What happens when I clear the balance of a Square Gift Card?

[Zeethomas]

The title of this thread has been edited from the original: where is the money from the e card

I had to clear the amount of a e card for a customer about two days ago. I do not see the money? How do I get this money deposit in to my bank account?

[Valentina · Accepted solution]

When you clear the balance of a Square Gift Card, you are simply clearing the spendable funds on that card. Your business already received these funds during the original transaction - when the card was purchased. 💸

Let's say a customer purchased a gift card yesterday, for example. If your customer put $20 on a gift card yesterday, your Square account received $20 yesterday, and that $20 was included in your transfer on the day the gift card was purchased (yesterday).

When your customer spends the funds on that gift card today, tomorrow, or next week, you are not receiving anything, as you already received the funds yesterday. The same applies for a cleared Square Gift Card - you already received the funds on the day the card was purchased. I hope this clears up any confusion here, @Zeethomas! 

[vhovar]

Just a point of interest: You need to research the specific handling of unused gift card balances for your specific State. Some States require that abandoned funds be turned over the state. This may include unused balances on gift cards. In the past a strong selling point to providing gift cards was the percentage of unused funds that would then become your businesses but that is no longer the case for all situations/States.
https://www.ncsl.org/research/financial-services-and-commerce/gift-cards-and-certificates-statutes-a...

[deboraham12]

Thank you for this insight I had no idea about this. 

[deboraham12]

[This reply was created from merging an existing thread: Does Square hold gift card monies until the cards are used?]

It appears that purchased gift cards are not funded to the business until they are used. What if they are lost or never used? Shouldn't the business get those funds upon purchase of the card?

[Valentina]

Hi there, @deboraham12! I went ahead and moved your post to this thread where the functionality of the funds on Square Gift Cards has been explained in a bit more depth.

When you sell a Square Gift Card, you receive the funds at the time the card is purchased. If you sell a gift card for $20, regardless of whether or not your customer has spent the funds on the card, you will receive the $20 with the rest of your daily transfer. To that point, if your customer loses or never uses their Square Gift Card, no need to worry - you have already received the funds related to the card. Hopefully this helps clear things up for you 😊

[Lindyguy]

Hi Valentina,

If the customer lost the card and would like to replace it, is there a way to move the balance from the lost card to a new card?  I can't seem to find anything on this. 

My customer contacted me that she lost her card and would like a replacement card.  Based on information she gave me about transaction dates, I was able to decipher which card it was (although I cannot pull up the full number of the card from my account).  How can I move that to a new card?  I know I already received the funds, so I can't do it using the instructions about loading a new card.

Here's what happened:
1. A coworker of the customer bought a gift card for her.  We took payment and mailed card to customer.

2. The customer used the card 4 separate times and currently has a $40 balance.
3. Customer lost her card and does not know the number assigned to her card.
4. Customer contacted me to replace the card.

Thank you!

Terry

[MayaP]

Hello @Lindyguy,

Welcome to The Seller Community. I am happy to help! 

You will not be able to transfer the balance to another gift card. But what you can do is resell another gift card to the customer with the remaining balance, apply a 100% discount to the transaction so they won't get charged anything, and then cash it out. I hope that workaround makes sense, if not please let me know. 

[Lindyguy]

Thank you for replying.  I will try that if I don't hear back from my email to Square.  I found info indicating they will send me the full card number.  I was able to pin down the exact card with the exception of 4 digits.  Research indicated that I could send an email to Square for the full number.  Once I have that, I can work with my customer in using that number until the balance is exhausted.  Just waiting on Square to reply to my email.  Thank you again!

[deboraham12]

Thank you. The way it stayed in the transaction list after the card was used made me think it was going to deposit after the use of the card and I couldn’t remember the purchase of the card. Thanks for clearing that up. 

[440burrito]

I have thousands of dollars in outstanding gift card amounts - how do I research how old they are and if very old, how can I get credited for them?

[Valentina]

Hi there @440burrito! 🌯

I've moved your post over to this thread, where I explained some Gift Card basics. If you need to clear the balance of Square Gift Cards, be sure to read up on how to do so by heading to this page. @ryanwanner also provided some tips in this thread. If this doesn't quite get you where you need to be, be sure to get in touch so a member of our team can walk you through next steps here while looking at your account with you! ✨