue** River Cafe Parramatta recently moved its point-of-sale and payment processing to Square. Square has processed approximately $20,000 of genuine, ordinary café transactions but has not remitted this money to our bank account. These are completed customer… Read more

purchases for food and beverages that have already been supplied.

We have repeatedly contacted Square through customer support, its complaints process and formal channels. Despite the seriousness of the matter, we have received no substantive explanation of the specific basis for withholding the money, no meaningful senior escalation and no definite release date. Indeed almost no ongoing communications around if and when we will receive our funds.

This is operating revenue required to pay staff, suppliers, rent and other immediate business expenses. A payment provider that accepts customers’ money and then denies the business access to approximately $20,000, while providing only generic or non-responsive communications, presents an intolerable risk to any small business.

Until Square releases our money and provides a proper written explanation, I cannot recommend Square to any Australian business. To be clear this is not a KYC issue, there was an internal fraud insude the Square organisation leading to our funds going missing.

Square Australia: assign a senior case manager, release all undisputed funds immediately and provide a definite resolution date. I will update this review publicly when the money is received.

After weeks and weeks of laborious and at times ridiculous information that needed to be provided to establish a new account, I received an email this morning telling me our account has been deactivated but they cannot tell me why due to "security reasons". What an absolute joke. Yet nothing in their Ts & Cs indicated that this was a possiblity.… Read more

We run a totally legitimate business with no restrictions according to them. Oh, and their official complaints email address does not work. It bounced due to their firewall protecting them from spam and phishing. You can't make this stuff up. Complaint/request for reveiw had to be filed via their online chat rep and a complaint about their non-functioning email address has been lodged with AFCA.

Haven't even got started and regretting my purchase of the hardware. Chat support says wait 5 minutes, 1hr later still waiting. Called the call centre, person hardly speaks English. They kept me on a pointless hold to eventually say they couldn't assist. Show details

After "Square's" abysmal failure a few short years ago with the 1st Gen & the terrible reviews (pre covid).. Never again! Threw mine in the bin. After reading these reviews it seems they've learnt nothing from past mistakes. And with a $350 + price tag including fees? ...NO WAY! Show details

Welcome to a tale of woe and anguish. A tale that started with excitement and hope. We'd just opened our first business and realised we'd need a payment terminal .... then the troubles began. The software that Square use to verify bank accounts… Read more

doesn't work (at least it didn't work for us), which is a problem because Square won't pay unless a bank account is verified. You can probably guess where this tale of woe and anguish is going - we didn't get our money (well - it took a long time anyway).

We contacted Square support to get help, but only ever got form-letter responses that make it look like their support staff just copy and paste the same thing to everyone. The responses basically said we needed to verify a bank account, but we tried at least five or six times, but the software they use doesn't work (at least it didn't work for us). We even checked with our bank to see if there was any advice they could offer - they couldn't. Which made sense to us, seeing as though our bank accounts were verified by the accounting software we use, making it seem as though the software that Square use doesn't work (at least it didn't work for us). We went to the extraordinary measure of filing a complaint with Fair Trading who eventually told us there was nothing they could do to get our money. Please note: Square wouldn't pay us our money even after having Fair Trading contact them to say "one of your customers has asked you for the money your holding that rightfully belongs to your customer" (or something like that - we're paraphrasing).

Of course, it's illegal to hold someone's money - so - because we asked Square to give us the money - our money - and they didn't - Square were (technically) breaking the law. But they don't care, which is obvious, because they wouldn't give us our money.

So ... we had to file a case with the Civil and Administrative Tribunal who ordered Square to pay us the money (we needed to fill in a form, which we did), but Square still didn't pay the money. Not even an order made by a court of law was enough for us to get our money from Square.

After Square breached the order made by the Civil and Administrative Tribunal we looked up the requirements for enforcing the order and began proceedings to do so. We also contacted Square to say "You breached the order made by the Civil and Administrative Tribunal and we're going to begin proceedings to enforce the order. Also we're going to publish this story" (paraphrasing). We only want the public to know what might happen if you sign up with Square, we're not doing this to make money, or for any other reason, we don't want others to suffer like we have.

Three days after beginning proceedings to enforce the court order that was breached, the money was finally paid to us. We had first contacted Square to let hem know their bank verification process doesn't work (at least it didn't work for us) on the 18th of December 2024. We didn't get our money until the 12th of June 2025.

We are very grateful that we realised there were issues with Square as soon as we did. In the end of the day, it's only five hundred bucks - it's not the end of the world, and it's not a massive amount of money, but it's money we rightfully earned through our work, which was (unlawfully) held by an uncaring, immoral company who wanted five hundred bucks more than they wanted a happy customer.

No integrity, dishonest, impotent customer support, even worse "complaints management" with zero transparency. Of course, even the AU branch is run from the US where they think they can do whatever they want without any accountability. Shut down my… Read more

account without ANY notice or valid reason, quoting every generic term of reference they could find based on their "review of my account" for the first time in 10 years, including serious defamatory statements about my business which if unsubstantiated warrant legal action, refusing to provide the actual reason. Square does not deserve even one star so I give them ZERO. Stay away from Square, run from them as far as you can, or sooner or later they WILL damage your business.

On Wednesday 27th August 2025 I purchased this from Square for $59 so I could my Square 2nd Generation EFTPOS Tap-And-Go Card reader into it to make it easier to pay when I am at people's houses. Show details

Convenient mobile payment system, though expensive – I've been using Square for taking in-person (via the square token) and online payments for over 3 years. It is very convenient, you only need the token and the app on the phone or you can use the app without the token though the commission is higher. You can also send invoices via the app for payment. The first couple of Square tokens I got were… Read more

faulty and I had to return them to be replaced. It was annoying especially as it happened twice, but replacing them was easy and quick with the good customer service. My current token has been going for 2 yrs without fault. The battery life of the token is not great if you're not leaving it plugged in. It works for me, I take about 5 to 6 payments per day, and I just charge it every second day. But I notice shops taking frequent payments leave theirs plugged in. You do pay for the convenience!! The commission adds up, it's about 1.9% using the token, just over 2% without the token. Overall it's the best current solution for my business to take mobile payments simply and easily.

Mostly great – I absolutely love the website I was able to create with Square. I also love the range of actions available to me as a business operator, ie being able to send contracts, keeping client data, being able to form client groups, being able to offer discounts, having apps available so I can perform certain actions while on the road, eg make and change… Read more

appointments via the Square Appointments app and create invoices via the Square Invoices app. Brilliant!

One big problem: The interface to operate the back-end of my website is not very user-friendly. It can take me a really long time to work out how to perform the actions I need, especially if I do not perform those actions very often. It's good once I have figured it out... but the process? Ugh. And if you need help, you will only be given that help if you allow a representative to take over your computer remotely. THIS IS NOT APPROPRIATE, especially in this day and age when you never really know who you are talking to or what data could be stolen/leaked. It is also inappropriate because a) I need to know exactly what changes were made and b) how am I supposed to learn how to fix the problem next time if someone does it for me? So basically, I can't get help from Square. More time - and therefore money - lost, just because I can't get appropriate support. This is very disappointing.

I would strongly recommend looking elsewhere before choosing Square. I recently had to return both a faulty Square Terminal and a faulty Square Reader. I submitted two return requests but only received one return label. What should have been a simple issue turned into nearly two hours with customer support, who repeatedly insisted they couldn't… Read more

issue another return label because it was linked to a different email address. I explained several times that I only have three email addresses and that it had to be a typo or system error, but no effort was made to find another solution.

After the call, a manager contacted me and resolved the entire issue in just a few minutes by sending me a new return label. It also turned out the "different email address" was simply a typo all along.

The support representative wasn't rude, but the lack of problem-solving ability was incredibly frustrating. My issue wasn't complicated, yet I wasted hours because the support team seemed more focused on telling me what couldn't be done than finding a way to help.

If you value knowledgeable customer support and effective problem solving when things go wrong, I'd think twice before choosing Square.

We are a non for profit and bought a basic Square to use at our plant sale. It was very frustrating to use but more frustrating is the information loop we are now in as their system can't understand non for profit incorporated societies. It is holding on to our funds and after entering the requested information about the office bearers 4 times… Read more

asking the same info again. Also it is impossible to up load required pictures of ID's which in our case are 4 documents, only 2 upload . Support is non existent, I called yesterday but got nowhere. I will recommend to the committee not to use it anymore and find another way to accept payments in future

I hate the receipts that come via text or email!!!!!!!! When filling out my expenses for work the emails will print out over 2 pages and the texts don’t even print Tax Invoice. I never return to these businesses as a result of these painful receipts.

I signed up, tried to verify my account in Australia but wouldn't accept my drivers license as it was asking me for a number starting with P on my license. MY LICENSE DOES NOT HAVE A NUMBE starting with P you clowns. On top of that, the cancel subscription button is not visible anywhere on my manage subscription page. You people should be banned… Read more

from operating in Australia for wasting my f'ing time. I spent hours building a site just to be told at the end I can't accept payments. Back to Shopify I go. I rather pay more monthly than put up with this garbage.

Absolute rubbish service, unreliable terminals and garbage technology and people on the phone who have no clue as to what they are talking about. If you get an offer from them run in the opposite direction

Extremely user-unfriendly, inefficient and unreliable payment system. There is a lot of red taoism in the organisation so your problem is never resolved on phone by customer care.

Stole my funds, refused to release refunds to customers. Support staff are friendly but useless - refuse to escalate or take human action. Bankrupted my business. Avoid. Show details

Bought the handheld square reader. Inadequate instructions on set up and after wasting days attempting to get it set up and then days attempting to get some level of support I received a curt email stating that my account would be cancelled. All because initially our association did not have an BN. It had plenty of other government registration and validation. They made no attempt to help. I will get my money back and return this rubbish. Show details

Square has demonstrated a complete inability to support incorporated organisations. As an incorporated not-for-profit in regional Australia, we were asked by Square to obtain and provide highly sensitive personal documents (including death certificates, IDs, powers of attorney and court orders) relating to a former staff member who left over six… Read more

years ago and is now deceased. This is inappropriate and, for organisations bound by Australian privacy law, likely unlawful.

Square’s support model appears designed almost entirely for sole traders, with no understanding of staff turnover, governance, privacy obligations, or record-retention laws that apply to real organisations. When we raised these concerns, the only solution offered was “use a different email address”, rather than addressing the underlying issue.

Despite being a long-term customer and having recently spent thousands on Square hardware, we were effectively blocked from continuing to use their services unless we breached our legal obligations.

If you are an incorporated organisation, charity, or not-for-profit, proceed with extreme caution. Square is not set up to support you.

Lack of transparency on failed payments despite high fees I used Square for a small business and experienced a failed payment where neither I nor the customer were clearly notified at the time of sale. Goods were provided believing payment had gone through. I later discovered the payment had failed, and Square refused to reimburse the amount. For… Read more

small businesses, real-time visibility on declined payments is critical to avoid financial loss.

It’s also worth noting that Square charges around 1.9% per transaction, which is higher than many other payment processors, yet my experience with transparency and customer support did not reflect this fee level.

I’ve since moved to another provider that clearly shows approved vs declined transactions at the time of payment. I would encourage other small businesses to carefully assess this risk before using Square.

A very convenient and handy gadget that has been very useful. However, don't ever contact their customer service department!!!! This has been one of my worst interactions with any companies 'customer service' people. For starters, you can't phone. You have to message to get help. They could not help so I arranged a call back. I had to chat twice… Read more

to schedule a call back twice. Both said my wait time was 0 minutes and ended chat. Two hours later I am still waiting. In total frustration I went to chat again. Found someone who actually knew how to fix my issue in 3 easy steps. What is wrong with companies??????

Has been a great online store platform for the last two years until... recent change doesnt limit customers to putting quanity of items in cart which are not available in those quantities. Customers are getting to checkout and being frustrated - rightly so. This was a recent change. I hope they change it back to how its always been otherwise I am considering other providers. Show details

After weeks of compliance/information provision back and forth, they open the account, I do a few test transactions from personal cards and then BANG they deactivate my account saying I was being fraudulent. I'm offended, I've never committed fraud.… Read more

Now they steal my money for months (they do not tell you how/where they are going to pay the money to if/when they do) if I will see it at all, and I have to go find another payment processor.

I wish I'd never started with them, they provided no reasoning, no evidence, no details. I'm going to complain.. and I want all my personal data deleted, I dont want these people holding it and getting hacked.

I do not recommend starting with this company as they could just deactivate you for no reason, without evidence and there is nothing you can do about it. I'm really upset by their lack of explaination or transparancy. How do I know what I did wrong (if anything) so I don't do it again with another payment processor?

I was going to switch my main business over to them as I thought it was pretty good, but now I'm not going anywhere near them. Disgusting customer service.

Very poor experience cancelling a subscription I tried to cancel my Square subscription before renewal, but the website forced me to go through support. Even after they confirmed my account was deactivated, I was still charged two weeks later. It took multiple emails and calls to fix their mistake. A simple cancellation turned into a frustrating waste of hours.

Terrible Customer Service. I am facing with some technical issue that i cant transfer money my bank. I talk to customer service 5 times. Message via the app. But no solution yet for 1 week. I am not recommending the square. Show details