Hey guys. Here to give THE UPDATE everyone wants to read. Get popcorn.
Backstory
a year ago July 8th I was 2 weeks into a capital loan of nearly nothing. Very small. I had paid almost half by this time. I got a request to update information and submit some things. After submission they said my account was good to go but they put a rather large payment limit on one of my customers. I repeatedly asked them if it would affect any of my capital potential and they said no. Fast forward to August 4th. I finished paying off my square loan in full. No offer. All green. Metrics great. Called got the same automated crap everyone else gets. Repeatedly was told the limit didn’t make a difference. I was also told after 90 days if no issues with said client and that transaction, the limit would fall off. I figured it did. Mind you, it takes MULTIPLE calls to get ONE PERSON to be able to answer anything. No new offer last year.
We get into the new year. I inquire several times what is going on I’ve never had to wait for capital. Nothing. No new responses. I got to March 1 and the new metrics show up in the eligibility page. It popped up red that I had a limit on my account. I FREAKED THE F OUT. I was told the limit fell off. I was told it didn’t affect anything. LOTS OF LIES. Immediately I call square support. Get to someone in account services somehow after several attempts. We are talking days of attempts. That person told me not to worry my account was due for an “automatic” review on April 1st. So I wait. Nothing. I wait til mid April, nothing. Finally get ahold of someone again and they said it updated but sorry no change to the limit. At this point I’m LIVID. I immediately go through the steps to get someone on the phone again. She patches me through to a “manager” via email. After rounds of emails of her giving me the same bogus scripted answers she quit responding all together. She actually CLOSED the case. This is where it gets interesting. After that I got a little email asking me to rate my experience. So I wasn’t kind. In response they sent me a follow up to schedule a call with an account specialist.
By this time we were into the first of May. A specialist calls me and this is the first time ANYBODY AT SQUARE gave a lick about any of my concerns. He spent probably in total a couple of hours on the phone with me through this. He finally gets someone on the horn that says we need to do a manual review. He said rest assured it should be a simple review and I can initiate it and get it going. I did not want to go through this again bc if they did another automated thing I couldn’t request one for another 3 months and we were stuck. He said it should be simple I shouldn’t need to connect an account or provide sensitive info like statements. So I said ok go ahead. It took them all of about 8 minutes to send me the request that was another 12 questions wanting EVERYTHING THEY SAID THEY PROBABLY WOULDNT NEED. The limit they had in place was on ONE customer and they said they just wanted to review the account to make sure it was good to go. When they sent the more information request it DID NOT EVEN REQUEST ANY INFO on the customer it originally placed a limit on. It wanted info one someone else completely. I knew this meant it wanted to impose another limit on that customer. I just knew it.
So I get back in touch with him and he was stunned. Told me he was sorry he wasn’t expecting that. I said well, now you know what I’ve been dealing with. Square just literally lied to you and me both.
Moving forward he told me that my account processes enough to qualify it for an account manager. Someone assigned to my account that could be my main POC. At that point we were in touch with the POC. This is where the tables turned. After hearing my issues I think he was stunned. My account has NEVER had a chargeback etc. almost no returns. Positive feedback. Hundreds of customers. We are well into June at this point and I get an information request to do a “periodic review” and it was mandatory and if I didn’t provide info within 5 days they were suspending my transfers. So they had me in a choke hold. I contacted my manager. He was a little annoyed they sent me another review on top of the one they told me to do to review the limit.
LONG STORY SHORT- I gave them the info they wanted. He worked with me every step of the way. When they reviewed it they sent an email that said “your account is secure you are good to go” followed by an email that said I now had a NEW ACCOUNT LIMIT on my entire account. The limit was MUCH ABOVE what I normally process in a quarter. My manager was confused and shocked. I said what’s the point I never process that much any way. So he said to me, let him work. He calls me back and tells me that the limit will not affect my capital eligibility. I said oh yes it certainly does. He looks through my account. Screen shots a bunch of stuff, sends it up the ladder and lo and behold I think they realized, well yes that actually does make me ineligible.
I’m not sure how the rest went but the manager must have ruffed some feathers because the very next day (YESTERDAY, Wednesday of this week) I got an email the limit was TOTALLY REMOVED. I do know they got the account team and management from capital involved at some point. The manager was cheeky and didn’t divulge how that exactly happened with the removal. I think he’s the only reason I had a fighting chance. Within 2 hours of the removal I got a capital offer yesterday. It was around 4 pm cst. This is the first time in a year I’ve been offered capital after going in circles. July 8th is when the limit was first put in place. I was hesitant to accept but I did because I didn’t know what in the world to expect. I thought it was too good to be true. The offer was at 6.5% payback. Something else I’ve never seen before. Usually it’s 16.5%. I normally always got immediate approval. I didn’t get approval until today at around 2:30 pm. I didn’t have to submit more info.
so- for everyone:
Check your eligibility page if you don’t you might find the first step to an answer there. I think the offers are lower than the norm because they can only offer 18 month notes and they’ve lowered the percent payback on sales. I was ready to give up. It shouldn’t have been this hard. The manager was I think honestly shocked at the runaround I’ve been given.
so- I’m thankful that I got an offer. I’m thankful for my new account manager. I’ve hopefully given square a lot of feedback they can use. I don’t think they truly knew the limit was imposing an issue on the capital end of things.
So, yes square is still lending. They’ve definitely changed their algorithms in the past year.
shoutout to Jack and Bernard- thank you. This was a lengthy process but you helped me.
