Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement

[urbanaxes]

Hiya folks,

Saw some discussion of this topic in some threads from a number of years back, but nothing recent.

I've received a claim form in relation to this settlement, however the vast majority of our historical payment processing has been through Square.

Square is a payment aggregator, and we as merchants don't deal directly with Visa / Mastercard, not pay their interchange fees.  I'm fairly certain that, while Square may be entitled to a large chunk of the settlement (from all of our collective transactions), we as individual merchants are not entitled to anything directly.

Anyone have any thoughts / have I missed something here?

Cheers,

Shaun

[TheRealChipA · Accepted solution]

Hi @urbanaxes.  Your logic here would be very much on the mark.  Since we are dealing with a card aggregator who charges us a higher flat fee to shield us from interchange fee fluctuations, we have no standing in this settlement.  Of course, usually this is to our advantage since interchange fees rarely go down!  Anyway, as far as our Square transactions are concerned, it would be up to Block, Inc. to decide exactly what to do with their settlement, if they are even due one, which they may not be depending on their contracts with the card issuers.  We are Square’s customers, using their merchant account instead of our own.

As far as your non-Square transactions, you might have a claim.  Whether it would be worth the effort or not is a topic that you’d be well-advised to consult with your CPA/Attorney on.  In my case, I’ve determined that the amount I might be owed under the terms of this settlement for non-Square transactions is so little as to not be worth my time or effort.

Regards,