An SQ charge on your bank statement is a card payment routed through Square, the point-of-sale platform used by millions of small businesses. Square sits between the merchant and your bank as the payment facilitator, so its “SQ *” prefix lands on the statement in front of (or sometimes instead of) the business name you’d actually recognize. Most of these charges trace back to somewhere ordinary: a coffee shop, a food truck, a farmers market stall, a mobile hairstylist, a craft fair vendor.
How to Read the Descriptor
Square’s billing descriptors follow a consistent format: SQ * followed by the merchant’s business name as they’ve configured it inside their Square account. A typical line reads something like SQ *JOES COFFEE or SQ *MYPHARMACY*#02943. Some also include a city or a short category tag. The asterisk after “SQ” is part of Square’s standard formatting.
Confusion usually comes from merchants who never customized their business name in Square. In that case the descriptor might show the owner’s personal name, a placeholder, or a truncated string. Independent contractors, mobile vendors, and brand-new businesses are the common culprits. If you see SQ *JANE SMITH and don’t know a Jane Smith, it may be the person who sold you earrings at a weekend market.
Look Up the Charge With Square’s Receipt Tool
Square runs a free receipt lookup at squareup.com/receipts for exactly this situation. It asks for two things: the transaction date and the dollar amount. Enter both and the system searches for a matching record.
Pull up your statement before you start and copy the exact date and the exact amount, cents included. A one-cent difference can block a match, especially if your bank booked a tip differently from the original authorization. When there’s a hit, the receipt will show the merchant’s business name and enough transaction detail to confirm it was yours.
The tool has limits. It only returns results when the merchant’s Square account is still active and the receipt data is available. Old transactions and charges from businesses that have since closed their Square accounts may not turn up anything.
Other Ways to Identify It
If the lookup comes back empty, a few manual checks usually crack it. Search your email for “Square” or “SQ” together with the dollar amount; many Square merchants send digital receipts automatically. Check with anyone else who uses the card, like a spouse or an authorized user.
Read the full descriptor carefully. A partial business name or a city abbreviation can jog your memory. SQ *PARKSIDE SAN F might be the sandwich shop you stopped at while traveling. Cross-reference the date against your calendar. Small purchases at farmers markets, pop-ups, and street fairs are easy to forget, and those settings lean heavily on Square.
If none of that lands and you still don’t recognize the charge, treat it as a possible unauthorized transaction.
Ask the Merchant for a Refund First
When you’ve identified the business but the charge is wrong (duplicate, incorrect amount, something you returned), contact the merchant before filing a formal dispute. A quick call or visit is often faster than the chargeback process, and many merchants will push a refund through Square immediately.
Square refunds usually take two to seven business days to appear. The credit posts with the same SQ * prefix and the merchant’s name, so you’ll recognize it. The merchant doesn’t notify you when the refund clears, so watch the statement yourself.
Disputing an Unauthorized SQ Charge
If you can’t identify the charge and believe it’s fraudulent, file a dispute with your bank or card issuer. The rules and your liability depend on whether the charge hit a credit card or a debit card, and the difference is bigger than most people realize.
Credit Card Disputes
For credit card charges, the Fair Credit Billing Act gives you 60 days from the date your issuer sends the statement to submit a written dispute. The notice has to identify the charge and explain why you believe it’s an error. The issuer must acknowledge receipt within 30 days and resolve the investigation within two full billing cycles, capped at 90 days total. While the investigation runs, you don’t have to pay the disputed amount, and the issuer can’t report it as delinquent.
Your maximum liability for unauthorized credit card charges is $50 under federal law, and most major issuers waive even that through their own zero-liability policies.
Debit Card Disputes
Debit card disputes fall under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and its implementing rule, Regulation E. You have 60 days from the statement date to report an unauthorized transfer. Your bank must investigate within 10 business days and report the results within three business days after finishing. It can extend the investigation to 45 calendar days, but only if it provisionally credits your account inside the initial 10 business days.
Speed matters far more with a debit card. Report within two business days of discovering the unauthorized charge and your maximum liability is $50. Wait longer than two business days but report within 60 days of the statement and your exposure jumps to $500. Miss the 60-day window and you could be responsible for the full amount of any unauthorized charges that occur after the deadline.
Your Liability Limits at a Glance
- Credit card: $50 maximum liability regardless of when you report, as long as you notify the issuer. Most issuers voluntarily offer $0 liability.
- Debit card, reported within 2 business days: $50 maximum liability.
- Debit card, reported after 2 business days but within 60 days: up to $500 liability.
- Debit card, reported after 60 days: potentially unlimited liability for charges that occur after the 60-day window.
With a credit card, your money isn’t gone while the dispute plays out; you simply don’t pay the disputed amount. With a debit card, the money has already left your account, and you’re waiting for a provisional or permanent credit to get it back.
Network Zero-Liability Policies
Visa and Mastercard both maintain zero-liability policies that cover most consumer credit and debit cards on their networks. Visa’s policy, for example, requires issuers to replace funds from an unauthorized transaction within five business days of notification. These protections can be limited or rescinded if the issuer finds evidence of gross negligence, fraud by the cardholder, or significant delay in reporting.
Network policies layer on top of federal protections rather than replacing them. Some cards fall outside the network policies, including certain commercial cards and anonymous prepaid cards. Check with your issuer to confirm what applies to your specific card.
If the Merchant Has Closed
A charge from a business that no longer exists still gets disputed the same way. File with your card issuer as you would for any unauthorized or unresolved charge. In practice, chargebacks against closed merchants often succeed because there’s nobody on the other end to contest them. The issuer tries to claw back funds through the payment network, and if the merchant’s account has been closed or holds no balance, the issuer typically absorbs the loss.
Act quickly. If a business shuts down or enters bankruptcy, delays reduce the chance that any funds remain reachable. Your federal deadlines don’t change based on the merchant’s status, so the 60-day window from the statement date still governs.